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Fri, June 27--Consulting with Silvertip about the black fluids of Beast of War
Nothing happened overnight while I slept in the Winnebago in WWNP campgrounds. I went home to my cabin, saw nothing else had happened while I was gone, and sent Kargamis out to locate Silvertip to ask her to come visit as soon as possible. She came after sunset, like so many monsters tend to do.
I showed her the BURNING word in charcoal on the cabin wall. She seemed to agree with me, that the black fluid caused it, though it hadn't reacted like that with her. She used her gift for scanning for magic--a passive, mild Spirit/Prime effect that likely pinged all the magic I had in the room and myself in the process. (I've seen her use it before, and I suspect strongly that is the Sense Magic gift the Uktena have that Val cautioned me about earlier.) She suggested the fluid might be acting up in the presence of my magic (and curiously not in the presence of hers), and that the fluid is likely an aspect of a very powerful spirit called Beast of War, a "spirit of universal entropy concerned with destruction." I asked if it was trying to recruit me, and Silvertip claimed that no, I was too nice/gentle for it to bother with. (I can't decide if I'm insulted or not.)
Silvertip recommended having the liquid Cleansed, and she recommended Salem for doing that. Or that I perform nullifying magick. (Unweaving Prime and Spirit is a skill that is beyond my current talent in those areas. I suppose I could "tamp down" the availability of nearby Prime via some backwards Correspondence warding, but that might also inadvertently feed it. Cleansing it is, then.) I mentioned the possibility that Nepandi might be connected with the fluid. Silvertip said it was doubtful, and then made an excuse to leave, looking a little shaken. She's had a bad run-in with Nephandi in the past. Bad. I'm glad she knows enough to realize that all mages are not Nephandi. Otherwise I doubt, after she'd learned of me, that I'd still be alive.
I moved the Winnebago halfway down the driveway, away from the house, placed the jar of black liquid inside another sealed glass jar, and then stored it in the Winnebago's luggage bay--locked up and away from where it could do harm. I texted Salem about a cleansing, then read the Chorister's grimoire until I fell asleep sitting up with it in my lap.
I didn't sleep well that night. Visions of the horrors committed by and inflicted upon Eddie, the Black Spiral Dancer kinfolk whose mind I forcibly invaded many many months ago, kept cropping up. And I kept shutting them down. I am the master of my own dreams. But constant intervention in my own dreams meant poor sleep quality. I awoke only slightly better off than I'd been when I went to sleep. On the plus side, there was no vandalism done to the cabin's interior or the Winnebago.
Sat, June 28--A trip to the Farmhouse, walkie talkies, and a chat with Alicia about a number of things
I'd brought over a load of walkie talkies with 35-mile ranges and coded privacy channels to the Farmhouse for the garou to use in the event cell phones and internet went out with the upcoming riots. Oddly enough, the country morning, away from the city, was peaceful. I was half tempted to just walk out to a secluded spot to meditate and center myself--a calm spot in the tempest I can feel brewing. I wish.
I made a second trip to get some food for the garou at the Farmhouse. When I returned, I ran into Alicia doing dishes in the kitchen. I'd missed the picnic they'd thrown yesterday, which sucked because I'd have liked to have gone but I wasn't entirely sure, with the BURNING, if my head was screwed on straight. She mentioned they're going to do the raid on DNA this Thursday--it's on. I told her I'd slice into their system one last time to verify that Silvertip had the most recent passcard and that I had a username and password for one of the computers in the bottom level--so I could hand Silvertip a flash drive preloaded with an autoplay code that would log in and install a couple brand new viruses with data destruction capabilities. If it works, that's going to make it look like the sabotage was an inside job, which will have the company start turning on its employees, which should make for an unpleasant workplace--so they might lose some people over this, hurting themselves in the process. That's what I've seen with the bank network security I've done. And why so many people have to change their password every 3-4 months, minimum of 8 characters, no reusing older passwords, no words recognized by a dictionary, must include at least one capital letter and one number or symbol. We all know the drill.
We briefly talked about the black fluid she discovered at the haunted house (even though Silvertip swears it is not haunted) and the Great Hunt. (I obviously didn't tell her that I had some in my cabin and it'd taken to writing on my walls when I was asleep.) She mentioned that if the fluid touches you, you feel cold and grow numb. Cleansing seemed to solve the issue, though. In the haunted house, there'd been fomori present and a symbol that, when she looked at it, it mesmerized her and she saw herself in darkness, drowning in blood. Reed pulled her out of it, but she latter dreamed of magpies singing lullabies to her. (Didn't we just have a lot of magpies migrating through the area at an odd time? I should ask Val about that.) Alicia said she was pretty sure that she'd have been corrupted if she'd kept looking at that symbol and Reed hadn't been there to intervene. We talked theories a little bit. Alicia seemed to think that the sludge spread out from the house or some other local source. I theorized we might just be seeing one small portion of what is essentially the spiritual equivalence of a spreading virus, and that the Spirals killed on the Great Hunt had no connection to the "haunted" house per se--the connection was the fluid, but the fluid affected the house and Spirals through differing vectors. I don't think Alicia's pieced together yet what the collars were for, and I couldn't exactly tell her what my own research had revealed.
Alicia mentioned that Norman, the Get theurge with the raven spirit familiar, believed the black fluid sucked in spirits. I asked if it was just Wyld spirits that got sucked in or if it was Wyld, Weaver, and Wyrm. And if so, what side does that make the fluid on--if any? (Yes, I was intentionally trying to challenge garou dogma.) Alicia didn't know the answer, but seemed open to the idea of chucking a small Wyrm spirit at it to see what happened.
The Get have a new ahroun, Brynjolf. Another ahroun. I speculated that the Get timed the moment of conception to coincide with improved chances of their cubs being born ahrouns--there seems to be a lot of Get ahrouns! Alicia seemed amused by my speculation and suggested there might be some truth to my theory.
Sat, June 28--Rhys needs a radio
Rhys texted me claiming he needed a walkie talkie with much more range than the 35-mile walkie talkies I'd provided, so I got to poking around. It sounds like he needs a ham radio. A little Dreaming pointed me to a good, easy to use setup--followed by knowledge of where to shop for good deals on that equipment. I put a package together for him and he seemed good with it, so I put a rush on the delivery. He offered to pay me back. Nice of him! And he wants to meet in person to discuss another favor that can't be discussed over a cell or e-mail. Wonder what's up there?
Sat, June 28--Meeting Ghost. Uncovering secrets.
I went to town to harvest some tass today. I saw a few demonstrators headed to the northwestern side of the city, but the eastern side along the Columbia River was otherwise relatively quiet. My stop at Harbor Park was extended, as I took the opportunity to meditate and center myself. That's when a woman showed up. Early-mid twenties, plainly dressed, came over to the fountain as if purposefully. I made light smalltalk, which then... she kept saying little things that made me suspicious. Eventually the loaded language I used in response made a lightbulb come on for her. Long story short? She's a Ronin. Formerly a Glass Walker. (Except it sounds more like she never was formally made a Glass Walker--I don't fully get it but she tended to get huffy when I asked so I just dropped it.) I mentioned I was Walker kin. She's run into Val--who's publicly going by Vee nowadays--and is feeling betrayed by our friendly yet incredibly nosy neighborhood Corax. I tried to convince Ghost to rejoin the Garou, but she seems to think they'd just turn her into a low-level grunt for the upcoming fight. Ghost is equally concerned--perhaps even moreso concerned, about getting found out by the Spirals. She's independent and free as a Ronin, and--as an Orphan--I can understand the appeal of that, though it does come at a cost. It sounds like Val told Silvertip and Silvertip paid Ghost a visit. They're supposed to meet up again to have an additional talk. The fact that Silvertip didn't put her down on the spot or kick her out of town right then and there says something, I think. But Ghost doesn't want to be known by the local garou for fear they'll shit on her. I grok that. I told her I'd pretend we never talked if she pretended we never talked. Then we each went our separate ways--Ghost with an extra $160 I gave her because she looked like she could use it and that was all I had on me at the time.
I hope she makes it through the coming hardship. Hell, I hope we all do.
I did learn a few things about the city, which I've sorely neglected ever since The Suits came to town. Vee seems to think there's about 25 Spirals in the city. (Damn, that's a lot!) One of them is named Hungry Ghost.
Nothing happened overnight while I slept in the Winnebago in WWNP campgrounds. I went home to my cabin, saw nothing else had happened while I was gone, and sent Kargamis out to locate Silvertip to ask her to come visit as soon as possible. She came after sunset, like so many monsters tend to do.
I showed her the BURNING word in charcoal on the cabin wall. She seemed to agree with me, that the black fluid caused it, though it hadn't reacted like that with her. She used her gift for scanning for magic--a passive, mild Spirit/Prime effect that likely pinged all the magic I had in the room and myself in the process. (I've seen her use it before, and I suspect strongly that is the Sense Magic gift the Uktena have that Val cautioned me about earlier.) She suggested the fluid might be acting up in the presence of my magic (and curiously not in the presence of hers), and that the fluid is likely an aspect of a very powerful spirit called Beast of War, a "spirit of universal entropy concerned with destruction." I asked if it was trying to recruit me, and Silvertip claimed that no, I was too nice/gentle for it to bother with. (I can't decide if I'm insulted or not.)
Silvertip recommended having the liquid Cleansed, and she recommended Salem for doing that. Or that I perform nullifying magick. (Unweaving Prime and Spirit is a skill that is beyond my current talent in those areas. I suppose I could "tamp down" the availability of nearby Prime via some backwards Correspondence warding, but that might also inadvertently feed it. Cleansing it is, then.) I mentioned the possibility that Nepandi might be connected with the fluid. Silvertip said it was doubtful, and then made an excuse to leave, looking a little shaken. She's had a bad run-in with Nephandi in the past. Bad. I'm glad she knows enough to realize that all mages are not Nephandi. Otherwise I doubt, after she'd learned of me, that I'd still be alive.
I moved the Winnebago halfway down the driveway, away from the house, placed the jar of black liquid inside another sealed glass jar, and then stored it in the Winnebago's luggage bay--locked up and away from where it could do harm. I texted Salem about a cleansing, then read the Chorister's grimoire until I fell asleep sitting up with it in my lap.
I didn't sleep well that night. Visions of the horrors committed by and inflicted upon Eddie, the Black Spiral Dancer kinfolk whose mind I forcibly invaded many many months ago, kept cropping up. And I kept shutting them down. I am the master of my own dreams. But constant intervention in my own dreams meant poor sleep quality. I awoke only slightly better off than I'd been when I went to sleep. On the plus side, there was no vandalism done to the cabin's interior or the Winnebago.
Sat, June 28--A trip to the Farmhouse, walkie talkies, and a chat with Alicia about a number of things
I'd brought over a load of walkie talkies with 35-mile ranges and coded privacy channels to the Farmhouse for the garou to use in the event cell phones and internet went out with the upcoming riots. Oddly enough, the country morning, away from the city, was peaceful. I was half tempted to just walk out to a secluded spot to meditate and center myself--a calm spot in the tempest I can feel brewing. I wish.
I made a second trip to get some food for the garou at the Farmhouse. When I returned, I ran into Alicia doing dishes in the kitchen. I'd missed the picnic they'd thrown yesterday, which sucked because I'd have liked to have gone but I wasn't entirely sure, with the BURNING, if my head was screwed on straight. She mentioned they're going to do the raid on DNA this Thursday--it's on. I told her I'd slice into their system one last time to verify that Silvertip had the most recent passcard and that I had a username and password for one of the computers in the bottom level--so I could hand Silvertip a flash drive preloaded with an autoplay code that would log in and install a couple brand new viruses with data destruction capabilities. If it works, that's going to make it look like the sabotage was an inside job, which will have the company start turning on its employees, which should make for an unpleasant workplace--so they might lose some people over this, hurting themselves in the process. That's what I've seen with the bank network security I've done. And why so many people have to change their password every 3-4 months, minimum of 8 characters, no reusing older passwords, no words recognized by a dictionary, must include at least one capital letter and one number or symbol. We all know the drill.
We briefly talked about the black fluid she discovered at the haunted house (even though Silvertip swears it is not haunted) and the Great Hunt. (I obviously didn't tell her that I had some in my cabin and it'd taken to writing on my walls when I was asleep.) She mentioned that if the fluid touches you, you feel cold and grow numb. Cleansing seemed to solve the issue, though. In the haunted house, there'd been fomori present and a symbol that, when she looked at it, it mesmerized her and she saw herself in darkness, drowning in blood. Reed pulled her out of it, but she latter dreamed of magpies singing lullabies to her. (Didn't we just have a lot of magpies migrating through the area at an odd time? I should ask Val about that.) Alicia said she was pretty sure that she'd have been corrupted if she'd kept looking at that symbol and Reed hadn't been there to intervene. We talked theories a little bit. Alicia seemed to think that the sludge spread out from the house or some other local source. I theorized we might just be seeing one small portion of what is essentially the spiritual equivalence of a spreading virus, and that the Spirals killed on the Great Hunt had no connection to the "haunted" house per se--the connection was the fluid, but the fluid affected the house and Spirals through differing vectors. I don't think Alicia's pieced together yet what the collars were for, and I couldn't exactly tell her what my own research had revealed.
Alicia mentioned that Norman, the Get theurge with the raven spirit familiar, believed the black fluid sucked in spirits. I asked if it was just Wyld spirits that got sucked in or if it was Wyld, Weaver, and Wyrm. And if so, what side does that make the fluid on--if any? (Yes, I was intentionally trying to challenge garou dogma.) Alicia didn't know the answer, but seemed open to the idea of chucking a small Wyrm spirit at it to see what happened.
The Get have a new ahroun, Brynjolf. Another ahroun. I speculated that the Get timed the moment of conception to coincide with improved chances of their cubs being born ahrouns--there seems to be a lot of Get ahrouns! Alicia seemed amused by my speculation and suggested there might be some truth to my theory.
Sat, June 28--Rhys needs a radio
Rhys texted me claiming he needed a walkie talkie with much more range than the 35-mile walkie talkies I'd provided, so I got to poking around. It sounds like he needs a ham radio. A little Dreaming pointed me to a good, easy to use setup--followed by knowledge of where to shop for good deals on that equipment. I put a package together for him and he seemed good with it, so I put a rush on the delivery. He offered to pay me back. Nice of him! And he wants to meet in person to discuss another favor that can't be discussed over a cell or e-mail. Wonder what's up there?
Sat, June 28--Meeting Ghost. Uncovering secrets.
I went to town to harvest some tass today. I saw a few demonstrators headed to the northwestern side of the city, but the eastern side along the Columbia River was otherwise relatively quiet. My stop at Harbor Park was extended, as I took the opportunity to meditate and center myself. That's when a woman showed up. Early-mid twenties, plainly dressed, came over to the fountain as if purposefully. I made light smalltalk, which then... she kept saying little things that made me suspicious. Eventually the loaded language I used in response made a lightbulb come on for her. Long story short? She's a Ronin. Formerly a Glass Walker. (Except it sounds more like she never was formally made a Glass Walker--I don't fully get it but she tended to get huffy when I asked so I just dropped it.) I mentioned I was Walker kin. She's run into Val--who's publicly going by Vee nowadays--and is feeling betrayed by our friendly yet incredibly nosy neighborhood Corax. I tried to convince Ghost to rejoin the Garou, but she seems to think they'd just turn her into a low-level grunt for the upcoming fight. Ghost is equally concerned--perhaps even moreso concerned, about getting found out by the Spirals. She's independent and free as a Ronin, and--as an Orphan--I can understand the appeal of that, though it does come at a cost. It sounds like Val told Silvertip and Silvertip paid Ghost a visit. They're supposed to meet up again to have an additional talk. The fact that Silvertip didn't put her down on the spot or kick her out of town right then and there says something, I think. But Ghost doesn't want to be known by the local garou for fear they'll shit on her. I grok that. I told her I'd pretend we never talked if she pretended we never talked. Then we each went our separate ways--Ghost with an extra $160 I gave her because she looked like she could use it and that was all I had on me at the time.
I hope she makes it through the coming hardship. Hell, I hope we all do.
I did learn a few things about the city, which I've sorely neglected ever since The Suits came to town. Vee seems to think there's about 25 Spirals in the city. (Damn, that's a lot!) One of them is named Hungry Ghost.
