The History of the Game, Part VIII

The History of the Game, Part VIII
by Bill Emerson, 3D Storyteller

Session Fifty (Wyvern's Claw, with the other players guesting as the Hunters of Doom)

The Wyvern's Claw meets the Hunters of Doom who take them to Battleground, a realm in the Umbra where every battle is replayed over and over. It also makes for a perfect training area, as you can fight in all sorts of environments and if/when you die, you simply re-appear in Umbra.

Round 1: The Hunters and the Claw fight in a straight match up, even though the Claw has one more member. It lasted one round. The Hunters were not impressed.

Round 2: The Claw have to find the Hunters in the Battle of the Bulge and attack them. Garth gives them instructions to stay away from the humans and heads off into the snow.
Not being very good listeners, the Claw co-opts a tank, crashes it, then steals two shells for the main gun. When the Hunters ambush them, Randell bangs the shells together and sets them off, injuring Arn and killing himself and Garth. The remaining Hunters finish of the Claw and head, grinning, to...

Round 3: Garth takes on the entire Pack at once with Arn and Greta offering play-by-play. The players find out why Silver Claws suck.

Round 4: Garth again takes all of the Wyvern's Claw on and this time the manage to kill him before he gets them all. Satisfied, Garth calls it a day and a bewildered bunch of PCs head for the showers.

    While Heather and Kyla are finishing a shift of guard duty, they are passed by two of the Storm Bitches, running in Lupus with car key.
    "It's time!" one of them says.
    "Time for what??" Kyla asks.
    "Time for Danielle!" Apparently, there will soon be another mouth to feed at the Sept of Gaia's Strength!

Session Fifty-one (Email Moot)

    The another month is winding down and the Moon is going up. The Children of the Sun are showing signs of stir-crazyness after standing guard duty for the better part of the month. Rumors that this was some sort of punishment were on their way to being dispelled when the REAL news hit the Sept: Danielle was in labor.
    Raina and Domino were sent to fetch the midwife they located a while back and brought her back as fast as their SUV would fly (not that it was fast enough for Cry of Winds...). Soon, the midwife was comforting Danielle, Hunts the Tundra was comforting Phil, and with no comforters left, Cry of Winds and Bite of Frost were chasing their tails waiting for any bit of news.
    After the usual tense moments and howling (mostly from the males involved), a darling baby girl graces the Morningstar's family tree. Jennifer Ojibwa Morningstar and her mother are resting comfortably in no time. The boys take a little longer wind down... And the Children of the Sun (plus Heather) finish their double guard shift to free up all the Wendigos in the Sept for worrying duty.
    Fortunately, everyone is rested and relaxed in by the time the Full Moon makes its trip up the sky. And all the Garou and Kinfolk gather under Luna's brightest light.
    The Moot starts with Cry of Winds leading a joyous howl and Walks invokes East Wind and the other Totems of the Sept, including, for the first time, Wyvern. Before she finishes her spirit-raising portion of the Moot, Zephyr steps in and begins a ritual known as the Baptism of Fire. He summons a small spirit servant of Wendigo, a Kin Fetch, to follow young Jennifer and to come back to her Tribe should undergo the First Change...
    Dmitri Ovius then takes over the proceedings and calls for any business to be brought for his adjudication. Kati Warsinger clears her throat to get his attention without having to speak name.

Kati: "Madonna's favorite flea bag desires to be recognized as Rank Two. I will recognize him as such if he has the item that we discussed..."

Stanley runs, grinning to her with something is his mouth: Bite of Frost's belt! Bite of Frost usually wears a beaded belt with 'medicine pouches' on it. He's been looking for it since the baby was born.

Stanley: "Here it is! Say it fast, I think need to run..."

Kati: "Not so fast. I won't let you cheat me, dog face. Bite of Frost, is this actually YOUR belt?"

Bite of Frost: *seething and stalking across the clearing* "Yes. It. Is."

Kati: "Then I judge that Stanley is skilled enough to be considered Rank Two. Now, we shall see if he is fast enough to enjoy it!"

Stanley bolts from the scene and Bite of Frost, slowly, stalks to a halt before he reaches were Kati is (and Stanley was) standing. Kati smirks at the Warder, but he just growls and goes back to Elders' circle. Chuckles are heard from the edges of the clearing.

Dmitri: *ahem* "Have any other challenges been completed?"

Kati: "I wasn't done yet, Ovius. We took some time and went to Pangaea to visit with our Tribemates and Callisto and Raina both challenged our Elders there for advancement. They were, of course, successful so you may consider them both Rank Two. If you wish to verify with them, Dmitri, you may, but you needn't waste your time."

Dmitri: "Very well. Anything else, Warsinger?"

Kati: "No," *smirk* "Not now."

Dmitri snorts and looks around for anyone else to bring before the Sept. No one seems ready to follow Kati's act, so Dmitri yields the proceedings to the Galliards who begin the monthly show that is the Rite of Accomplishment. Greta begins by listing the various accomplishments and adventures that the Wyvern's Claw have had so far. Michelle adds a verse to her on-going ballad of the Children of the Sun. Dmitri speaks a few stanzas praising the Hunters of Doom and Kati quickly drowns him out, singing about Madonna's Pack.
After all the songs have been sung. Cry of Winds and Phil Morningstar walk to the center of the clearing. Looking around the circle, you can see that Stanley has returned, hiding behind Trent.

Cry of Winds: "Our kin wishes to speak to the Sept."

Dmitri: "I will allow it."

Phil: "Thank you. I would like to thank the entire Sept for the protection and concern that you showered Danielle, little Jennifer and me with for the last nine months. When she gets older, I will be proud to tell Jennifer how her family came to her side even before she was born! It has been difficult, though, for us and for all of you, living with Kinfolk in the Caern. It took a lot of patience and there were a lot of different opinions that were expressed over everything from where we should stay to how the baby should be born. And, of course, the Wyrm continued its attacks on the Sept, and indirectly, my family.
"But, now that Jennifer is here, we will be moving back into our house, which has been repaired and improved by Robert and some of the other Kin. So, while we will still be seeing you, it won't be on a daily basis. But before we moved, we wanted to thank you all for all you've done for us, especially over the last couple days."

Phil and Cry of Winds return to the Ice Knife's place among the packs.

Dmitri: "And do not fear, Phil, for your Garou family will always be close at hand. It also bears stating that for the foreseeable future, all visits to the Morningstar's house must be done in Homid form. They will be getting a large number of visitors over the next few months and it will be quite some time before Jennifer is ready to deal with truths about her, ah, extended family." *looks around* "And with that, I believe our Moot is done."

    "Not yet!" says Kyla. As it is her job to lead the Revel, she changes into Crinos form and leads the Sept in a Bane Hunt in the Umbra in vicinity of the Caern, paying special attention to the area around the Morningstar's house.
    When all Banes unfortunate enough to be found nearby have been squished, the various Packs split up to their own raucous behavior. The Hunters begin wrestling (WWF-style), the Streetlight Prowlers play more music and dance, The Ice Knife start a midnight game of lacrosse and invite anyone to join.
    Exhausted, everyone eventually make it to their crash-areas.

Session Fifty-two (Children of the Sun)

    A month of self-imposed guard duty over, the Children of the Sun leave the Solar System on a quest for knowledge.
    Actually, they go to the Aetherial Realm, visit Hyperion, and fly off to Saturn to see if the great spirit of that planet, Lu Bat, could help Walks with the Gift she's been trying to invent. Whew!
    While visiting Lu Bat, the Pack gets a chance to go surfing on the rings of Saturn, taking the X-Games interplanetary.
    The Pack remains in the outer planets with the goal of visiting other Planetary Incarna and learning more Gifts.

Session Fifty-three (Children of the Sun)

    The Pack is brought back down to Earth, literally, by a call on Kyla's Umbral cell phone. Kyla's mother has died in a slip and fall accident in her own home.
    Kyla rushes home to find her mourning family already at the house and her father brooding in his den. He tells Kyla that her mom had developed a bad case of "empty nest" syndrome and had started drinking heavily. She seems to have been very drunk when she fell from the top of the stairs and broke her neck.
    Paranoid to the last, Kyla uses some of her Garou senses to check the place out, then has Manny snoop about the house while everyone else is at the wake. Manny, finds no evidence of foul play with the accidental death, but does find evidence that Kyla's dad may be having an affair with his shapely secretary, Jenni. Kyla comes to a similar conclusion after meeting Jenni at the wake.
    With noting left but to cry and go home, the Pack does exactly that.

    Cry of Winds then approaches the Pack for some help. He has Challenged for Rank 4 and his tribe demands that he lead a team of Garou or Kin in a game of baggataway, or lacrosse! The Pack agrees and Cry of Winds fills out the rest of his all-star roster with the Ice Knife, Bite of Frost and Joshua. The team goes to the Wendigo Caern and ends up defeating the home team 3 to 0!
    Your statistical leaders: Bite of Frost and Jarryd tied with 4 tackles each, Manny had a steal and a sacrifice run, Kyla drew one frenzy penalty on the other team and Joshua had one save. Kyla and Hunts the Tundra each scored one goal, while Walks led all scorers with a goal and an assist.
    Rumors of a home and home series have been denied.

Session Fifty-four (Wyvern's Claw)

    Heather leads The Pack to Gary, Indiana (and yes, they sang the song) to check out the place that was sending Tony the Fomor-creating drugs. They find a warehouse and commence surveillance.
    Nathan and Scott start digging through dumpsters, in Lupus form, at night. Nathan finds some syringes and a canister of something marked 'Disfektant' that smells like Lysol on steroids. Scott finds a Wyrm-tainted, rabid, raccoon.
    After handling the Disfektant causes Nathan to lose all feeling in his mouth (he was in Lupus form, after all) and with his eyes watering, he decides to share this lovely substance with the raccoon. When the Disfektant only makes the wee beastie MORE pissed off, Scott opens the dumpster and Nathan throws a rock at the Wyrm-tainted, rabid raccoon. The raccoon bites Nathan and gives him some kind of sickness before Scott sends it to the great dumpster in the sky. Scott then limps the retching Nathan back to the rest of the Pack.
    After healing our dear rock chucker, the Pack begins plans for a more covert infiltration of the warehouse.

Session Fifty-five (Wyvern's Claw)

    The Pack decides the time has come to take a look inside the warehouse. On the roof, Nathan smashes an air conditioning unit while looking for a way in. Scott suggests using the door.
    At any rate they head in. Nate and Heather find some guards, Cassie and Randall find some scientists, Scott finds a ninja. (Ninja?)
    Chasing the ninja into a bunch of guards, the pack starts fighting, noticing that these guards are not affected by Delirium and seem to have silver bullets.
    Randall maces the ninja with Disfektant and it promptly turns into a Crinos...something.
    In the hubbub of the bad guys getting reinforcements, the Pack escapes with a disk containing some emails that Cassie and Randall lifted from the scene.

Session Fifty-six (Wyvern's Claw assisted by Children of the Sun)

    With both Packs massed for battle in Gary, Nathan, Manny and Scott steal a semi so they can deliver six tons of angry Werewolves directly to Pentex's back door. Heather backs the truck into the dock, opens the door and all heck commences to break loose. The first line of guards are dispatched by Wyvern's Claw and Kyla (who waited one whole round before giving in and helping).
    As the second wave of guards approaches, Kyla drops a fog bomb on them and takes them out with aid of Walks and Jarryd. Manny heads off to security office to destroy any video recording equipment after playing chicken with a guy driving a fork-lift.
    The Wyvern's Claw is off to battle whatever gross and Wyrmy thing is waiting in the laboratory. However, they are once again trailing the ninja who seems intent on beating them to the prize.
    They catch up with the ninja just as she comes flying, backward, out of the room the evilness is in. She is held down by Randall, interrogated by Nathan and recognized by Heather. It's Stephanie!
    She tells the pack that the evil thing was created with the help of an artifact that she is here to steal. They join up and find a beast that appears to be a Fomor created by Siamese cows and lots of bad spirits, that appears to be the source of the black drug. It is guarded by two hulking monsters.
    Cassie start drilling arrows into the big beasties with the boys doing their best to claw and bite them down to size. As they fall, Heather kills the cow-thing.
    Stephanie quickly, and sneakily, negotiates custody of the artifact, a scepter that was allowing banes to enter the body of the cow and then be extracted in the form of the black serum. As she makes her escape, she briefly appears on the security monitors and Manny sees her.
    Heather informs Kyla (and a sputtering Manny) what happened and they race off to catch Stephanie, while Walks, Cassie and Nathan start a Rite of Cleansing.
    Upon catching up with Stephanie, she tells them that she's going to hide the scepter where it can never be used again and if they don't like it, they can try to take it from her.
    Kyla decides that she can keep the scepter and she can ask for help again. Stephanie says a quiet goodbye to Manny and heads off to Africa.
    Both Packs then quickly pile into Heather's van and drive back home. *whew*

On To The History of the Game, Part IX