2020.10.30:Stacks and Snacks/Text
Random Turn: The Rat King
The row narrows slightly and some idjit has stacked a few of the crushed car frames going above and -across- the path. This may have been done to ensure that the two rows don't get the idea to collapse in on each other and structurally it might be a sound move, but what they've created is a darkened tunnel.
As you contiue down the tunnel, following the row, you hear the skitters and metallic scratches of tiny claws upon the remains of the old cars. After another step or two it's almost certain that you're being watched and you might swear that you were entering the territory of a colony of rats or something.
At the end of the long dark tunnel, you find yourself in a darkened redoubt of old cars and piles of junk amassed at the center. At the top of the mount, fashioned out of twisted wire, scraps of metal and who knows what sits a three-foot tall statue of a rat. Approach at your own risk.
Image:http://imgur.com/NcwTSzc
Bergin has taken a turn down one of the many paths and rows of the stacks and called for anyone nearby to come and check it out.
It's downright shiver-worthy. And yet, Zoe shows up wearing her buckley boots, over-the-knee athletic socks in black with two white stripes at the top, a modern kilt in blue and green plaid, and a white button up shirt. Of course, she has her heavy work gloves and her cutters and snips. The layered hoody and spikey leather jacket keep the worst of the cold away.
Hearing the call from the stacks, she ventures in after the yard owner. "MARCO!"
Minna plays the tail to Zoe's dog, walking along behind her, eyes passing over the junk, the rusted gold, the- what the hell is that anyways? Her motorcycle jacket's zipped to the neck today, either due to the cold or the threat of tetanus. "I can't believe you're wearing that," she says, giving Zoe a look.
Taika yells out a call of 'heeeeeyyyaaaaaaaaaaiiiii' as he notes Minna and Killigrew walking into the maze. He can be seen on top of one of the stacks. He is in his traditional clothes as opposed to his usual t-shirt. The Maori jumps from the stacks, catches a piece of metal sticking out about half way down to slow his momentum, and lands on his back. So much for being smooth. He grunts and rolls over to look at Killigrew and Minna and says, "Ow."
Bergin is just standing at the vague edge of the long, dark tunnel of cars and tries to peer beyond as the others gather. "Uh...Hey," he turns and tries not to look a little freaked out as to why one of the Boyz put this here. Killigrew dances back a little when the hollering comes from above, accompanied by a flying Taika! The thud sounds a little rough. "Hey, I said I would. I'm a kin of my word, Minna." The grin that accompanies the words is mischievous. Moving forward, she offers Taika one of her gloved hands and braces her tready boots in the dirt in case the much larger Garou takes her up on the offer of help up. "You alright?" Followed by. "Hey, Bergin."
Minna 's head whips around toward the sound of a body hitting the ground, but, well. A look is all it takes to put her at relative ease. Still- maybe it's the moon or something, but she seems a little on edge, taut in the shoulders and pinched in the face. "Four letter words," Minna mutters, grumbling, but ready to offer a hand to help the guy off the dirt if Zoe needs more muscle. "Hey," she calls out to Bergin, checking under Taika for a crater.
Taika rolls over and gets up himself, despite the offered hands, "Thank you, but if I do not learn to do it on my own now, how will I learn to get up on my own when it really matters." Pfft - he's not thinking about packs because that is their purpose - silly Get. He stretches and a painful popping sound can be heard. Maybe a rib, or hip popping back into place from the fall. He winces for a second and then is all smiles again. "Hey Berg. What happened? You called?" Taika twists a bit back and forth to make sure everything is back in order. The ground only shows minor damage from the man's fall.
Bergin glances back to Taika where he's landed and just shakes his head, "Bro you're seriously going to mess yourself up if you keep running on -TOP- of the rows back here. They aren't exactly -all- that stable and stuff. And uh..." he looks down the dark tunnel and then back to the small gathering, "There could be places that you don't want to just run into, ya know?"
The lumberjack of a shaman takes a step or two down the darkened tunnel of cars and things and explains that he's still getting an idea of what's back here but it's mostly unexplored. "Mrs. Marry said that they've just been piling the cars back here for years and doesn't really know what all we'd find...so...I thought I'd check it out."
Snubbed! The kin makes a bit of a face at the Get. "Pack helps pack. Kin helps Garou. Don't let pride get in the way of staying in a fight." And then? She pokes her pierced tongue out at Taika. Thppt. Minna gets a hip bump and a grin as Zoe starts over towards where Bergin is, peering into the shadowed tunnel. "This. Looks. Amazing! Come on!" There she goes, bouncing off down the tunnel, no fucks to give. Only seeing adventure and treasure, rather than the potential to have a ton of cars come crashing down on her.
Minna begrudgingly ( but not really ) meets Zoe's bump with a hip-check of her own, then swats at the Kin's back as she goes running off, idly wondering if this is what her parents must've felt like when they took her to a themepark. "What kind of places?" she calls to Bergin, frowning. She goes trotting off after the brightly colored Kinfolk, lest a wayward car or a holed out fridge fall on her.
The Maori listens as Killigrew dresses him down and erks, "Sorry. You're probably right." Taika rubs at his backside for another minute or so before nodding to Bergin, "Or I keep doing it to get stronger. Hard to learn when to retreat without getting beaten a few times and learning to read your opponent. With everything out to get us, might as well get in trouble close to home." That hangs out there for a moment. And off Kill goes, so he goes after her, not being outdone.
Bergin pulls a pocket flashlight out of his cargo pants pocket and shines it before them so that they know where they're stepping at least as they slowly and cautiously - oh what the hell is that kinfolk doing? "Zoe?" he calls after the Fury kin who seems to give no caution while heading down the darkened tunnel of cars. It takes them only dozen yards or so to follow the tunnel to its end but when they reach the conclusion of this potential mistaken adventure they find themselves faced with a different sort of problem. At the end of the long dark tunnel, you find yourself in a darkened redoubt of old cars and piles of junk amassed at the center. At the top of the mount, fashioned out of twisted wire, scraps of metal and who knows what sits a three-foot tall statue of a rat. Approach at your own risk. Image:http://imgur.com/NcwTSzc
The scampering pace slows when Killigrew makes it to the end of the tunnel. "Oh what the hell..." It's quiet, almost reverent, but for the words themselves. Circling the effigy, she stares, then breaks into a huge grin. "Guys! I think the Bone Gnawers are going to /love/ this! Think we should give it to them?" She makes no move to touch it - maybe there IS some self-preservation in the bouncy kin's brain after all.
Minna pays attention when the people that *know* the place seem worried. She tightens up the distance between herself and the Kin, agile as a runner, coming up short when Zoe does. She looks up and around, gives the half-cool, all-spooky sculpture the eyeball, and then Zoe. "Yeah, no," she says, putting an arm loosely around the Kin. "Doubt it's a coincidence something like that is here."
Taika pulls up right behind Kill and eyes the statue, "Could just be a work of art that was in the back of someone's car or that they left for scrap value. Doesn't have to be a creepy, put here on purpose statue or anything. Anyone else feel like we're being watched?" He chuckles, although there's some nerves there in that chuckle, and turns slowly to look around them.
"Ya ever seen like -any- movie where the band of kids stumble upon that place where they -know- they probably shouldn't be?" Bergin asks with a semi-ominious tone to his voice and tries to get them to back away from the dead end -and- the rat statue without touching it. "I'm not gonna ask the spirits if they've laid claim to that thing c-cause I'm not really sure I want the answer, ya know?" It's not that he's afraid but if something -were- to happen he's not exactly sure that he's got much as an answer that wouldn't get people more injured - especially considering his recent inability to connect a hammer trike with a target.
The touch from Minna keeps Zoe from reaching for the statue, but only just. Hearing Taika come up behind the two short furies, she turns her head slightly towards his presence. "Maybe." She says quietly, catching a glimpse of something, then slowly panning around the space. "But I don't think we'd be watched so closely if it was a harmless statue." she points out. Reaching into an inside pocket of her jacket, the kin retrieves a banana moon pie, unwrapping it and setting it between the feet of the Rat statue. "There's like fifty odd things staring at us. We should maybe go."
"Maybe," Minna hazards to Taika, caution in her tone. "But I'm not a believer in coincidence, and when I see a spooky statue placed in a spooky spot..." she trails off, watching Zoe make her offering. Probably a better word than 'spooky', but she doesn't know the technical terms. She isn't a Theurge. She glances all around them, nods at Bergin, then at Zoe, and, reaching into her pocket, she fiddles a little toast crust out of a napkin from yesterday's breakfast and tosses it beside the moon pie.
Taika watches the moon pie be set down and asks, "What's the likelihood they're all friendly? Maybe they're coming to say hi and to offer help back out of the maze because," and his voice raises a little here, "we're just your friendly neighborhood Garou and kinfolk - we mean no harm." Sure, as Zoe was just about to touch the statue! Taika doesn't have much on him, but he does close his eyes and give some of his essence to the area's spirits in an offering of Gnosis.
As offerings are placed before the rat-like assembledge of scrap metal, a sound that could best be described chittering white noise starts to grow in volume around the box canyon of dead vehicles. Whether or not the 'things' in the walls are excited or angry at the gifts is a question probably best left for scholars who are -very- far away from this place. The sounds builds and builds as each person offers their small portion of an offering until the Get shaman tries to...'help'.
"I..." he looks around at the various sources of the sound as though addressing congress or something, "...will bring pizza."
The skittering and chittering white noise that filled the walls like a growing tide of activity suddenly falls silent. You could hear a pin drop in this small theater to the Children of the Rat. Only the wind blows through the rows.
The sound is awful, building until the kinfolk covers her ears to try and blot some of it out. When it ends, she stays that way a moment, then cautiously moves her hands away from her ears and nods. "The Gnawers should know." she murmurs, starting to back away and bumping into Taika, then sidling over, nudging Minna, as she starts to make a far more cautious retreat than entrance. Tiptoe!
Minna listens carefully, as if there might be some warning or message she might be able to pick out from the raucous noise. It's almost worse when it stops. "Pizza?" she murmurs with a look, edging away, warily making her way back the way they'd came, giving the walls as wide a berth as she can without shouldering anyone.
Taika would hold his hands out so Killgrew doesn't stumble into him. He does the same as Minna backs away too. He is the last to leave, just in case something starts coming their way. "Pizza, right! With FREE delivery." Taika smiles with a nervous chuckles and makes his way out. "Easy now mates, easy now." Bergin does his best to help guide the group out of the blind end, offering the pocket flashlight to Zoe if she needs it to see through the dark tunnel as they leave. "Did -not- know that'd work," the shaman whispers as he backs away into the darkened tunnel, "But hey, Gnawers like pizza too, right?"
After he and the others are well within the darkened passage that lead them into this place he turns to face forward while muttering, "This is gonna cost me. Anyone know some of the Gnawer folk?"
"Chip. He was teaching us about spirits last night. Guess it came in handy, huh?" Zoe says lowly, sticking close to the wolves, this time - between the three of them, if she can manage it. If she had a tail, it'd be a leeeetle bit tucked, the kin not overly afraid, but cautious and healthily spooked by the encounter with the statue.
Minna looks less and less likely to initiate preemptive murder precautions the further they get away from the chittering darkness, maybe posturing just a little for Zoe's sake. "I just got here," she says, nodding at Zoe. "Seems like a place to start. I'll throw in a few dollars if you need some money. Can't help with much more than that." Bergin shakes his head to Minna as they emerge on the other, the -safer- side of the dark tunnel and eventually wind their way back to the safe part of the stacks. "Nah, you're good. These are my people so I'll take care of..." he waves back down the path they came from, "...that." With a quick glance towards the group he makes sure that people are at least physically ok as Taika heads off back to the shop. "So yeah...be a -bit- careful if you go exploring." he smiles to Zoe almost knowing she won't be.
Or bring more moon pies. "I gave them my breakfast." Minna gets a little bump of hip from Zoe, and she sticks close to the Garou, even once they're out of the stacks. "Did, um, did you need any help for the set up tonight?" she asks when it clicks what day it is. "I don't think I'll go there alone. I mean, maybe. But..." So much treasure and adventure! She could play at being a pirate, searching for booty! Bit today she's a little bit irish or scottish, to judge by the kilt.
"I'll get you breakfast," Minna says, shaking her head. "Should probably be eating something better than that, anyways." She gives Zoe a little side-eye as she seems to indicate a willingness to do things likely to turn the Garou's fur grey, then looks at Bergin and smiles. "Oh, right, the thing. You're having a party tonight, right?"
Bergin nods, "Yeah. The Gathering starts just around dusk or so. Show up around then and we'll feed ya until ya can barely walk." He smiles and makes sure both of the woman know that they're welcome to show up. "Hell, if I were you, I'd bring containers to take stuff home with you - just because we'll have so much extra."
