I've been home for a little over a week now, and I've been largely out of sight and out of mind. I've been spending a lot of time at my cabin. Cut down a few trees so I could have the road fork and circle back on itself. Hired a crew to come in and grade and gravel the turnaround. While they worked, I walked the property's perimeter, climbed the trees (about 25-30' off the ground), and carved the symbol for chaos superimposed over the symbol for mindfulness in the trunks--and embedded some magnets with the poles facing at right angles to the cabin. Preparations for a ritual--Mind, Forces, Correspondence, and Prime--that will (HOPEFULLY!) disorientate any hostile visitors, turning them around and leading them off my land. Even GPS should malfunction.
I did run into Ghost twice, once while harvesting tass from the city nodes. She's metis, and every now and then she gets very ill. Something in her blood? I don't know. But I asked her for a "sick" and a "well" blood sample. She claimed her blood becomes toxic, but.... I'll give Quin the samples (assuming Ghost indulges me) for analysis. She was worried I'd give it to a garou because garou could do ritual magic with blood.
I promised not to give it to a garou. (I can only imagine she'd not be thrilled with giving it to a warper.)
On the other occasion we crossed paths, she ended up offering to teach me how to handle myself in a fight--in the event I couldn't run away and call for backup like I told her was my usual technique for handling Ugly Stuff(tm). All I really need are a few seconds.... Which aren't always available. Maybe I should make a bracelet charm with a dedicated, area-affect Force Push. That might buy me the seconds I need to get the heck out of Dodge.
I did a grocery run for the farmhouse tonight. It was quiet. Very quiet. I stocked the pantry and left to go meditate a bit by the pool out back. Val dropped by and we chatted a bit. She's considering some kind of scouting trip out towards Hanford if she can get some muscle. I recommended fast-running muscle (in case they needed to flee). Someone like Slug or someone from Alicia's pack. Not Salem. And I "inadvertently" didn't mention Emma. Val mentioned she was considering two other options. One is a ritual that lets people see through the eyes of the birds, but it needs a lot of participants to work. I mentioned I could do a trick and maybe do the mental workload of 3-4 people by myself, but.... mixing magic and rituals might be bad. The second alternative was to get a group together for a Dreamwalk to try and make contact with this Magpie spirit. That sounds safer. Plus, sometimes I have a substantial amount of control over altering dreamscapes. It's, unfortunately, not always consistent. Sometimes I can do next to nothing. Other times I'm pretty much a god capable of reshaping, destroying, and creating as I please.
Val also mentioned the earthquakes and her suspicion about a volcano getting ready to go. Rainier? (Where the wasps went after they left the caern?) Or is one forming? Or are Val's visions just whacked? I'm going to go with them being visions as opposed to dreams or delusions. Val's been at this long enough to know the difference between a lucid dream and a vision.
I did run into Ghost twice, once while harvesting tass from the city nodes. She's metis, and every now and then she gets very ill. Something in her blood? I don't know. But I asked her for a "sick" and a "well" blood sample. She claimed her blood becomes toxic, but.... I'll give Quin the samples (assuming Ghost indulges me) for analysis. She was worried I'd give it to a garou because garou could do ritual magic with blood.
I promised not to give it to a garou. (I can only imagine she'd not be thrilled with giving it to a warper.)
On the other occasion we crossed paths, she ended up offering to teach me how to handle myself in a fight--in the event I couldn't run away and call for backup like I told her was my usual technique for handling Ugly Stuff(tm). All I really need are a few seconds.... Which aren't always available. Maybe I should make a bracelet charm with a dedicated, area-affect Force Push. That might buy me the seconds I need to get the heck out of Dodge.
I did a grocery run for the farmhouse tonight. It was quiet. Very quiet. I stocked the pantry and left to go meditate a bit by the pool out back. Val dropped by and we chatted a bit. She's considering some kind of scouting trip out towards Hanford if she can get some muscle. I recommended fast-running muscle (in case they needed to flee). Someone like Slug or someone from Alicia's pack. Not Salem. And I "inadvertently" didn't mention Emma. Val mentioned she was considering two other options. One is a ritual that lets people see through the eyes of the birds, but it needs a lot of participants to work. I mentioned I could do a trick and maybe do the mental workload of 3-4 people by myself, but.... mixing magic and rituals might be bad. The second alternative was to get a group together for a Dreamwalk to try and make contact with this Magpie spirit. That sounds safer. Plus, sometimes I have a substantial amount of control over altering dreamscapes. It's, unfortunately, not always consistent. Sometimes I can do next to nothing. Other times I'm pretty much a god capable of reshaping, destroying, and creating as I please.
Val also mentioned the earthquakes and her suspicion about a volcano getting ready to go. Rainier? (Where the wasps went after they left the caern?) Or is one forming? Or are Val's visions just whacked? I'm going to go with them being visions as opposed to dreams or delusions. Val's been at this long enough to know the difference between a lucid dream and a vision.