nick_garou | Learning more about the fight's aftermath, hiking and harvesting, and a sleepover in the caern.

Busy day yesterday. Did a trip to the store for various supplies. Returned stuff to my place (got a couple steaks for Emma--meat is something vegetarians don't normally keep around the house), then hiked a tote full of supplies out to the cave on the Walker's forested property. I think that spot is in excellent condition to host either a large group of people for a week or three or three or me for several months. Although I'll be sick of canned fruits/vegetables/beans, granola/cereal/rice, and dried fruit before too long, I'm sure. Last stop? Farmhouse. I dropped supplies off there and bumped into Slug.

Slug didn't have anything to really add to what I'd already knew had taken place at the fight the night before. He did mention that they'd reclaimed one newborn garou marked with a Spiral kinfetch and taken one BSD kin hostage. He's expecting a retaliatory strike as a result. He's probably correct. Slug had an interesting idea: dislodge the Spiral kinfetch from the kid so it sought out one or more of the local Spirals in the city, leading them straight into a trap. It seems like a sound plan, but Slug says Excelsior (Alicia's pack) has the kid and didn't seem keen on following through with that because, as Slug explained it, Excelsior's packmembers can't think creatively because their totem, Black Unicorn, prohibits them. (I later learned that they can't act in a sneaky/dishonorable manner, which means they technically CAN think creatively--just not act on it if it might be considered "sneaky or dishonorable"--what most people would call "clever.") Slug said there were no trinkets or intel found at the site, but he made off with a few things--one of which was a busted torch. He was able to make it spontaneously work with that gift of his, and he seemed excited about having a torch that could help cut through locks and things like that with the small, hot flame he could summon with his gift.

I think I managed to seem impressed. ;)

After Slug went to catch a shower and some shut-eye, I went back to the car, got my hiking backpack out, and set off into WWNP to visit some nodes and collect some tass. I cheated by just going to the Mountain Bowl node, harvesting the tass there, and then using some Correspondence to remotely harvest the tass from that large stone atop the hill in the heart of Red Talon territory. I then hiked north to the caern. I've not drawn tass from the caern yet, but I've started using my rudimentary magickal sensing abilities more frequently.
It feels rude to do anything more than just look. Look, but don't touch. Plus I'm not sure what might happen if any of the spirits noticed me on the other side of the gauntlet. Seems like the trio of caern totems are all able to keep a secret, though. That or all the garou know there's a warper who frequents their caern and they're all "shhhh don't tell him that we know!" Which seems spectacularly unlikely. I guess the three caern totems must have some measure of respect for me, even if the Wyld representative doesn't trust me. Still. Two out of three isn't bad, and you can't please everyone.
Alicia swung by while I was meditating upon the flow of energies within the heart of the caern, and she shared news of the fight, too. It turns out that they'd also recovered five young female wolves, but had to put the adults down. Yugh. That's got to weigh heavy on the soul, I'd think. I pitched Slug's plan again to Alicia, but I don't think she's going to budge. You can lead the werewolves to water, but you can't make them drink, Nick. Alicia talked about how she was pretty certain there was a mage causing all this mess down in Hanford. (Possibly true. I'm starting to think that myself.) She also wanted to know if I could get mundane intel (how many people are working at that site, etc?) via hacking any computers in that area. (Maybe. Those are probably Department of Defense computer networks, and I'm not terribly keen on poking at that. Definitely will be magick done with a made-up story about how I got the info from some dbase or the other.) I caught myself babbling about a linotype machine at one point--an obsolete kind of printing press--out of the blue. I didn't even know I'd said it until I'd finished speaking to Alicia and wondered to myself where the hell that'd come from. Fortunately she either didn't notice or didn't understand.
I think, being tired from all the physical exertion today, combined with my recent atunement to the potent energies of the caeern, finally kicked in. Once Alicia left, I didn't even bother trying to set my tent up further back in the woods. I just slept on the ground near the firepit and used the pack as an uncomfortable pillow. I sleep the sleep of oblivion, waking up in the morning and not remembering any dreams nor passing of time. I'm sure other garou must have come and gone while I was out. Hopefully no one sniffed my ass. Jacinta, I'm sure, had her watchful eyes on me. But... that's probably a good thing in this instance. I could think of way less pleasant things watching me in my sleep. Still. Creepy.