Nick "Nicodemus" Dalton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nick_garou) wrote2014-01-06 08:02 am
nick_garou) wrote2014-01-06 08:02 am
Correlation: My need for sleep creates a need for me to be doing other things? Or vice versa?
Sunday morning I woke up to a proximity alarm--someone at the door--just before someone started knocking on the door. HUGE adrenaline dump as I'd moved back to my cabin, was not expecting company, and immediate defaulted to "a garou has come to kill me." It took a second to realize that a garou that'd come to kill me would probably not knock on the door. (Don't laugh. Even warpers can be a little slow when they just wake up.) I need better wards. I'm relying on technology and that sends back so many false alarms and misses so damn much. But larger wards are beyond my capabilities. Damn it. So I ended up using the "magic" of looking at the security feed on my TV to determine it was Val. I griped a bit about her dropping by like an hour after sunrise without calling in advance, but let her in anyway. She makes decent coffee. And breakfast. News? Turns out that the mage's tablet exchanged hands, Maddie of the Bone Gnawers had it, and she was planning to transition it to Mouse(!!!). I fired off a vaguely worded--but urgent-marked--voice mail, text, and e-mail. The trifecta of Walker alarms. Warned Mouse to basically treat the tablet as if it were a tracking device capable of wirelessly streaming live audio-video feeds along with GPS coordinates. (It, technically, could be much worse than that, but.... That's easier to understand without creating a laundry list of "this is what this thing could theoretically be doing.) Val headed off to fill Mouse in personally about the background for all of this.
That afternoon I decided to do a grocery run. There was a nice sale--discontinued Italian items--so I bought two bags worth for the garou and swung by the farmhouse to drop off the surplus. I pulled into the driveway and spotted Jacinta and Emma talking in the back yard. SHIT! They split up right as I arrived, Jacinta heading back to the woods and Emma towards the house. Apparently Jacinta didn't say anything about me because Emma didn't mention anything except stuff related to her challenge and cooking stew. I think between the lack of sleep and the two big adrenaline dumps I'd had today, it got to me. I was just suddenly exhausted, excused myself, and crashed on a bunk upstairs. I'd never slept in the farmhouse before. I felt a little weird and out of place. How many werewolves had used that bed before me? Funny thoughts. I woke up about 5 hours later. Holy cow, I guess I have been pushing myself pretty hard recently.
That evening I brought another load of discounted Italian food into town for the Walkers. I ran into Mouse and Val on the roof--tail end of Val filling Mouse in on what happened. Val and I filled her in on the ray gun that was recovered (useless focus probably only of use to that mage), I filled them in on the quad-wheeler wreckage that was in impound (also a useless magical focus and not a veil breach), and I tossed out some theories as to what the tablet might be. Val left then, and Mouse and I continued discussing things. I explained that I was initially concerned that this could have been a member of the Technocracy investigating the area, but that the more I looked at the artifacts--and the fact that no one immediately came after them or to investigate--the more I was convinced the deceased was not a Technocrat. I explained, basically, what the Technocracy is to Mouse. She summarized it as "weaver mages who scare other mages." That is not inaccurate.
Val and Mouse had been talking about how Howard Smith looked like he was using the tablet as a means of detecting shifters, and Mouse asked my thoughts on the tablet. I told her there were a number of ways mages could detect garou. Some were easy, some were complicated. But it would take some hands-on time for me to figure out how the tablet worked and what its intended purpose was/is. For some reason, this prompted me to think about Naomi--the woman who showed up last year who ended up being a Walker who'd lost her wolf. Somehow. I recalled doing a passing scan on her and getting a sense of there being residual magic about her, but couldn't place my finger on what it was. It was a quick scan, too. Sloppy. And before Mouse learned what some of her backstory was. So.... I'm going to spend some time scanning her from afar. See what's up and if she can be "fixed." if it's something seriously potent like what hit Riley, that's the end of the story--unless I somehow become some Adept or Master of the Life sphere. (I don't see that happening in my lifetime. It's actually my weakest area and I've little interest in it. Although it would be pretty damn cool to shapeshift like David Cox could.) If I think I can jigger something loose? Well, Mouse is going to go talk to her. See if she even wants to be a garou again or if she simply wants out of it all. Mouse gets major points there. If she does go for it, we'll pass it off as "Mouse fixed her with her amazing theurge skills that are too awesome for you to understand." Mouse gets points with the garou, the Walkers get a "new" garou, I stay in the shadows while helping out the Walkers--a win-win for everyone.
That afternoon I decided to do a grocery run. There was a nice sale--discontinued Italian items--so I bought two bags worth for the garou and swung by the farmhouse to drop off the surplus. I pulled into the driveway and spotted Jacinta and Emma talking in the back yard. SHIT! They split up right as I arrived, Jacinta heading back to the woods and Emma towards the house. Apparently Jacinta didn't say anything about me because Emma didn't mention anything except stuff related to her challenge and cooking stew. I think between the lack of sleep and the two big adrenaline dumps I'd had today, it got to me. I was just suddenly exhausted, excused myself, and crashed on a bunk upstairs. I'd never slept in the farmhouse before. I felt a little weird and out of place. How many werewolves had used that bed before me? Funny thoughts. I woke up about 5 hours later. Holy cow, I guess I have been pushing myself pretty hard recently.
That evening I brought another load of discounted Italian food into town for the Walkers. I ran into Mouse and Val on the roof--tail end of Val filling Mouse in on what happened. Val and I filled her in on the ray gun that was recovered (useless focus probably only of use to that mage), I filled them in on the quad-wheeler wreckage that was in impound (also a useless magical focus and not a veil breach), and I tossed out some theories as to what the tablet might be. Val left then, and Mouse and I continued discussing things. I explained that I was initially concerned that this could have been a member of the Technocracy investigating the area, but that the more I looked at the artifacts--and the fact that no one immediately came after them or to investigate--the more I was convinced the deceased was not a Technocrat. I explained, basically, what the Technocracy is to Mouse. She summarized it as "weaver mages who scare other mages." That is not inaccurate.
Val and Mouse had been talking about how Howard Smith looked like he was using the tablet as a means of detecting shifters, and Mouse asked my thoughts on the tablet. I told her there were a number of ways mages could detect garou. Some were easy, some were complicated. But it would take some hands-on time for me to figure out how the tablet worked and what its intended purpose was/is. For some reason, this prompted me to think about Naomi--the woman who showed up last year who ended up being a Walker who'd lost her wolf. Somehow. I recalled doing a passing scan on her and getting a sense of there being residual magic about her, but couldn't place my finger on what it was. It was a quick scan, too. Sloppy. And before Mouse learned what some of her backstory was. So.... I'm going to spend some time scanning her from afar. See what's up and if she can be "fixed." if it's something seriously potent like what hit Riley, that's the end of the story--unless I somehow become some Adept or Master of the Life sphere. (I don't see that happening in my lifetime. It's actually my weakest area and I've little interest in it. Although it would be pretty damn cool to shapeshift like David Cox could.) If I think I can jigger something loose? Well, Mouse is going to go talk to her. See if she even wants to be a garou again or if she simply wants out of it all. Mouse gets major points there. If she does go for it, we'll pass it off as "Mouse fixed her with her amazing theurge skills that are too awesome for you to understand." Mouse gets points with the garou, the Walkers get a "new" garou, I stay in the shadows while helping out the Walkers--a win-win for everyone.