2020.10.29:Cages(1/2)
Thursday, October 29, 2020, 4:27 PM
In Scene: Aldric, Bergin, Dalibor, & Taika
Scene Summary: Miss Mary gets a call that some kinfolk children were caught by border control and are locked in cages. Th Get were asked to free them. Scene 1 of 2 is the break in and its associated issues: what's the plan, how to get in, how to deal with gafflings of desperation in the umbra, and what happens when you fly blind into a detention facility.
United Salvage - Scrap Yard
The junkyard spreads in all of its magnificence from this central point. Mountains of crushed cars frame the horizon with paths snaking off into a giant maze of twisted metal and shattered glass. Some cars lay gutted, stripped of everything useful and balanced precariously on blocks. Others seem nearly intact, just waiting to be dismantled or rarely repaired for use again. The ground here has been torn to bits with traffic, some of it from tires and some from the treads of the heavy duty forklift the junkyard uses to move cars that will no longer move themselves.
To the east is the entrance to the workshop from the yard and to the west the car crusher. Further north is a veritable maze of crushed and semi-flattened cars arranged in a maze of rows and columns.
The phone inside the shop rings and Miss Mary answers it. She jots down a few notes, looking serious as she does so, and says "Okay, we'll look into it for you," and hangs up. Mary walks out and calls out, "Boys, family meeting time. We have business to take care of." Taika for one was puncing a set of tires filled with dirt in an attempt to stay in shape. He looks up, looks over, and asks, "What's up, can I help?"
Bergin comes back from a quick trip back into the stacks and perks up as he sees the Boyz and Taika's attention drawn to Mrs. Marry. "S'up?"
Dalibor has just drifted into the yard, possibly to hang with his tribemates, Or maybe not. He's not much of a talker, so his motives are hard to call. He raises an eyebrow - his timing is, as always, amazing. Amazingly good or amazingly bad - that is the question?
Miss Mary clap claps twice to have everyone hurry over. "I just received a call from a kinfolk about an hour's drive from here towards the border." Taika asks, "What border?" She responds, "The Mexican border our wayward friend. Anyway, they were on assignment in Mexico and were helping bring a few kinfolk children over the border for safe haven in the Sept of the Enduring Spirit when they were stopped by border patrol. The adult that made the call was able to break free, but the children were not. They are angry with themselves and want help to fix their mistake and make things right. Are you willing to heed the call?" Taika nods, "As long as this contact of yours is coming with us and leading the way, I'm up for it." Bergin nods to the older kinfolk and tells the folks that he's off to get his bag (of stuff) and will be back in a second. The get theurge heads towards one of the old campers beside the shop - a place that he's started to call home and quickly returns with his military-style duffle shrugged over one shoulder. "Any word on if this is a mundane problem or if there's real trouble?"
Dalibor hmmms softly. "Border patrol? So, government... we must keep, how do you say - a low profile? No killing, yes?" He's in, apparently. Well, children to rescue - and kin to boot? Yeah, he's in.
Taika watches Bergin walk off and come back with his bag. "Sounds mundane, but I've learned not to discount real trouble just because the surface looks smooth." He grins and then looks to Dalibor with a nod. Miss Mary disappears for a bit and comes back out, "I've notified Mr. Aldric. He should be here shortly." Once everyone appears to be ready, including Aldric, they start to pile into a beat up van (we're talking 12 person) that looks to have seen better days (and once had a floor where the road couldn't be seen through the rust holes). They drive the hour or so based on the directions they were given by the kinfolk that called them and pull up to a gas station just north of the Mexican border. As they get out, a young man, not much older than a boy himself, gets out and says, "Hola Senorita Maria. As beautiful as ever, how are you?" Mary waves him on, looking like she is pressed for time, but still manages a smile, "Please dear, for the sake fo the children, what's the situation?" To the others, the young man introduces himself as Ruben and explains that there is a facility about a block west that is in the middle of nowhere. It is a detention center with cages and rooms and more cages. "The kids are usually separated from the adults at least, so we have that going for us, but they are usually held inside compared to outside. Suggestions on how to get inside to them?" Taika looks to the others and stays quiet.
Bergin hrms, "We'd need some fake ID's to get in conventionally, but they're going to know if we take those kids out. So I'd suggest some kind if diversion to get their attention, break the kids out and escape with them. But...it's going to be one hell of a noisy bang if we do."
Dalibor looks thoughtful. This would be much easier if he was back home. An SVD and problem solved. He sighs. "How many kin? How many guards?" He thinks a bit more. "And can we see area? I would like to see how good these 'border patrol' are. If they are smart, they would remove all the cover surrounding facility. Hopefully, they are amateurs."
Aldric folds his arms after sliding his bag over his shoulder, looking from one to the other. "Do they keep the children inside all day? No...play time in an out of doors area? If not it might be best to wait until nightfall I would think."
Miss Mary purses her lips, "We don't want to attract attention if we can help it. You are not to bring the government to the scrapyard boys." She points a bony finger at Bergin especially. Ruben nods to Dalibor and waves him on. Follow me. It won't be too far of a walk." Sure enough, after about a block, what few buildings lined the street disappear and a barb-wired fence pops up and out of nowhere. There is a guard shack where the street passes through the fence and about 50 yards of a whole lot of nothing between the fence and the single building on the site. It looks like a typical warehouse building: metal sheeting for siding, flat roof, no windows, few entrances (three really, one for administration, one for inmate processing, and another for the government vehicles). There are cages outside, but for now it looks like they have adults in them. Seeing as some of them are lying on the ground, they may be there often. Luckily, night time is coming soon. Taika scans the area and sighs, "Aren't places like this supposed to have trees so we can climb over the fence easier?" Nope no trees as far as the eye can see here.
Dalibor takes in the area surrounding the faculty, frowning. Clearly he's not happy with what he's seeing. "I have two ideas. Generic stealth entry and... well, the other is not subtle. At all." Well, at least the pragmatic Modi knows when it's less than appropriate to be a blunt instrument. He sighs. "Does anybody see something useful?"
Aldric leans against the wall as he looks over at the building, then finally shakes his head. "Cameras, guards...too risky to come at them from straight on. We should cross over the the Umbra, and approach that way. It will get us to the children. Then we'll have to figure out how to get them out."
Miss Mary nods to Alrdic, "Good thinking. If you can get to them, perhaps we can help with a distraction." Looking to Dalibor, she hmms, "You had two ideas. If you get in, what would you do for a distaction to get out with less chance of being seen?" Taika looks to Bergin, "Did bring a mirror? Think we could summon a spirit that would pull the kinfolk into the umbra with us?"
Dalibor hmms at Aldric's thought and Mrs. Mary's querstion. "This could work. Do we have any idea what their threat response procedure is? With a little time, I could make some molotovs and start some fires. If they investigate the fires before they evacuate the building - you could just walk them out while the guards are distracted? Or even act as agents evacuating the children?"
Bergin hrms, "I always carry a mirror," he pulls out a leather vambrace he wears strapped to his forearm that's got metal plates that are shinned to a mirror-like finish on them, allowing him to step sideways in a pinch. "And...uh...maybe on the spirit? But It'd have to be a -short- step. Like just getting them past the fence and out of eye-sight. Ya know? Lots of things can go wrong on the other side."
Aldric nods in agreement. "If there is a distraction out here it might allow us to get them close to an outer wall. Or just cut a hole in the fencing to let them out. I'm sure my klaive is up to the task." He shrugs lightly. "But the guards attention would need to be elsewhere certainly."
In the meantime, it is starting to grow dark. Miss Mary shakes her head, "No clue doll, but it sounds like it is worth a shot if we can get the timing down right. Maybe take a guard out and grab his keys. They are bound to have fleet vehicles that you could hide the kids in." Note to self, have the scrapyard start acting as a means of rebuilding fleet vehicles of various facilities.
Bergin gets a nod from Taika. "Right, so cross-over, try to summon a spirit, if it doesn't work, create mass-panic with molotovs and steal a vehicle to get us out. Abandon it right outside the gate. If that doesn't go to plan, make a run for the fence. If anything comes at us in the umbra, the Elev Modi claws it to death. Sounds like fun."
One by one, the Garou step sideways and make their way into the umbra. Aldric was right that the scene on the other side of the veil is different. The facility is darker, as if the people inside are drowning in despair and it is affecting the very atmosphere of the spirit world around the facility. There are no fences, no buildings in fact on the site. There is just a desert clouded in darkness. As the four of them make their way towards where the building likely lies, something starts moving around them. They are small, little things, but there are many of them. They are no taller than your ankles, but in the darkness, you'll notice that there are swarms of them around your feet and they look like a mixture between scorpions and leeches. At first they are not paying attention to you, but as you get closer into where the center of the facility would be, they start noticing you and begin to climb up legs and trying to sting or bite.
Aldric looks down at the creatures with disgust, his hands fisting as he focuses on the foul little things. The air around him grows colder, chilly even, but all it seems to do is make his breath show up when he growls in frustration.
Dalibor says, "Despair banes!", he spits as he pulls Ekser, his fetish knife. "Let us dance!"
Dalibor slashes at the banes with Ekser, cutting a swath of them in half - "bleeding" unholy ichor.
Drawing upon the basic powers of the elements, Bergin conjures forth a gust of air to fan the flames created by his tribesman.
The gafflings of despair might feel the cold in the air shift around Aldric, because they shudder and start moving towards his frustration. They begin to swarm him and even look like they've grown in size around the Elev Modi. Dalibor creates an opening in the umbral ground. One of the critters even blows up. Oddly, a noticeable light escapes out from the ground these things were covering in darkness. It isn't bright, but it was light that these things were covering. Unfortunately, there are enough that they start skittering to cover of the light and move to attack Dalibor for taking out their fellow gaffling. The Bergmeister pushes the desperate gafflings back again with an equally impressive push of air and fire from the exploded spirit. The light comes back a little stronger this time - yet there are more scorpio-leeches looking to take their position. They swarm slower now though, but swarm they do and move to attack Bergin as well. Taika meanwhile gets stung lightly and immediately rages into Crinos with a snarl of righteous anger.
Ironsides does not like the bugs. He shudders and shifts to his war form, black fur sprouting as he grows. Then the claws come out and the banes start getting sliced and diced, falling away from him with wet plops and chitters.
Dalibor spits, as he reaches under his jacket. "Despair! Pshaw..." A molotov sails out into the heart of horde. "Despair fears light..."
Bergin tries to fan the flames left by his tribesmen once more but the confusion or pestering bites of the scorpio-leech-things has distracted him and the gust of wind does not answer his call.
Taika is swarmed by the engourged spirits and actually deal him a fair amount of damage. As a result of his flailing, he doesn't manage to lay a hand on any of the critters. Still, Aldric and Dalibor, the two Modi of course, have managed to make a dent. The hive of desperation gaffling is noticeably thinning (perhaps they're all going to Taika now hah!) but no not really. There are noticeably fewer. Where the spirits were though, you might start to notice that the light they were covering has a pulse, a soft, faint, glittery da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum.
Ironsides swings his claws, raking them over the black chitinous bodies to send bits flying this way and that. His fur ends up with a liberal spattering of black goo by the time the last one is either dead or fleeing.
Dalibor looks around. "Here, yes?" Dalibor takes a deep breath and crosses the gauntlet. And to his surprise he crosses over right on top of a guard - who is probably even more surprised. The two go down in a tangle of arms and legs, though the situation works out a little worse for the guard, who is quite unconscious. Dal mutters quietly under his breath in Bosnian. You might not understand the actual words - but from the tone, he's cursing up a storm. You paged Bergin with 'But the fomor looks like a guard to you, so no real clue yet what you're dealing with. :)'
Bergin steps across the gauntlet and ends up the cell with the kids. There's one guard in there with them seeming to terrorize them but nothing outwardly weird. Unfortunately stumbling across as he did the lumberjack of a shaman falls flat on his ass and can't exactly spring into action. While on the ground, he digs into his bag-o-holding and pulls out a full-sized sledge that shouldn't have belonged in there and tries to get to his feet to give the guard a wollopin.
Aldric takes his turn stepping through...and ends up on the outside of the guard room, standing right in front of the window. It's a good thing Dalibor landed where he did, because the Modi is in plain sight and looking more than a little chagrined.
