2020.11.13:Sept of Abundant Waters - Scouting

Sept of Abundant Waters - Scouting
Royan goes to get a bird's eye view of the situation.
IC Date	11-13-2020
IC Time	Twilight
Players	Royan, with Branton and Killigrew to ST
Location	Florida Swamps
Prp/Tp	Sept of Abundant Waters
Spheres	Gaian Garou

Twilight in the swamp is a magical time. It comes alive with the songs of the frogs and the hum of bugs. Birds sing their good night songs as they change shift with those that roam after the sun goes down. Alligators, warm from sunning, slip into the water and gather along the edges in preparations of a night of primal feasting.

From above it seems fairly normal. The huts on stilts are easy enough to find, linked to one another and the central area of the bawn. There's a good nine or ten of those stilted homes, and a huge one up on the raised, muddy area. Despite the tale of Spirals slaughtering everyone, there's a fair bit of activity down there.

For the Corax, being asked to go scout out the old Caern site, his answer was a given. He said yes. It is the mission of the Corax to find usable intelligence, and the eternal Show-off that is Swift Wing upon the High Wind was always eager to show-off to his Garou allies. And so, off to Florida he went. To the swamps. Him and his buddy, his Bob.

Bob would be riding upon the back of the Corax. He weights nearly nothing in the grand scheme of things and Royan easily carried the happy spider on his back. Happy to hear the sounds of joy from the spirit at getting to fly again. He stays high in the air, not wanting to draw attention just yet. He tries to get an idea, at first, at how many creatures at down there. If they are just humanoids, or other .. things .. as well. It would not do to land in the trees of an area held by an army, after all!

Looking closer proves problematic. There's people, surely, but they all move like there's something wrong. Some limp and shuffle, none lift their heads above what is needed to find their way. Muddied, utterly filthy, caked in swamp crud so thickly that it's hard to tell their skin from the remnants of clothing.

Some haul wood, some are carrying buckets with water in it - cleaned, somehow for consumption.

Watching closely a few moments, still high in the air, the Corax decides that being this high up will not give him what he needs. He lets out a clicking little sound from his beak, to then speak to his Spirit friend, ~Hang on, little Bob. We're going in for a closer look.~, a comment that is answered by a happy little humming from the spider. With that said, the Corax gives himself speed, heading off in a northerly direction. Once he feels he is well outside of the view of the 'village', he commits to a rapid descent. Down he goes, fast and agile, until he reaches the tops of the trees; however many there would be in the swamps. He then turns south once more, starting to approach the village using whatever vegetation he can as cover.

His plan? To get close enough so that he can land in a tree. Just pretend to be a raven, but hope not to be seen. And then get closer.

A crow among the trees isn't anything to throw up a fuss about. Just another bird, in a another tree, on another day. Finding a perch with a good view is easy enough.

There's a small commotion a little while after the Corax lands. Someone emerges from the large gathering hall, long black hair thick with mud and greenish with collected algae. Tall, broadly built, flesh etched with deep scarification in cross hatches and swirls that depict the madness of the spiral.

The muddied few doing chores are quick to scuttle and scatter.

Surveying the bawn, the man turns back inside and drags out a goodly sized alligator by the tail, hauling it towards an effigy for Gator. Claws make short work of the big reptile - Gator being fed his own Children in sacrifice.

Ooh. Alligator sacrifice. This is.. worrisome. As are the swirling tattoos of a suspiciously spirally origin on the lead figure. The large black raven that any sane person would never ever mistake for a crow (due to a significant difference in magnificence) simply watches for a few moments. Bob, for his part, does not yet get off the birds back. He remains sitting there, watching all around. He's the birds eyes to make sure nothing comes at them from behind.

He wants to get closer, though. And so.. he does! While the group are all occupied with the ritual, the raven begins to move closer to the village. He wants to see what else there is to see. What else might have changed in the village. Evidence. Something.

Around the back side of the big gathering hall is a large pile of moldering bones of all sizes - adult and child, human and wolf and metis. The algae has crept onto them, but the scavengers have been denied the feast, the pile a disgusting mess of decay. From within the building there are voices, laughing raucously, some softer, weeping. It could be any bawn, but for the air of melancholy seen in the now-hiding people,t he sounds of suffering from the gathering hall, and the sacrifice of the alligator to Gator.

He needs to see more! The Corax is not satisfied with .. just being there. In that tree. Watching. But flying into the village could prove to be bad. So, he tilts his head a bit, speaking to his friend, ~Up for a bit of scouting, little one? I know you always like to stretch your legs. You have so many of them!~

And, really, that is all the spider needs! Bob makes a happy sound, waving his mandibles in the air a bit before he slides off his raven friends back. He lowers himself down from the trunk with webbing, to then begin to scurry across the ground towards one of the huts. He seems to carefree doing it, too. As if the world was just a happy place and he was just a happy being looking up happy things. Dodging a tuft of grass here, rounding some bush there and, voila! That a hut. Helpfully attached to stilts, that he can climb up! So, up he goes. Up a wall, starting to look for a crack in the wall, or the roof to climb in through; because only silly spiders go through the door.

There's plenty of cracks and crevices for Bob to wedge his little self into. Within what was once a decent home is now a hollowed out shell. Walls ripped down with claws, leaving only the support posts needed for the framework and stability of the building. A couple of figures are huddled around a small brazier, roasting some scavenged roots and crayfish, scraps of fish.

There are three. And what little they have is shared in full. One seems to have partly healed from having half their face removed with claws - leaving them blind and drooling, struggling to eat what the others press to the ruin of their mouth. There is no talk, nothing but the weighty silence of people waiting for death. Bob goes only so far, with the hut being occupied. He peers about within the hut itself, while Royan peers out through Bobs eyes along with him; a power granted him by the power of their connection. Speaking to Bob through the link they share, the Corax advices, ~Nothing of use in here, my little friend. Go to the large house. And if something goes bad rush out! I will come from above and catch you.~

With that, Bob turns and squeezes out of the crack. He lowers himself back down on to the ground to then try to find the safest way to the large building, without being seen.

Scuttling along, a spider in the swamp isn't likely to draw much attention, much the same as a raven in a tree wouldn't. Bob makes it up on one of the short pillars that supports the large hall. There's refuse down there - bones and whatever else has been discarded and just kicked out of the way. A fresher looking corpse happens to be one such thing discarded, broken and swept under the floorboards.

There's a gap in the floorboard where the heart of a knot got knocked loose over time. It's easy to peep up through it, to get a sense of how vile the pack that have taken the bawn as their own are. Broken people, all with healing wounds of various sorts are kept to one side on a pile of stained up bedding. Non of them male. There's a good eight, no, nine, around a brazier, laughing and jeering. Two of them seem to be itching for a fight, one rising to an insult and starting to shift, the other just shoving the nearest of the captives at the shifting man.

The girl gets a casual backhand that breaks bone and sends her sprawling - but it calms the tensions, for the moment. There is no aid for the young woman.

The ones around the brazier? The Raven takes a good look at them through the eyes of Bob, his ever lasting friend and ally. He marks down their faces, any markings. Weapons. Such a vile place. But there is little else to find, here. This place is rotting, decaying. All the joys of life removed. Its inhabitants dead or dying; corrupted.

The Corax remains silent a few moments, to then decide, ~Bob. Return to the tree. Return to me. We must depart soon. We can not wait.~ And as he lets Bob make his way back, the bird tilts his head a bit to the side. He lowers his head down and begins to peck at something wrapped around his right leg. It's a tag, of sorts. But the tag is covered by a piece of cloth. Using his beak, he removes it to reveal a shiny surface. He uses that to peer into the Umbra, a last look a a cursed place before he leaves to deliver his report.

Peering across using the reflection of the tag, it's an ugly sight. What was surely once a well kept garden if happy spirits has fallen to the possession of bane spirits, warped and twisted little nasties that grow fat one the corruption that is being laid out to the Wyrm. A massive alligator, Gator, is sprawled near the base of the totem, feasting on the remain of the offering of it's own Child. Once a proud distillation of the species, it, too, grows warped and twisted. Scutes are elongated into a trail of sharp spines, claws and teeth lengthened to frightful sizes. The eyes seem blinded, clouded over, but it has no trouble 'seeing'.

As the Corax up in the tree at the edge of the village peer into the spirit, Bob prepares to return back to the tree. But as he starts to move back to the crack he came through, something catches his eye. An earring, with the nicest blue stonebead. In that very moment, Bob decides that blue is his favourite colour. He wants it. Its blue, after all. He moves up to it and quickly nabs it. He draws upon a power from his ally, the Feathery Friend, to make sure no one will ever miss it! Because, it he stole he and someone missed it, that would be not nice! Better to use the gift. No one will miss it, no one will be sad. He wraps the earring up in some webbing, for easier carrying, and then vamooshes out the crack in the wall. He lowers himself back down on to the ground, to then start to scurry out of the village, towards the tree. He's happy now. Such a lovely blue thing. He always did love blue.

Meanwhile, the Corax decides to stop peering into the Umbra. Its .. a sad sight. One he will never be able to forget. Lowering his head a bit, feathers laying flat along his body, he waits silently for Bob to come back to him.

Returning to the tree, Bob makes sure his little treasure is once more secure before he scrambles up the tree. He lets out a happy humming sound once reaching the branch that his Feathery Friend perches on. He stops there, lifts his front body up a bit and waves his mandibles in the air in greeting. He then scrambles up along the body of the Raven, securing himself on the birds back.

The Corax, for his part, waits patiently for Bob. When the spider arrives, he speaks to it, ~There you are. We best return. Come on..~ And with the spider secure on his back, the large black raven takes off. He goes up into the sky, as high as he can to make it hard to see him, where he can still see the ground. He makes one last pass over the larger area, making note of that patrol in the boat. He then turns north, flying hard and fast.

It is only once he is sure he is not followed, having flown for about and hour and landing, that he calls for Bob to open the first Moon Bridge. The first of three needed to get home, ~Like last time, little friend. But this time, we go west. Not east.~

And with that, with the tear in time, space and the fabric of reality, the raven disappears along with his Spirit friend.