2019.08.23:The Lollipop Guild - Part 1

Pt 1: The Lollipop Guild
Cait gets the sense that there is something wrong during one of her patrols in the City.
Players	Cait O'Connor, August von Heidelburgh - Storyteller
Location	The rooftops
Spheres	Garou Bonegnawers Gaian

The Spirits come in the shape of many-birds, small as mice, they flit in many colors - like a rainbow. No two birds the same color, no two feathers the same shape. Screaming in the Umbra, over and over again, ~...UP ON A ROOF, WITH BLEEDING PAWS. DOWN IN THE CHIMNEY WITH BLOODY CLAWS. OUT FROM THE STOVEPIPE AN ODE TO JOY, IN HIS MOUTH IS A LI-TTLE BOYYYYY...~ The riddle-speak comes quick, it comes fast, directed for the ears of a Gnawer of Bones. She's smart, she's witty. It's a Secret in a message, a gift from someone who exists out in the city and dosn't want it decyphered.

While the secret-birds flit and flutter in the Umbra, there on the rooftop of a home a shadow moves. Leaping from chimney, to chimney, in one and bursting out of another, cackling with a mad glee...and there is blood on the wind.

Cait has been patrolling with her 'Night Angels', her vigilante type gang that keeps the streets clean. However, upon hearing the voices, the spirits sending this message, she will pause and stop to consider it. The Ahroun's expression is usually cheerful, although suddenly, it's quite serious, especially as she scents that tang of iron, of blood on the wind. Her companions pause ahead and turn to look at her curiously, asking her what's up, but then she'll snap her head upwards and Cait will frown darkly as she sees that shadow. "I gotta take care of this, you guys continue on." With that, Cait will turn, and in her comfortable low-hanging sweats, she'll leap up and grab a fire escape in an alley near her and begin to immediately climb up the side of the building. She doesn't use the fire escape like a normal person, no, she literally hops from floor to floor to get to the rooftop as fast as she parkour-like can. She wants to cut off the shadow, and chases after him with all the power within her.

"EEEEEEE! HEEEEE! HEEEEE!" The shadow shrieks, and people scream inside of one house. Lights turn on. Then another. Then another. Each house this fiend visits there they awaken to screaming, and while Cait leaps and bounds, she'll see the creature leap overhead:

What should be a man, is a /thing/ in men's clothes. Long, batty ears. Long, warped nose. Warted skin. Elongated arms, long hands, claws. He stoops, yet leaps like a toad, and huge eyes like that of an Ay-Ay. After very nearly taking the woman out with one untied shoe, the creature lands on the roof and whips around to smile a full-smile full of so many teeth. It's a goblin, no other word for it, a shrieking spirit of mayhem somehow outside of the Umbra - a sack slung over the shoulder full of left socks, panties, tv remotes, forks, and every item that may cause people grief.

Once she reaches the rooftop, Cait will pull up and leap over the rail, pausing to crouch there and look at the windows where the lights appear. Slowly rising as the shadow appears, Cait will stare at it and study it from afar. Leaping forward then, she'll run towards it and growl out, "Stop there.. " Is the blood coming from it? How evil is this mayhem? Is it tainted?

Tainted? Oh, it reeks of Taint. An oozin Taint that stinks even outside of the Umbra, like rotten eggs and garbage. Mayhem. Glee. As the Ahroun locates her Prey, the creature gives a kind of sign -- flipping her off, cackling loudly. "Got me, got meeee!" The Goblin leaps to the top of a chimney, pulling a rotten apple and bag of moldy bread out; before dropping it down the flue. "Hee! Got me, got me!" Muffles heard now, muffles inside of the bar. Two children, barely five, stuffed into the bag for 'safe keeping' and 'later use'. The bulging eyes of the monster turning on Cait, a long, moldy tongue slurping outwards to lick over the lips and teeth.

Hearing the children in the bag, Cait's eyes suddenly light up with pure rage. She's usually a calm sort, but when children are in danger, she turns into a different person. Immediately burning through her rage, she'll channel it into immediately transforming into her 7 foot tall bundle of raged fur, tooth and claw. Growling, she'll immediately leap for the goblin, her intention is to distract the goblin with a claw to the face, while her other action is to actually grip the top part of the bag and yank it away from the creature and get the children. That is her first priority.

The claws find flesh, warted and wrong, tearing the skin right off the bone. The Goblin hisses, screaming as both clawed hands grab the face, but as the creature is blinded by his own vile blood; spraying across the brick of chimney, and cement of roof, it reeks of peppermint...like candycanes. The children, barely the ages of five, scream and howl in their fear, unhurt, but both reside in footie pajamas. The Crinos is a terror to behold, yet they just sit and scream, wailing. Yet there, yonder, with a toad-like leap that Goblin flails. "MY EYES! MY EYES!" But the howl of pain ceases, replaced by a kind of manic laughter, shrieking and high-pitched, the clawed hands pull away to reveal a face clawed to the bone -- that is slowly being remade. "Eeeee! HEEEE!" His blood, the reek of it, it's pungent. Powerful. To a human nose, it's just a smell of Christmas. But to the Garou heightened senses, the peppermint is so potent as to burn the sinuses, and make the throat ache. Writing reality out to disk. Please wait... Reality saved. Thank you for your patience.

Ensuring the children are behind her 'safely', Cait will step forward towards the laughing goblin, her nose wrinkling with distaste at the pungent smell. She'll growl viciously and snarl as she leaps forward again, this time with the pure goal of ripping it to shreds. Fortnately the minds of the little ones should be safe, they likely won't remember a thing of this terror. Needless to say, Cait is taking her rage out on this goblin for daring to hunt children in her domain, in her territory, she's particularly pissed about this.

She'll have to swing twice. Once those claws come the first time, the toad-like thing leaps, but it's the second swipe that will catch the creature. A stab through the gusts, intestines bursting out the back, while the strength of an Ahroun in Crinos tears the thing damn near in half -- worse still, the head pops off like a grape. Yet. It's dying sounds are gargled, strangled, gleeful cackles until the end of life casts the Thing into a black powdery substance that blows on the wind -- too easy? Probably. It will become apparent as that pitch-like blood sticks, and reeks all over her fur, attacking her nose, her throat, daring her to blink the sting out of her eyes while the children cry over yonder -- running to hide from the Crinos out of a mad desperation to escape. It starts slow, the menthol-cool creep through her claws, fingers, the way that peppermint taints the flesh and numbs the muscle. Poison.

There's that sense of victory as she rips the goblin in half, but Cait has this nagging feeling. Just as she turns to try to take care of the kids (in a good way), the sensation of that menthol creeping and crawling along her flesh, invading her like poison is felt. She'll take a halting step with those large paws and then come crashing down to her knees as she brings her clawed pawed hands up to stare at them. Eyes narrowing, she'll focus on resisting this toxin that is invading her body, this taint, it is in her to do so, she just needs to concentrate.