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Various calls and discussions are had, coordinating things in advance, until all parties converge on a remote motel on the outskirts of an I-90 truck stop. It's not the Holiday Inn, but there's two beds, a bathroom, an old tube TV, and all the pay-for-view porn you could want. Brings-the-Pack is waiting inside the room by the time the others arrive. He's apparently already rented the room. Presumably he didn't look like a cougar when he did so. "Apologies for the lodgings," he offers.
Heading through the door is Alicia, who is wearing a pair of snug skinny jeans and a jegging t-shirt which clings to her muscled frame. Her hair is pulled up into a simple pony tail and she has a dufflebag slung over one shoulder, which gets lobbed on top of one of the beds.
Turning around, she settles back upon it with a cream, then gives a few more hops to listen to the springs whine in protest beneath her. "Heh. It's cozy."
Ghost arrives at about the same time. She brought no extra gear with her, no bags, not even her backpack, apart from the triple layer of shirt, overshirt, and jacket that is her norm. Her shoulders are hunched; she looks anything but relaxed. "A bed's a bed," she murmurs. "Can we, uh, put the dead lock on?"
Brings-the-Pack lifts a paw, examines its lack of thumb, and places it back on the ground before looking to Alicia. "If you would? Deadbolt and chain. The window in the bathroom exits out the back and into the woods. I doubt anything will happen, but something might. Some of the Nothing's minions are odd and seem to ignore space and the guantlet."
Alicia gives another few hops on the creaky bed before she slips off and heads to the door. Throwing the deadbolt, she turns her attention back to the others. "This will work out fairly easy if you are completely relaxed and at peace when you go to sleep. As long as you give me permission, I should be able to enter without much issue and help guide the dreams until we find what we're looking for."
"Peace," Ghost says. "Right." She makes her way toward the bed that Alicia wasn't just occupying, and settles onto her back. Just looking at her, relaxation might be a bit hard to come by for a bit.
Brings-the-Pack settles back on his haunches, in a corner of the room, watching and being silent. Helpfully.
"Do you want me to sing you a lullaby?" Alicia asks with a grin as she opens up her duffle bag, then takes out a thermos, then a package of loose leaf tea. Humming to herself, she puts the tea into a small steeper, then slips into her thermos where the hot water awaits. "I've been told I have a nice voice."
"No," Ghost says flatly. She threads her fingers together on her stomach, and closes her eyes.
Alicia slips a pair of small ear buds into her phone, then pops them into her ears. Scrolling through her playlists, she selects an album of rainforest noises and presses play, then sprawls out on to the bed after tucking her pillow beneath her head. Closing her eyes, she holds the warm thermos between her hands.
It takes quite some time--Ghost does not relax easily--but eventually, the metis drifts off, her muscles visibly loosening, her breathing deeper. Some time past that, and occasional twitches can be seen in her fingers, and beneath her eyelids.
Having warmed her tea and sipped away at it slowly, Alicia glances over to the sleeping form of Ghost. Straightening up, she gives a glance to Nick, then pulls her legs into an Indian cross-legged position. Reaching into her bag, she pulls out a pair of incense sticks and lights them with a lighter. The scent of sweet jasmine gently fills the air. Closing her eyes and settling her hands upon her knees, she breathes in deep and begins to focus as she casts her spell upon the Metis.
The cougar in the corner remains, save for his breathing and eyes and the occasional twitch of the tail, relatively still and silent. Whatever he may or may not be doing in preparation is unknown.
Alicia, and Brings-the-Pack provided he rides along, sinks into darkness. There's neither scent nor sight, nothing to touch, it's neither cold nor warm, and the only sound seems to be a distant, persistent sound of dripping.
As her eyes open to darkness, Alicia gives a few glances around, then casts a small ball of light in the palm of her hand that lights up enough to at least warm her face. "Hey kitty, are you here with me?"
Brings-the-Pack takes his own path getting to where he needs to go, and, once within the dream, does not seem surprised by the darkness nor the dripping. "Yes." He attempts to manipulate the stuff of dream itself, turning darkness into light.
It's as if the darkness around them resists both efforts. Alicia's efforts do little more than provide a little warmth and line part of her face, while Brings-the-Pack's illuminates only the two of them, but none of their surroundings, if indeed there even are surroundings. Their voices seem far, far too loud, even for their proximity to each other. There's no sign of Ghost, but then, this is her dream.
"I can manipulate the dream if I wanted to, but I don't want to push too hard." Alicia says to Nick as she lets the ball go so that it hovers gently before her, then follows her as she moves forward through the darkness. "I believe that we should allow her subconsciousness to guide us along the way."
Brings-the-Pack offers a very succinct "Yes" in return, seemingly having chosen to use as few words as possible while within the dream.
They walk. It's impossible to tell if they're making any progress with the lack of surrounding features. The dripping never gets closer. The darkness seems to almost physically resist them; it's like slogging through deep water almost, though it lacks all the accompanying sensations such a thing would provide. Time seems fairly meaningless, unmeasured, but at some point, there's movement ahead of them. And to the left side.
Giving a pause at the feeling of movement before them, Alicia squints her eyes as she sends the ball of light a few feet ahead of her, trying to cast a glow to spy what could be lurking in the dream.
Brings-the-Pack seems to largely be following the Gaian. Perhaps she is more skilled with manipulating dreams than he? Instead, he listens. Specifically, he listens to the drips; seeking out a pattern or rhythm, should there be one.
The drips are steady, but there's no complete pattern, no real rhythm. Sometimes they are a second or so off. As Alicia's light moves ahead of her, she's practically engulfed in shadow, but the light itself catches...something. More movement. Fast. A hint of fur. Something large.
Growing still, Alicia breathes slowly as she listens carefully, then looks to gently probe the dream to reveal itself as she focuses harder.
Brings-the-Pack stops when Alicia stops, continuing to listen but nothing more.
The light plays unevenly. They see teeth first. More fur. It resists Alicia's efforts, but gradually there's a vague outline of something four-legged, vaguely lupine in shape, and eyeless. It ignores them, moving at a forward angle, further into the darkness ahead. They get the vague impression of a concrete floor, too smooth to be exposed to the elements.
Alicia moves forward through the darkness after the creature as she lets out a soft breath to herself. She follows her glowing orb of light as it leads the way to the best of it's ability.
Brings-the-Pack follows silently, keeping tabs on the dripping noises' patterns (or lack thereof) and stopping every so often to examine the concrete floor for imperfections or other marks that might indicate directions or past paths of movements.
They get the impression, more than the view, of pipes along the walls. A concrete pillar. Doorways, although these seem mere sketches in the darkness, barely defined. The floor itself is pitted in places, scars of some mishap or another, or signs of wear. The creature whose path they are roughly following continues forward--the tail is long, almost reptilian. It has hands, clawed hands, furred. Despite being eyeless, it doesn't seem to have any difficulty navigating. There's more movement to both sides--fur, teeth. Whatever else is there are impressions only, but they seem to be traveling in the same direction.
Alicia mind speaks, << Well, this is creepy. Any of this familiar to you? You went to that bunker, right? This it? >>
As she continues to follow, Alicia looks at all the details of the dream about her, trying to memorize certain aspects of it. She picks up her pace a bit to keep after the eyeless creature in the darkness.
Alicia mind speaks to the cougar as they walk together, << Well, this is creepy. Any of this familiar to you? You went to that bunker, right? This it? >>'.
Brings-the-Pack continues following, likewise studying what he can see. << It's not familiar to me. It does not look like the places I might have expected: the bunker, the underground parking garage for Hilliard Hospital, nor the main Hanford reactor site based upon historical images.>>
Abruptly, there's light ahead. It's cold, lacking in all comfort. There's a man standing with his back to them and the creatures, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. He's wearing blue; it looks like a standard security or police uniform, but any real detail is fuzzy, almost entirely obscured. Almost as soon as he comes into focus, the creature they're following darts forward with sudden, blinding speed.
There's the sense of the others to either side doing the same, but all of them are completely, utterly soundless. No sound of claws on concrete, no rustling, no growling or snarls. There's only the constant drip dripping, the man's heartbeat, his almost tangible, alien warmth against the enclosing darkness that he seems entirely oblivious to.
Sound explodes from all directions. Snarling, shrieking, nails against concrete, heavy movement, chittering that drowns out the drips. The front monster's teeth close around the man's throat as it leaps, and it's then that the man shifts, almost without thought, to an equally snarling, startled crinos.
Before the attack happens, Alicia gives a firmer shove against the dream as she asserts her will upon it, looking to force the dream to focus on the man who is about to be attacked. The goal is to get a clearer picture of who he is and what the uniform symbolizes.
Brings-the-Pack opts for a differing approach, instead attempting to pushing a sudden, inexplicable urge to flee upon the man. Raw fear. Something behind him. Perhaps he might even manage to pull it off before the monsters are upon him.
Both efforts are difficult, as if the dream itself, or perhaps more than the dream, pushes back against them. The man jerks around, looking behind him, and it's then that, with considerable effort, Alicia is able to make out features. Details. She knows this face. That burn scarred arm. She's seen him in another dream, from another dreamer, though he wasn't wearing the security uniform when he was participating in the unspeakable activities with his pack.
Sound explodes from all directions. Snarling, shrieking, nails against concrete, heavy movement, chittering that drowns out the drips. The front monster's teeth close around the man's throat as it leaps, and it's then that the man shifts, almost without thought, to an equally snarling, startled crinos.
"That guy in the uniform. He's a spiral dancer that is in the tower. One of the Amelia's packmates. He must be pretty high rank if he is running with her." Alicia says to the cougar as she watches the dream as if it was a movie being played out before her. "See the scars on his arm? Looks like balefire burns."
Brings-the-Pack watches what transpires in silent, frustrated horror, although one ear twists to catch Alicia's words.
What happens is fast...and unpleasant. The initial creature they were following sinks its teeth into the Dancer's throat almost before he's done shifting, and others follow--four of them, each slightly different, but following a similar pattern of 'sort of wolf, with clawed hands and reptilian tail'. The Dancer tears several gaping wounds into the creatures, wounds that ooze what appears to be black smoke, but they bring him down in the next moment, and the next moment everything--monsters, Dancer, surroundings, even Alicia and Brings-the-Pack's light--vanishes. Both Mage and Garou feel an unpleasant pull somewhere near their spines, an aching cold, and suddenly the world exists again, if barely. There's some sort of slick stone surface beneath them, around them, above them. A cave, possibly. The dripping is still audible.
Tilting her head to the side as Alicia watches, she lets out a soft 'huh' in her throat. "Interesting .. she was just dreaming about having sex with him. Maybe those were just memories of a good time." As they are yanked through the dark world, she glances down to the new surface, then summons her ball of light again and sends it forward.
"Ghost," the Cougar-mage shares quietly after re-orienting himself to the new, cave-ish environment, "Has rather peculiar dreams." He does not bother creating a new light source, the one seemingly sufficient or--possibly--he possesses other means of seeing where he's going. "We should seek the source of the dripping. It is a theme that holds consistent with the many visions the garou have had over the past few years." He re-examines the floor to perhaps assess what it is made and if that might give any hints to something or some place mirrored in the realm."
"I was talking about Amelia dreaming about the hot-night stand. Not Ghost." Alicia says with an amused smirk to the cougar as she moves after her ball of light. "But you are right. Ugh. I remember the dripping in my own dreams. Would drive me nuts."
Brings-the-Pack asides, "Garou on garou sex may be something frowned upon by many of the uncorrupted garou, but that would be incredibly mild to what I would have expected in a Spiral's dreams. I shall just count my blessings.
Alicia gives a sly grin to him. "Oh, believe me. It was hardly mild. It involved stuff that would give you nightmares. Lucky for me, I'm pretty well desensitized to sexy stuff, even the kind that involves gutting one another during the act of getting it on. Who did I show the other day? Oh. Silvertip. She demanded I show her what I saw. She threw up right afterwards."
The surface feels rough to the touch, and a little unusual. Where he might have expected to find something like granite, this material is far less even. Volcanic even. In spite of the roughness of it, the walls seem to make an overall smoothly sloped curve up to the equally curved ceiling, and it appears to continue this way for as far as they can see, though at this point that is very, very little. The floor slopes noticeably downward in one direction, and upward in another. The dripping is hard to locate considering their location, but it seems to be coming from the downward slope.
<OOC> Sheogorath says "A visual aid, just more sloped than this. It's essentially an extinct lava tube, which if either of them has any geological knowledge to that end, they'd recognize if they move at all. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e4/23/08/e423086c76aedee39a55918b8291f750.jpg"
"They succumbed to their inner rage, mingled with lust. Unpleasant," the cougar-mage summarizes with a single word as he finishes his investigation of the floor. "The floor here is highly irregular, unlike earlier. This is a different place the before. And... it is entirely possible the dripping noise has developed a direction." He nods his head in the direction it seems to be coming from. "Does it sound to you as if it were coming from this direction?"
"If you have a supernatural wizard sonar, I will trust it over my ears. Dreams can be weird. It can be coming from just about anywhere." Alicia says as she strains to listen, then moves along the direction he suggested, looking about the oddly shaped tunnel. "Though if she is dreaming about mister sexy getting mauled, would that mean she was there?"
Aside from the distant dripping and their own voices and footsteps, everything seems incredibly quiet. If there are things in the darkness with them this time, they can't hear or see them. It's not long, however, until they start to see dark puddles, some wriggling, some crawling up the sloped walls. None are particularly in their way, but they're impossible to miss.
"Dreams are a place that defy normality, so pinpointing the sound's origin is best accomplished by simply going there," the cougar-mage replies as he picks his way around a puddle. "There are ways to bend and break dream, remold them or cut through them, but then that dream is no longer the dreamer's. That is the path of the torturer." He then cautions, "Be careful in this dream, though. The Nothing's minions can pass through space and the gauntlet with ease. The ooze may be able to pass through dreams, too."
"That would be super uncomfortable if she started oozing from the ears when we get back. Either way, I can snap us back anytime we need to or want." Alicia says as she steps around the dark puddles with a wrinkle of her nose. "This just feels like a nasty horror movie. You remember The Blob? The old 80's flick? This reminds me of that."
As they go, the puddles increase, though never enough to actually impede them. Something else begins to appear along the walls and occasionally the ceiling as well, often intertwining with the spidery tendrils of the black ooze. It's lighter than the stone--softer. It could be mistaken for cobwebs if it were not for the distinctly fleshy color of the stuff.
"I remember The Blob. Though the late-1950s version and not the remakes that followed." Brings-the-Pack is careful to not step anywhere near the puddles, but seems to be aware of their increasing frequency and size. He pauses as he notices the cobweb-like tendrils they've stumbled upon. "I have not seen these before," the cat comments as he simply rises off the ground and floats, providing him a better look--while keeping his distance. He scrutinizes the webbing more closely now that he's less concerned about the puddles on the ground.
"I don't believe I have either." Alicia says as she examines them for a few moments, committing them to memory.
It could be some kind of fungus, it's certainly growing like it might be, but it seems a little...thin. A little lacking in the usual sponginess one might associate with fungi. It also seems to continue down the tunnel, and get thicker, especially along the ceiling. Here and there along the sheets of the substance, they can see little bulges seemingly contained within folds of the stuff. And up ahead, they can suddenly hear screaming. It sounds beastial; recognizably Garou even.
"Fungal growths, possibly converted int...." The cougar-mage trails off as the screams echo through the tunnel. "Ghost?" he speculates before accelerating swiftly in that direction, threatening to potentially leave the Gaian behind.
Blurring down into the hispo form, The Last Song Standing bolts after the cougar as she charges through the darkness. She chuffs out in English to him, it is a dream after all. "Slow down! Tread carefully!"
The tunnel opens out quite unexpectedly, almost as soon as they pass beneath, almost through, a curtain of the strange new substance. Both of them get the distinct impression of a massive cavern, and yet despite the sudden room, the darkness seems to close in almost completely, nearly to a suffocating degree. Directly in front of them, a hundred feet at most and down a somewhat gentle slope, a vicious struggle appears to be in its last throes. It's not Ghost, it's the male Dancer from before, significantly mangled but still desperately fighting as he's dragged further and further into the cavern, to what end or purpose neither of them can see. The monsters from before, or at least very similar ones, are tugging at limbs and hide with both teeth and claws, pulling him without any sign of hesitation. Brings-the-Pack may recognize a particularly stand out creature similar to the other wolf-like things, this one with a skull for a face but still no eyes, and no eye sockets. It's circling, prowling around the captured Dancer, occasionally darting in to bite at him. And overlooking all of this, just at the edge of sight, not participating, is a crinos shape with wriggling, worm-like growths instead of fur, and horrible if healed over scarring where her eyes once were, but are no longer.
Brings-the-Pack slows to a stop as he comes upon the cavern and the scene within. He's forepaws briefly smoke, as if about to catch fire, though he doesn't seem to be in pain or perhaps even cognizant of the tendrils of smoke. Looking over his shoulder, he remains silent, taking his next queues from what the Child of Gaia does.
As her gaze sweeps about from left to right, the Child of Gaia says, "Memorize. Everything." She states to the mage. "This is important what we are seeing right now. There are either memories, or we are being allowed to witness something. Images planted in her head. Either way, we need every detail memorized. Far as I knew, this guy was still alive, and unless Ghost has been hanging out with them and not telling us, I'm thinking we're about to witness something incredibly important."
The Dancer is badly wounded, bleeding from at least a dozen particularly awful injuries, not counting those being inflicted by the jaws of the monsters trying to draw him. He kicks, managing to connect with one of his tormentors long enough to dig claws into the volcanic rock of the cave floor. The kicked monster snarls and recoils from the blow, but it regains its footing quickly. The sounds coming from the creatures are strange. Snarls, growls, those are recognizable. The weird chittering, occasionally even chirping, are not.
And then the crinos figure moves. She steps over to the downed Dancer slowly and deliberately; a few of the monsters even move out of her way. There's something in her hand, which is recognizable as a klaive, very poorly maintained, just before she wedges it beneath the Dancer's claws and frees his grip. The Dancer screams again, but he's lost this time--the monsters drag him by the legs forward and...then he disappears. No, he /falls/, falls right into a pit that, now that they're aware of it, seems to encompass most of the impossibly huge cavern. It's like a hole in the world; even glimpsing toward the edge is dizzying, as if the mind were rejecting its presence entirely.
"But should we not try to save h...." Brings-the-Pack cuts himself off as--oops--too late. Probably. His left paw extends outwards, rotates 90 degrees sideways, and claws suddenly unsheath with effort. Although the energies are not visible to the naked eye, he makes an attempt to levitate the Dancer out of the yawning abyss, likely fully aware of how unlikely he is to succeed.
"No, we are not going to save him. These are dreams. This is not real." The Gaian growls in frustration as she moves closer to take a look at the monster with the klaive, trying to pick out more of her details, as well as a few sniffs of the air. "But I saw him in Amelia's dreams very recently. So either she was dreaming of good times, or perhaps, whatever this pit they threw him into, he will come back out of it. Maybe they are planting seeds inside the spirals, turning them into sleeper agents. Corrupting them. I also want to know who /she/ is."
Brings-the-Pack feels it resist immediately, though what 'it' is cannot entirely be determined. The dream? The pit? Ghost's subconscious? He can feel the falling Dancer too, far down already, crumbling through his attempt like wet sand through fingers. For a moment he has him. For a moment he's stopped it. And then something, something happens, and the Dancer isn't just falling, he's /gone/. Brings-the-Pack feels even the sensation of the Dancer, the impression of him, the memory of him, of his voice, his screams, fade noticeably.
The entire cavern, the air, the floor, the walls, seems to shiver. There's a sound--is it sound?--a single tone, the lightest brush of words and whispers, a brief blurriness to all senses, and all the visible ooze puddles and tendrils writhe wildly, including those that seem a part of the strange crinos figure, who stands now, statuesque, near the edge of the pit.
She's not recognizable to Alicia, except, very vaguely, as female. The scars on her face look as though they were inflicted by claws, but inflicted long ago, years at least. The klaive she holds, the one she used like a mere tool, was of good craftsmanship, once. But now the blade is dulled, the bindings frayed, and only the worn, carved glyphs are slightly recognizable as Gaian, rather than Wyrmish.
"Shit," the cougar-mage curses uncharacteristically as the Dancer evaporates into Nothingness. Claws retract and the paw is placed back flat on the air he stands upon. "Not all here need necessarily be dream. The Nothing seems capable ignoring the barriers separating space, time, and spirit. It may also be fully capable of ignoring the division between dreaming and wakefulness. Be very cautious here," he advises as he checks first his immediate surroundings and then focuses on the obvious threats milling about the area.
Taking a peek down into the pit for a moment, the Hispo Gaian gives a soft chuff, then goes back to staring at the spiral who holds the klaive. She studies every detail of her to the best of her ability, then watches the tendrils move about. "You think the cavern is coming alive after the sacrifice?"
Looking into the pit is more than the dizzying sensation of looking at the edge of it. Space seems to warp, contract, pull at all sense of scale and reality, and leave one off balance even from a short look. The crinos figure doesn't seem aware of Alicia, or at least isn't responding to her. Features are difficult to make out. She's covered in those wriggling black tendril growths. Apart from the scarred over place where her eyes were, and the klaive she holds, there's nothing identifying about her.
The shiver in the cavern holds. The ooze tendrils thrash all the more wildly. And then, from one of the puddles, shallow at best, wriggling ooze shapes into large jaws with a snake-like tongue, then a clawed hand which pushes upward, as if something were crawling out of it.
The cougar-mage shakes his head negatively. "No," he replies to Alicia. "This is the how the Nothing creates its minions." And as if to confirm that, he then notices the thing emerging from one of the puddles. He looks away, towards the skull-faced figure. "Ghost and that one know one another. Though Ghost may not be consciously aware of it." That's followed by, "Odd that we have not seen Ghost. It happens, sometimes, that the dreamer is not in their own dreams, but it tends to be unusual." It seems as if he might have some prior experience in this sort of thing.
"I think what is confusing me is that she is dreaming of this. So, is her dreams a portal for the past and we can see what actually happened, or is this just something she's making up due to her dreams?" Alicia gives a nudge against the dream with her gift, as if she was searching for Ghost somewhere in the subconsciousness.
There's no real sign of Ghost, recognizable in any case, in anything that they can see. For a moment Alicia feels a bit compelled by the eyeless wolf monster slowly emerging from the puddle of ooze, then the cluster of monsters still near the pit edge, including the skull faced creature. The dream itself shivers a little, and for a moment both of them catch a glimpse of what looks like a figure on a chair, sitting several dozen feet away along the edge of the pit, as if overwatching the proceedings, but it fades right away.
Brings-the-Pack notices the briefly visible figure on a chair and then focuses on that area, as if attempting to better see what was--or perhaps still is--there.
As her eyes sweep about the scene to catch sight of the figure in the chair, Alicia pushes forth with her control over the dream, trying to slow it down to a complete stop. Her ears perk upwards and she blurs into her breed form. "You see that?"
They can both see it, a blurry sort of figure, almost more impression than anything, barely apart from the shadowed oppression of the massive cavern. It doesn't seem to move, but it does look remarkably like a human-ish figure perched on the edge of a chair, its back to the unsettling pit. They can both feel the dream resist as well, pulling back against their efforts, attempting to pull the figure beyond view and notice.
Brings-the-Pack glances away from the figure to Alicia, and then back to the figure. "Keep doing what you are doing. I will help," he adds, as he goes to reinforce the Child of Gaia's attempts at seeing the figure that seemingly does not wish to be seen. Although his technique works in a different manner than the Garou's ritual, it's geared towards achieving a similar result.
As she works her own magic against the dream, Alicia tries to 'zoom' in on the figure and sharpen the features as she toys and manipulates the dream to drown out the rest of the room and make the figure the full focus. Gritting her teeth, she lets out a breath. "We're probably gonna wake her up with this, but it may be worth it."
Alicia isn't wrong, it seems. They can feel more than the dream resisting now, Brings-the-Pack especially, and it starts falling away behind them, shredding into nothing as consciousness starts to return. Just before they're both ejected entirely, however, they're rewarded with a glimpse of a wizened old man, clothes long frayed and faded, sitting with his eyes closed and his hands clasped under his chin, as if they'd caught him mid-nap, or perhaps just mid-blink. And then they feel something snap, and there they are in the motel room, safe, sound, and with Ghost starting to stir on the bed. The scent of Alicia's candles is like a welcome sting.
Brings-the-Pack blinks hard a few times, seemingly refocusing and reorienting himself to being in a corner of the cheap motel room. "That was interesting," he says slowly, taking stock of the nearby vicinity.
Alicia jerks her head upwards and then swings her legs off the bed. She blows out her incense and stubs the ends into the small holders.
"Yeah, it was a real trip. Did you see the old man? I got a really good look at him there. Any idea of who that could be?"
Ghost is waking, though she's clearly not quite awake yet.
"I have a theory," the cougar-mage says as he pushes to all fours and walks closer, looking from one garou to the other, and perhaps further prompting Ghost to awaken further in the process, allowing her to hear what is being said. "There is a nearly god-like warper involved in this. I believe he wishes to see an end to The Nothing. He drew Ghost's mother--potentially pregnant at the time--into Hanford, managed to infect her, and then she ran off to Europe. Shortly after Ghost's birth, a pack of Gaian garou slew the Spirals and rescued and raised Ghost. A series of events happened, which ultimately led Ghost back here, less than 100 miles away from where we suspect The Nothing originated from--or was released into this world--or had fallen asleep to be awakened later." He pauses here to let this series of coincidences sink in. "I suspect this warper, over the years, has manipulated Ghost into making certain choices that brought her back here. Steered her to return through her subconsciousness--deeper down than dreams, but intersecting at times. The elderly man in the chair we saw in Ghost's dreamspace? I suspect that might be the warper. Or what used to be the warper." He looks to Ghost. "I could spend some time examining you to see if this theory holds true. And we could then assess options."
"Huh. But not the same one in the tower, right? Alicia asks as she puts her incense away into her bag, then takes a sip from some water that she had stashed away in it. "I should get home though and talk to Dakota, show her the dreams while they are fresh in my mind."
Ghost sits up and brings a hand to her forehead. While she's clearly listening, she doesn't answer Nick right away. "...Another night?" she says at last. "I've...I've got a really bad headache."
"Apologies," the cougar responds to Ghost. "We were a little pushy at the end." He looks to Alicia, "Can you take Ghost back to the Walkers' abode? I will wrap up a few more things here and have my own transportation nearby."
