Sunday Werewolf
May. 15th, 2006 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
realsorienAh, Werewolf. When run badly, its a mess of powergaming and rugrat-childishness with violence. When run right, its an absolute blast.
The game I and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ataramos are in, is the latter. :)
The GM is Mike M. The players and their respective characters are-
Me- Mary O'Riley, a Fianna Ahroun.
Atara- Johanna Bruin 'Relentless Wind', a Get of Fenris Ahroun.
Scott L.- Normally Derek Maus, a Glass Walker Ahroun (Seeing a pattern here?), Currently/temporarily 'Heart of Winter', a Wendigo Philodox.
Amy L.- Lanya (Linn-aa-yah) Roarke, a Black Fury Ahroun.
Scott G.- Will, a White Howler/recovered Black Spiral Dancer Theurge.
Our group is the current Luna's WarBand, a group gathered by Luna's servant Nemesis to basically kick ass and take names against the foes of Gaia. Notably, the WarBand tends to get killed and recreated with distressing frequency...
Our campaign runs for 5 sessions, two weeks apart, then we cycle to one of two other games- either a 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'-inspired Horror campaign, or a Traveller SF game. We just finished the Werewolf series, and will be going to Buffy in about a month- Memorial Day Weekend is throwing us off a bit. The rest of this post is behind a cut, cos it's long, and has much gamer-geekery. ;)
So... This last series of runs started as a completion of a quest for WIll, our Theurge, to pass on a message from the long-lost Totem-spirit of the Croatoan, Turtle, to the Wendigo werewolf tribe, segued into a series of challenges for rank for various members of the WarBand, paused at a change of character from Derek to Heart-Of-Winter due to Derek making an ill-advised Challenge for rank to a Ragabash Red Talon, and finished with an overdue quest for my character Mary to recover a piece of her soul which was stolen by a Bane waaaay back when.
That part of the story begins with Mary's nightmares. She has the flaw-nightmares, and when the game started she'd just returned to the Garou because she couldn't deal with them herself anymore, then only being able to sleep by consuming HUGE amounts alcohol- huge even for a Fianna. These nightmares became exponentially worse when the soul-fragment was taken from her, and it was recently decided that the WarBand would have to actually enter her dreams to refind the fragment, by finding the 'hole' that was left by the removal.
So, a ritual was enacted in the Umbral reflection of a cairn ritual room; If a Garou goes to sleep in the Umbra, they are transported into Dream physically. The ritual linked the Warband members to Mary, who drew them all into her dreams when she went to sleep. And the adventure began!
Mary 'came to' in a dream. She was at her old workbench from her IRA days, prepping bombs. As she did, the bombs changed, becomming representations of the people they were destined to kill- at first, anonymous innocents, then as time passed they became her friends and acquaintences- she couldn't stop, and in that dreamlike fugue, she HAD to keep making them, HAD to get them RIGHT... And was crying because she knew the deaths would be her fault...
The other characters then appeared in the workshop, though she couldn't see them, yet. First, Lanya tried talking to Mary, with no response. Then Heart-Of-Winter yelled, also getting nothing. Eventually, Johanna snapped her out of it by waving a bottle of wiskey in front of her (it was a bottle of the cheap stuff, and she was offended!), leaving her pretty shaken.
We looked about, and outside the workshop it was the Belfast Mary remembered. As we tried to determine what to do next, we started to hear sirens- police sirens. And they were getting closer! The decision was made to head toward's Mary's old home, Jamie's flat, which was closer to the city center. We headed out, the sirens getting closer and closer, and the tensions between the characters increasing as Mary was VERY uncertain and off-balance, and the rest were impatient and expected her to have all the answers, somehow, being as it was her dream...
And so the chase was on. The Warband moving towards the flat, the police coming right after us, sirens wailing. Eventually, they seemed to be RIGHT BEHIND US, and Mary got fed up. She turned, went Crinos and was going to 'Hulk SMASH!' one of the police cars, but instead... The cars were a block or so away, and a fire hydrant EXPLODED, blasting one of the cars and triggering a mass pileup of cop cars. She sared at the scene for a moment, then said "Huh. Right, then. This way." and headed again for the flat.
The scenery then wavered and changed... As we wandered, the buildings became newer than the Belfast usual, and the streets went from cobblestones to pavement- and there was suddenly an 'el' train... We were now in the dream-equivalent of Chicago, where Mary first lived when she came to the US.
She recognised the area as where a chase had occurred, with her and her Bone Gnawer teachers tracking a just-made vampire. And sure enough, just as in her past there was a figure running on the rooftops. We clambered up and followed, but instead of it being the vampire, it was the Sept Leader of the the Chicago Cairn, nose bloodied as on the day Mary punched him!
We continued this new chase, which in reality had ended with the vampire oing off the roof and becoming street-pizza. Mary determined to prevent this, and caught up with our target just as he would have gone off the edge- She shoved him to safety, then... went over herself. Johanna BARELY got there in time and got ahold of her, but Mary slipped free, and plummeted... (I botched. Bleah!) That was the end of the previous run.
(Note-ataramos wasn't feeling well and so was not at this run- all actions performed by her character were GM action, and might deviate from her actual choices if she had been there)
We began yesterday's game with Mary falling, cursing loudly as she did. Eventually, despite the dream-distorted distances, she impacts a rooftop and blasts a huge hole through the roof... The building starts to break up and fall down...
In the meantime, the rest of the Warband have gathered at the edge with the stunned person that Mary saved, and are wondering what to do next. They get the decision made for them, as the spiritual tether which allowed them to get into Mary's dream in the first place SNAPS them off the roof! They all follow Mary into the collapsing building, and things go black...
Mary (and the others) wakes to find herself in a collapsed building for the second time of heer life- NOT a good place. She manages not to frenzy, and starts to dig her way free after shifting to Crinos. Meanwhile, Will is having his own troubles, facing inner demons driving him to consider the path of the Black Spirals to free himself. Lanya, after waking, uses Razor Claws to dig her way first to Heart-Of-Winter, then the pair proceed to tunnel to Mary, then Johanna and Will. Once reunited, they try orienting themselves, with Will eventually trying to talk to one of the Pattern Spiders that had held the building as their territory.
As she'd ruined their little oasis of order by smashing it, they wanted to have Mary 'stay'... AKA they wanted to take and calcify her. Will intimidated the spiders, getting us a direction out. More digging followed, and we finally broke free... Into an idyllic valley with a stream running its length.
Mary sat a bit away from the others, hugging herself and gathering her wits as the other's cleaned up in the stream- eventually she did the same. Heart-Of-Winter decided to climb the cliff, which appeared to be maybe 40-odd feet high; to him, he climbed a LONG way, eventually looking down and finding that he was high enough to get vertigo! To the rest of the WarBand, he was maybe 20 feet up, almost not moving...
For him to hear us we had to shout, with Lanya getting more frustrated by the second at all the delays... When he got down, he was rather shocked at how little progress he'd made, which only increased HIS impatience and frustration. Mary now tried to 'feel' where her lost soul-bit was, in the same manner the WarBand members can sense where each other are- Downstream it was, and we continued.
After about 2 miles the valley widened out, the stream becoming a river; on the far side we could see a huge, vaguely-foreboding forest, and just before that a gallows, with a lone figure sitting upon the steps to the platform...
We backtrack a bit for an easier crossing; once across, the weather got worse and worse the closer we got the the forest and gallows, with dramatic flashes of lightning and driving rain. As Mary appriaches the figure, he says 'She's gone, she's gone... Its all ruined! They TOOK her! Why are you here? Who are you? Its all ruined!'
While this went on, Heart-Of-Winter, then Will went under the scaffold to see what was there- Beneath they found what looked to be a well, cut, smooth stone circling a DEEP hole. As the 'discussion continued, Lanya tried to ask questions, but she too just got the same, vague answers from the hooded figure (note- he's dressed as an executioner). Finally, Will comes out, shifts to Crinos and tries to confront the being.
The response was dramatic: 'YOU'RE one of the CHANGING BREEDS! YOU took her from me!' And he grabbed Heart's arms and lifted him up! Mary took this as an opportunity, and whipped off his hood, only to be confronted by the face of Jamie, her long-dead benefactor and friend from her IRA days!
He then recognises her, too... 'You're back! You've come back to me!' he says, and drops Heart and grabs Mary- and starts dragging her to the noose! Notably, Mary doesn't wanna be dead. She says, 'Jamie, yuir dead! I saw ye with a hole th' size o' me hand through yuir head!' He replies, 'I know! Now you can be with me forever!' A struggle ensues, with Jamie being FAR stronger than he possibly could be, and Mary only barely resisting him. Eventually, Lanya pulls Mary loose, and he says 'Follow your heart, Mary...' (creepy, evil voice now) 'FOLLOW YOUR HEART, MARY!!'
Heart-of-Winter at this point has heard enough, and attacks using the fur-gnarl pack tactic, which allows the first attacker to make it easier to damage the target. The faux-Jamie is badly wounded, but still stands. Mary says, 'I knew that ye cannae be Jamie. He'd nae do this...' just as Will, who had begun a Rite of Exorcism, finished the effect and Heart-of-Winter leaped to the attack... And the creature was dispersed, the false image of Jamie fading to reveal its true form- a Nightmare Bane.
We gather ourselves up and its determined that the well hidden by the gallows is the 'hole' that we were to seek. Mary is about to climb down, when Lanya gets impatient and SHOVES Mary, who evades this action... Mary continues to climb down. Then, impatience taking hold of most of the pack they all JUMP IN, trying to drive Mary down ahead of them! Note that there is no apparent bottom to the well... Mary evades them all by shifting back to human form and dodging, then continues to climb down. The others reach the bottom, which turns out to be curved like a chute, to find themselves in a place that Will knows all to well- Malfeus.
He commences to near-frenzy, as the mystic tether finally TWANGS! and pulls Mary loose of her climb and drags her down. She gets banged up, but manages to slow her fall somewhat. Ahead of the group is a horrid-looking area, with a grove of disturbing trees... All of which are hangman's trees, with corpses slung from nooses on each. Mary 'feels' for a direction, and after some more conflict from Heart-Of-Winter and impatience from Lanya, she finds a direction and starts walking, ahead and somewhat separate from the other's, hugging herself in her returned sense of isolation.
As we travel, each of us look upon the faces of the dead; we recognise none, initially... then Lanya recognises a face- that of the Sept leader of the local Shadow Lords, Miklos. We've had evidence that he's a pawn of greater powers of evil for some time, but this clinches it. We continue on, Mary briefly losing the trail, then regaining it- She sees a hill, with a single, isolated tree perched there bearing a disturbingly familiar body- her own.
She tries one of her Gifts on it, 'Falling Touch' with no result. She then tries to find where the lost bit of her soul is, and locates it in the branch, just halfway from her body to the tree itself- it seems to be being consumed... She climbs up then, after telling her companions what she's found, shifts to crinos and RIPS the branch and body loose, dropping to the ground with them. The corpse disperses into dust, and she is left holding what was the branch, and now seems to be a shillellagh...
And the tree SCREAMS. It comes to nightmare-life, shreiking and striking at the WarBand- Mary says 'Right, time t' go!' and we RUN. We decide on a brief detour, however- Mary and Heart both think that we have to at least try to free the Miklos-corpse, to see if we can break the hold on him. We make a running strike on the tree holding him, each in turn tearing at the supporting branch; we don't quite sever it, but it is far too close to breraking for us to just leave. Mary and WInter hit it again, with Winter's second seriess of strikes finally severing it. Unlike with Mary, the Miklos-corpse doesn't disperse.
By now, ALL of the trees are screaming and flailing, and evil-looking demon-buzzards are now circling. Heart picks up the branch and corpse, and Mary takes up a defensive position to cover him as we run; The buzzards attack, being fended off on their first pass; Heart dodges a root that explodes from the ground to trip him, then the buzzards attack again- this time, Mary counterattacks, using her newfound weapon- both buzzards are struck from the sky, one crippled, the other killed.
But then... The sounds of revving engines is heard behind us. Looking back, and black, evil motorcycle-riding beings are taking up the chase, the lead figure being in horned and spiked black armor, wielding a blood red sword. We realize that we'll not get away unless we try something desperate...
Lanya uses a specialized version of a MoonBridge, with Mary being the recipient of this single-person, single-use effect- it transports her back to the gallows-and-well... And then moments later the dream-tether yanks her companions there too! The well being a route into Mary's dreams for the Malfeus-creatures, we take the time to disassemble the gallows and use it plus conjured earth to seal the hole.
Now... How to get home? Will states that Mary has to wake up. So she tries. (This took a Willpower roll by me) And she awakes, back in the Umbra-echo of the ritual room, alone. She waits, then counts- 5, 4, 3, 2... And her companions plummet from the sky, rejoining her! Moments after, Grasshopper, a young garou of the Open Hand Sept which is our effective home base, pokes her head in, and says, 'Where have you been? It's been MONTHS!' She has a new scar on her face...
To be continued...
AAAAIGH! I hate cliffhangers, especially ones that'll be NINE MONTHS in waiting to find out what's happened!
The game I and
ataramos are in, is the latter. :)The GM is Mike M. The players and their respective characters are-
Me- Mary O'Riley, a Fianna Ahroun.
Atara- Johanna Bruin 'Relentless Wind', a Get of Fenris Ahroun.
Scott L.- Normally Derek Maus, a Glass Walker Ahroun (Seeing a pattern here?), Currently/temporarily 'Heart of Winter', a Wendigo Philodox.
Amy L.- Lanya (Linn-aa-yah) Roarke, a Black Fury Ahroun.
Scott G.- Will, a White Howler/recovered Black Spiral Dancer Theurge.
Our group is the current Luna's WarBand, a group gathered by Luna's servant Nemesis to basically kick ass and take names against the foes of Gaia. Notably, the WarBand tends to get killed and recreated with distressing frequency...
Our campaign runs for 5 sessions, two weeks apart, then we cycle to one of two other games- either a 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'-inspired Horror campaign, or a Traveller SF game. We just finished the Werewolf series, and will be going to Buffy in about a month- Memorial Day Weekend is throwing us off a bit. The rest of this post is behind a cut, cos it's long, and has much gamer-geekery. ;)
So... This last series of runs started as a completion of a quest for WIll, our Theurge, to pass on a message from the long-lost Totem-spirit of the Croatoan, Turtle, to the Wendigo werewolf tribe, segued into a series of challenges for rank for various members of the WarBand, paused at a change of character from Derek to Heart-Of-Winter due to Derek making an ill-advised Challenge for rank to a Ragabash Red Talon, and finished with an overdue quest for my character Mary to recover a piece of her soul which was stolen by a Bane waaaay back when.
That part of the story begins with Mary's nightmares. She has the flaw-nightmares, and when the game started she'd just returned to the Garou because she couldn't deal with them herself anymore, then only being able to sleep by consuming HUGE amounts alcohol- huge even for a Fianna. These nightmares became exponentially worse when the soul-fragment was taken from her, and it was recently decided that the WarBand would have to actually enter her dreams to refind the fragment, by finding the 'hole' that was left by the removal.
So, a ritual was enacted in the Umbral reflection of a cairn ritual room; If a Garou goes to sleep in the Umbra, they are transported into Dream physically. The ritual linked the Warband members to Mary, who drew them all into her dreams when she went to sleep. And the adventure began!
Mary 'came to' in a dream. She was at her old workbench from her IRA days, prepping bombs. As she did, the bombs changed, becomming representations of the people they were destined to kill- at first, anonymous innocents, then as time passed they became her friends and acquaintences- she couldn't stop, and in that dreamlike fugue, she HAD to keep making them, HAD to get them RIGHT... And was crying because she knew the deaths would be her fault...
The other characters then appeared in the workshop, though she couldn't see them, yet. First, Lanya tried talking to Mary, with no response. Then Heart-Of-Winter yelled, also getting nothing. Eventually, Johanna snapped her out of it by waving a bottle of wiskey in front of her (it was a bottle of the cheap stuff, and she was offended!), leaving her pretty shaken.
We looked about, and outside the workshop it was the Belfast Mary remembered. As we tried to determine what to do next, we started to hear sirens- police sirens. And they were getting closer! The decision was made to head toward's Mary's old home, Jamie's flat, which was closer to the city center. We headed out, the sirens getting closer and closer, and the tensions between the characters increasing as Mary was VERY uncertain and off-balance, and the rest were impatient and expected her to have all the answers, somehow, being as it was her dream...
And so the chase was on. The Warband moving towards the flat, the police coming right after us, sirens wailing. Eventually, they seemed to be RIGHT BEHIND US, and Mary got fed up. She turned, went Crinos and was going to 'Hulk SMASH!' one of the police cars, but instead... The cars were a block or so away, and a fire hydrant EXPLODED, blasting one of the cars and triggering a mass pileup of cop cars. She sared at the scene for a moment, then said "Huh. Right, then. This way." and headed again for the flat.
The scenery then wavered and changed... As we wandered, the buildings became newer than the Belfast usual, and the streets went from cobblestones to pavement- and there was suddenly an 'el' train... We were now in the dream-equivalent of Chicago, where Mary first lived when she came to the US.
She recognised the area as where a chase had occurred, with her and her Bone Gnawer teachers tracking a just-made vampire. And sure enough, just as in her past there was a figure running on the rooftops. We clambered up and followed, but instead of it being the vampire, it was the Sept Leader of the the Chicago Cairn, nose bloodied as on the day Mary punched him!
We continued this new chase, which in reality had ended with the vampire oing off the roof and becoming street-pizza. Mary determined to prevent this, and caught up with our target just as he would have gone off the edge- She shoved him to safety, then... went over herself. Johanna BARELY got there in time and got ahold of her, but Mary slipped free, and plummeted... (I botched. Bleah!) That was the end of the previous run.
(Note-
ataramos wasn't feeling well and so was not at this run- all actions performed by her character were GM action, and might deviate from her actual choices if she had been there)We began yesterday's game with Mary falling, cursing loudly as she did. Eventually, despite the dream-distorted distances, she impacts a rooftop and blasts a huge hole through the roof... The building starts to break up and fall down...
In the meantime, the rest of the Warband have gathered at the edge with the stunned person that Mary saved, and are wondering what to do next. They get the decision made for them, as the spiritual tether which allowed them to get into Mary's dream in the first place SNAPS them off the roof! They all follow Mary into the collapsing building, and things go black...
Mary (and the others) wakes to find herself in a collapsed building for the second time of heer life- NOT a good place. She manages not to frenzy, and starts to dig her way free after shifting to Crinos. Meanwhile, Will is having his own troubles, facing inner demons driving him to consider the path of the Black Spirals to free himself. Lanya, after waking, uses Razor Claws to dig her way first to Heart-Of-Winter, then the pair proceed to tunnel to Mary, then Johanna and Will. Once reunited, they try orienting themselves, with Will eventually trying to talk to one of the Pattern Spiders that had held the building as their territory.
As she'd ruined their little oasis of order by smashing it, they wanted to have Mary 'stay'... AKA they wanted to take and calcify her. Will intimidated the spiders, getting us a direction out. More digging followed, and we finally broke free... Into an idyllic valley with a stream running its length.
Mary sat a bit away from the others, hugging herself and gathering her wits as the other's cleaned up in the stream- eventually she did the same. Heart-Of-Winter decided to climb the cliff, which appeared to be maybe 40-odd feet high; to him, he climbed a LONG way, eventually looking down and finding that he was high enough to get vertigo! To the rest of the WarBand, he was maybe 20 feet up, almost not moving...
For him to hear us we had to shout, with Lanya getting more frustrated by the second at all the delays... When he got down, he was rather shocked at how little progress he'd made, which only increased HIS impatience and frustration. Mary now tried to 'feel' where her lost soul-bit was, in the same manner the WarBand members can sense where each other are- Downstream it was, and we continued.
After about 2 miles the valley widened out, the stream becoming a river; on the far side we could see a huge, vaguely-foreboding forest, and just before that a gallows, with a lone figure sitting upon the steps to the platform...
We backtrack a bit for an easier crossing; once across, the weather got worse and worse the closer we got the the forest and gallows, with dramatic flashes of lightning and driving rain. As Mary appriaches the figure, he says 'She's gone, she's gone... Its all ruined! They TOOK her! Why are you here? Who are you? Its all ruined!'
While this went on, Heart-Of-Winter, then Will went under the scaffold to see what was there- Beneath they found what looked to be a well, cut, smooth stone circling a DEEP hole. As the 'discussion continued, Lanya tried to ask questions, but she too just got the same, vague answers from the hooded figure (note- he's dressed as an executioner). Finally, Will comes out, shifts to Crinos and tries to confront the being.
The response was dramatic: 'YOU'RE one of the CHANGING BREEDS! YOU took her from me!' And he grabbed Heart's arms and lifted him up! Mary took this as an opportunity, and whipped off his hood, only to be confronted by the face of Jamie, her long-dead benefactor and friend from her IRA days!
He then recognises her, too... 'You're back! You've come back to me!' he says, and drops Heart and grabs Mary- and starts dragging her to the noose! Notably, Mary doesn't wanna be dead. She says, 'Jamie, yuir dead! I saw ye with a hole th' size o' me hand through yuir head!' He replies, 'I know! Now you can be with me forever!' A struggle ensues, with Jamie being FAR stronger than he possibly could be, and Mary only barely resisting him. Eventually, Lanya pulls Mary loose, and he says 'Follow your heart, Mary...' (creepy, evil voice now) 'FOLLOW YOUR HEART, MARY!!'
Heart-of-Winter at this point has heard enough, and attacks using the fur-gnarl pack tactic, which allows the first attacker to make it easier to damage the target. The faux-Jamie is badly wounded, but still stands. Mary says, 'I knew that ye cannae be Jamie. He'd nae do this...' just as Will, who had begun a Rite of Exorcism, finished the effect and Heart-of-Winter leaped to the attack... And the creature was dispersed, the false image of Jamie fading to reveal its true form- a Nightmare Bane.
We gather ourselves up and its determined that the well hidden by the gallows is the 'hole' that we were to seek. Mary is about to climb down, when Lanya gets impatient and SHOVES Mary, who evades this action... Mary continues to climb down. Then, impatience taking hold of most of the pack they all JUMP IN, trying to drive Mary down ahead of them! Note that there is no apparent bottom to the well... Mary evades them all by shifting back to human form and dodging, then continues to climb down. The others reach the bottom, which turns out to be curved like a chute, to find themselves in a place that Will knows all to well- Malfeus.
He commences to near-frenzy, as the mystic tether finally TWANGS! and pulls Mary loose of her climb and drags her down. She gets banged up, but manages to slow her fall somewhat. Ahead of the group is a horrid-looking area, with a grove of disturbing trees... All of which are hangman's trees, with corpses slung from nooses on each. Mary 'feels' for a direction, and after some more conflict from Heart-Of-Winter and impatience from Lanya, she finds a direction and starts walking, ahead and somewhat separate from the other's, hugging herself in her returned sense of isolation.
As we travel, each of us look upon the faces of the dead; we recognise none, initially... then Lanya recognises a face- that of the Sept leader of the local Shadow Lords, Miklos. We've had evidence that he's a pawn of greater powers of evil for some time, but this clinches it. We continue on, Mary briefly losing the trail, then regaining it- She sees a hill, with a single, isolated tree perched there bearing a disturbingly familiar body- her own.
She tries one of her Gifts on it, 'Falling Touch' with no result. She then tries to find where the lost bit of her soul is, and locates it in the branch, just halfway from her body to the tree itself- it seems to be being consumed... She climbs up then, after telling her companions what she's found, shifts to crinos and RIPS the branch and body loose, dropping to the ground with them. The corpse disperses into dust, and she is left holding what was the branch, and now seems to be a shillellagh...
And the tree SCREAMS. It comes to nightmare-life, shreiking and striking at the WarBand- Mary says 'Right, time t' go!' and we RUN. We decide on a brief detour, however- Mary and Heart both think that we have to at least try to free the Miklos-corpse, to see if we can break the hold on him. We make a running strike on the tree holding him, each in turn tearing at the supporting branch; we don't quite sever it, but it is far too close to breraking for us to just leave. Mary and WInter hit it again, with Winter's second seriess of strikes finally severing it. Unlike with Mary, the Miklos-corpse doesn't disperse.
By now, ALL of the trees are screaming and flailing, and evil-looking demon-buzzards are now circling. Heart picks up the branch and corpse, and Mary takes up a defensive position to cover him as we run; The buzzards attack, being fended off on their first pass; Heart dodges a root that explodes from the ground to trip him, then the buzzards attack again- this time, Mary counterattacks, using her newfound weapon- both buzzards are struck from the sky, one crippled, the other killed.
But then... The sounds of revving engines is heard behind us. Looking back, and black, evil motorcycle-riding beings are taking up the chase, the lead figure being in horned and spiked black armor, wielding a blood red sword. We realize that we'll not get away unless we try something desperate...
Lanya uses a specialized version of a MoonBridge, with Mary being the recipient of this single-person, single-use effect- it transports her back to the gallows-and-well... And then moments later the dream-tether yanks her companions there too! The well being a route into Mary's dreams for the Malfeus-creatures, we take the time to disassemble the gallows and use it plus conjured earth to seal the hole.
Now... How to get home? Will states that Mary has to wake up. So she tries. (This took a Willpower roll by me) And she awakes, back in the Umbra-echo of the ritual room, alone. She waits, then counts- 5, 4, 3, 2... And her companions plummet from the sky, rejoining her! Moments after, Grasshopper, a young garou of the Open Hand Sept which is our effective home base, pokes her head in, and says, 'Where have you been? It's been MONTHS!' She has a new scar on her face...
To be continued...
AAAAIGH! I hate cliffhangers, especially ones that'll be NINE MONTHS in waiting to find out what's happened!
