2023.10.03: The Haunted Haven Pt 2
| The Haunted Haven | |
|---|---|
| Ever Changing and MistSeekers set out to deal with necromancer vampires and free ghost slaves as a chiminage quest. | |
| IC Date | October |
| IC Time | Afternoon |
| Players | Pancake Irsa Rhapsody Evan Kaz Jackie Stephen Abril |
| Location | Nowhere, Nebraska |
| Prp/Tp | Directly follows The Haunted Haven Part 1 |
| Theme Song | [link - name] |
When last we left our heroes, they had done battle against zombies and possessed toys in the basement of an old creepy house set in the middle of a fuckoff big cornfield. Probably this is all just a byproduct of the evil that is the Golden Corral, located within the tiny little farming town that's a few miles away. Rank, feted water comes up to your shins (or wolf knees, depending) the maze of Basement Crap is now more giant piles of broken shit after having fought dead guys. And those dead guys float (we all float down here) and stink, but they don't move any more, which is just... great.
Farthest from the party are the closed cellar doors leading to the outside world, and closest to the party are some aged, rotted wood stairs that lead upwards where an old farm door sloooooowly creaks its way open in sinister invitation. One of three wraith fetishes have been claimed, an oldass doll that once belonged to a little girl whose ghost has been trapped down here in service to necromancers for who knows how long.
Protector-of-Hope has a hold in her hands the doll, still in the case, but the door opened to it - it is not longer locked up. "I'll protect this for now, but I think we need to continue upstairs and find her mom and put an end to those torturing them. Alpha, your thoughts?"
"We're goin' to go free Micha and your Momma from those bad guys upstairs. Sit tight, all right?" Irsa tells the girl-ghost. She eyes the rotting staircase. "That ain't gonna take a lotta weight. Kaz, you're on point. Rhapsody an' Evan next, you're lead on speakin' to the ghosts. Jackie next, then me. We'll work with Kaz on guardin' flanks an' scouting."
Kaz nods at his alpha's command and crouches low as he starts to move up the stairs slowly. He walks as lightly as he can on the old stairs with his eyes watching the for movement that needs to be stabbed.
Jackie raises her spear into a high grip over her head and steps behind Evan to follow him up the stairs.
The stairs let out into an old, dark kitchen. It's not very large, but it's filled with cupboards that go clear up to the ceiling, and the appliances are old, ruined things from before most modern conveniences. A tub sink, but no dishwasher. An actual ice box, not a refrigerator. A wood stove rather than an electric. That sort of thing. An old table is made with thick, heavy wood, but it's dry and its planks are slightly warped with age and dry air. The kitchen looks abandoned rather than cleaned out, there's still a few things here and there in the cupboards, there's still dishes and utensils, as though the occupants simply walked out one day without packing or picking up. There are open doorways that lead to narrow hallways whose floors are warped and tilted at funny angles, much like the old, battered walls that don't look entirely straight. The wooden floor planks creak under the weight and steps of the garou.
Cobwebs drape thickly between surfaces and everything is covered with a layer of dust, and the windows are easier to look out of from the inside, though they're still caked with years of grime. There is no available lighting here, save the cold, white light of the full moon that filters through the glass. Through that dingy glass one can see thick, low mist rolling through rows of tall, dead corn plants, covering the dusty, barren ground of the yard in an eerie white-grey carpet.
Evan has gotten a little thoughtful after gesturing the ghost girl in the direction of where he thinks Mercy is in the ghost lands. But he hears his alpha's instructions and moves to obey and pay attention "From the Great Depression era, maybe the Dust Bowl. Hard to nail it down exactly."
Primal Figure curls her lip as she takes in the surroundings. Rotting floors that creak, warped walls begging to be broken through by attackers, sketchy appliances and alcoves, weird illusions-- it all screams 'death trap'. She checks the ice box warily: it's probably too small to hold a zombie or a Leech, but who knows what other horrors might be inside?
Protector-of-Hope follows up in the order given, and is trying to be ready for anything. Doll in one hand, power blade in the other. "Great Depression? Wow. So about a hundred years." She looks around the kitchen as they arrive and is on edge.
Kaz's eyes shift throughout the room. He can't help but scoff at the sight of the full moon that doesn't make his heart race and burn with fury. Making a mockery of Luna is one more reason to kill those here. Possibly kill them again... He wasn't sure but it didn't matter. He creeps to the center of the room looking for enemies and keeping track of his packmates to cover them if needed.
Evan does still have his little will-o-wisp floating near by for a light source as he goes to look out the window "This has to be an illusion right? We weren't in the basement for two weeks or something?" as he peers at the window frame to see if he can find any runes or sigils for the theurges to decipher.
Jackie glances at the window as she gets off the staircase. "Hell, half the time I don't even know if we're in the real world or not."
The ice box is indeed too small, and it smells. Not like the dead guys in the basement though, more like an old wet sock that got lost somewhere it could remain damp and grow some interesting molds. That kind of smell. Through the grimy windows, dark shapes can be seen beginning to move out of the dead corn to shamble towards the house, their lumbering, awkward steps causing waves and eddies in the low mist. Even if you know, or are pretty sure you know, that this is all illusory, how *much* is illusion? After all, the dead guys in the basement were definitely real! And it just feels... *wrong* here, the sort of dreadful haunting feel that might well unnerve a Garou were it not for the beacon of safety that is Kaz.
A cold, icy chill wafts through the kitchen, and a moment later, things begin to rattle noisily. Plates, tin cups, flatware, ancient rusty cast iron skillets, the doors of the ice box, everything, just... beginning to jitterbug madly. First it's a single cup that goes flipping off a counter to fly at the garou. Then a couple of plates. Then lots of forks and spoons. Some fell dead magic is being used to hurl shit at you. Not all of it's going to hurt or even do damage, but like that cast iron pan, you don't wanna take that to the face, you know?
Protector-of-Hope holds up her power blade and activates it again with a WHOOOOSH! She's ready to be a Fruit Ninja Assassin - or maybe (dare I say!) a jedi knight to take out the flying objects should they get too close! "Heads up!"
Primal Figure growls and tries to snatch that nasty pan out of the air. It might be ghost-powered, but throwing things is her jam, no pretenders allowed! "Look for a Bindin' object!" she snarls. "We got this an' the windows, get th' wraiths t' chill out!"
Kaz snarls as a fork sticks into his arm and a dish hits his shoulder. He grows a bit as he shifts into glabro and his eyes narrow under his dark unibrow in this form. He moves in front of Rhapsody and Evan to cover them from the pelting utensils and dishware with his body and swinging knife.
Protector-of-Hope will head to the dining room to look around, "I'll go that way to look." She really does not quite feel like staying in the kitchen so door #2 is her choice!
Jackie crouches low to avoid flying cutlery, staying in the kitchen to keep watch for now.
Evan is going to check one of the bedrooms, staying so he can still glance back into the main room where the others are. Checking under the bed specifically because when he was a kid that's where he'd stash his stuff. Bobbing and weaving as he goes and only not getting clocked by something heavy because of his packmates parrying.
Primal Figure uses that captured frying pan to bat things out of the air. She's looking around in here, trying to figure out just what might count as a binding object. Surely it's not that rolling pin flying around!
The old wood stove makes a sound not unlike a legion of screams as fire erupts inside of it, tongues of flame bursting from the vent holes, the heavy metal thing shaking and rattling, adding noise and smoke to the chaos of the already clanging and banging kitchen crowded with folk. Old, rust-red water explodes up out of the sink's drain and spews out of its aged old tap with enough force to send sprays of liquid all over the room. It's a veritable shit storm of stuff in the kitchen! The moans of the living dead can just barely be heard through the din, their thuds and bangs rattle the back door.
For those leaving the kitchen, the hallway was made by someone that'd never even *heard* of building codes! The floor is all wonky, the angles of the walls seem worse than they did a minute ago. The halls are, of course, dusty and cobwebby like crazy.
Dining room: A poor family's dining room, but it's small and there's a lot of Stuff in there. Furnishings mostly (chairs, table, end tables for The Good Dishes and etc), aged knick-knacks, some framed old photos, stuff like that.
Bedroom: It was probably a girl's room, given the moldering old toys lying around and the small size of the wooden bed frame with its mattress and blankets in tatters.
Living room: Basically the same as the dining room, lotta furnishings and photos, couch and etc., but of poor quality even before they got all gross with age. Plenty of storage though, no tv or anything like that of course.
Upstairs? Yes, there IS a flight of stairs going up. Dunno what's up there though. And yes, this is a two story with an attic loft.
Protector-of-Hope will take her time to look around inside the Dining Room. Yes, she looks in where the GOOD DISHES would be, and walks carefully around, looking under the table. Her blade still at the ready.
Jackie duck-walks to the archway leading out of the kitchen, trying to stay near a wall for cover from the nonsense flying about overhead. "We always end up in the nicest places, don't we?"
Throatcrusher swats another dish out of the air causing it to shatter against a nearby wall. He thumps his chest a couple times as he yells, "COME ON! Is this all the fury the dead can muster!" He makes a fist and flexes causing a fork sticking out of his forearm to fly free. He continues his taunts at whatever is causing the dishes and possibly soon the kitchen sink to be thrown about hoping to keep them from paying attention to his packmates as they seek out the main goal.
Primal Figure growls and shakes her head. "Nothin' in here, next room!" she growls over the pack's mental link. She's taking that cast iron pan with her, 'cause fuck you ghosts. "We're movin' to the living room, meet up here when you're done with your spots."
In the dining room: Rhapsody is ransacking the good china hutch, looking for ANYTHING that might help. And she sorta does, she stops with a little framed photo in hand that was sitting between some cracked old china plates. And then the whole hutch just tips over on her. This... hurts a bit. It's not life threatening, but there might be some cracked ribs, some wind knocked out of her, maybe a few cuts from breaking dishes.
In the kitchen, as Irsa is moving to a new location, Kaz taunts the angry ghost of the first floor and is answered by the ice box launching itself across the room at him, intent on squishing him between it and a wall. He is surely shoved, but he is not smooshed! Dude can take a fridge punch, he's fiiiiine.
In the bedroom, Evan is searching around, and he's reaching under the bed for something that looks promising, up till a teenage zombie boy just launches himself out from under the bed, mouth open in a rictus snarl with teeth aimed for Galliard face! He manages to jerk back out of the way though and NOT get his face bit off. Which is handy.
And Jackie... I mean there's nothing *in* the hallway really. I'm sure she's viciously attacked by a daddy long legs or something, though. Probably too much dust up her nose threatening her with a lethal sneezing fit, maybe...
Primal Figure lets out a string of curses at the sound of crashing from the dining room. "Throatcrusher, cover Evan. Me an' Jackie will get Protector-of-Hope outta there." And with that, she darts into the living room.
Throatcrusher grunts as the fridge connects with him and he staggers back a couple steps. "I can throw things too!" He plants his near man hands on the ice box and hefts it into the air for a moment before hurling it back into the kitchen where it came from with a war cry. Satisfied that he had surely shown the ghost what was what he moves to assist Evan.
Evan swells back up to Glabro as he back pedals to dodge the zombie and grabs vase off the little girl's dresser to smash the zombie over the head "Oh god! Vel rhech mewn pot jam."
Jackie ducks into the dining room and jams the butt of her spear under the top of the cabinet, over and across Rhapsody's shoulders. Then she heaves on the shaft, levering the damned thing up and off of her to free her from the weight.
Protector-of-Hope is happy for the assist and will do her best to scramble out of there with the photo, the doll, and her stuff. "Thank you, bless you. " Once she is up, she shows them the photo. "Look at what I found." She shows the photo of a woman, a man, a young girl and a young-teen boy. They're dressed in poor clothing, but the boy has a hat held against his chest, it's an old civil war era cavalry hat (Northern). It looks in good condition for its age.
With the party split throughout the first floor, there's trouble getting any info from the shadowlands to the land of the living. Occasionally a line or two of ectoplasmic goo will start on a wall or a door, then suddenly get interrupted and stop. They're... having some *issues* on the other side of the shroud.
The ice box announces its arrival on the other side of the room with a CRASH!clattersmashthud! as the aged and warped wood of the wall beside the back door caves in. As the ice box thuds out to land upside down on the dirt, the dead begin to claw their way inside in a clumsy, shambling hoard with a taste for Kaz meat.
In the dining room, as Rhapsody is being freed from the hutch, they're able to hear the smashing and now the moans of the undead, as well as crashes from elsewhere in the house. Zombies always wait until things look bad before they start smashing windows, it's a rule. Fog (somehow) begins to roll into the house from outside.
In the bedroom! Zombie Boy's gonna getcha! Him and his stank crawl out from under the bed and he throws himself at Evan, rancid spittle dripping from his yellowed teeth. Fortunately he's not a very big guy, he's emaciated and boney.
Primal Figure swears as the zombie horde begins to roll in. "Fuck. Change a' plans!" she calls over the pack link. "I'm healin' Protector-of-Hope, she's checkin' the living room real fast. Jackie, go back up Collector-of-Tales. Me an' Throatcrusher can hold 'em here. Sing out if you get a thing! We'll move to th' stairwell if we're gonna get overrun."
Throatcrusher's shoulders slump and he grunts in irritation as the sounds of the horde coming in the house reach him. He turns and growls at the oncoming enemies. He grabs whatever nearby furniture there is and tosses them into the way between him and the horde to break them up so they can't come at him with all of their numbers. He even punches the rotted floor in a few places to make the ground between him and them harder to traverse. He glances behind him and sees the others doing their part and girds himself to do his. "Let's do this." He snarls at the oncoming horde.
Protector-of-Hope thanks Hammer-Tooth for the healing, and then moves off to the Living Room to start looking around. She is SUPER careful and not picking anything up unless it seems needing to be checked.
Evan growls as he punches the zombie and calls out "The next fetter's behind this thing under the bed. Just have to get to it."
Jackie comes into the room behind Evan, then pivots hard and uses the momentum to drive her spear around Evan into the zombie and pin it to the wall. She uses the magical power of leverage again to lift the haft and slide the zombie down towards blade end of the spear. "I'll hold this thing, grab the dingus!"
Available weapons in the kitchen: A few wood chairs and a table, all thicker and heavier and more solid than anything modern. Oldass appliances (except the wood stove unless you have Master of Fire running. Cause it's on fire.) Cast iron pots and pans, questionably durable knives and stuff. The hoard doesn't work well together, shoving each other and crawling over each other to get into the house, and making a "quick" lumbering, lurching pace at Irsa and Kaz with their arms outstretched, their eyes milky white and sightless, their mouths opened and hungry. The lighting isn't super good at the moment, but where the false moonlight or the flickering firelight hits some of them, they do appear to have old blood down the front of their shirts, torn open necks, and there's a few chest stabs in the mix. Basically none of these zombies died from old age or choking on a sandwich or anything, they suffered violent deaths probably at the hungry hands of vampires or cultists or something.
In the bedroom: The zombie takes the hits in quick succession, dresser, fist and spear, and as Jackie has it pinned, for a quick second it blinks out of existence, the same way the ghost girl was knocked out of this plane when Kaz dive tackled her. Just a second though, then it reappears in the clutter of the broken dresser that'd squashed it a minute ago. Rather than attacking again, he throws back his head and screams, "GET! OOOOOOOOUT!" at a volume that leaves ears ringing. Dust dribbles from the ceiling as the entire house shakes with the force of the wraith's rage. But surely he wouldn't drop this baby on everyone's heads, his master would probably be pissed. Then again... You *are* threatening to get his fetish, so... Who knows.
Evan is going to dive for the fetter in the box, trying not to think about the the grossness of the crawlspace under the ruins of the bed "We freed your sister already, just hold on a moment longer and you're next."
Jackie blinks in surprise a few times as the pinned zombie vanishes, then reappears in a non-pinned position. She spins to block off it's new direction with her spear and cover Evan. "Well, that was fucking unfair."
"Oh hell, no, zombie, not in this kitchen. Irsa hurls that cast-iron pan at the incoming horde, pinging that thing off the stove and ricocheting that cookware everywhere. And... great, now there's a dead dude behind them. "Chill out, Micha!" Irsa snarls at the zombie-ghost. "We already set your sister free, we're tryin' to help ya!"
Protector-of-Hope hears what Evan has said and she heads to the Bedroom with all her items including the photograph.
Throatcrusher watches as the horde shambles in and as his alpha hurls the amazing pan of doom through a few of them. He pauses a little longer to insure most of them are through before leaping forward and snatches up the heavy table with a snarl. "Be with the rest of your kind down below!" He hurls the table with another war cry into the floor and grins at the satisfying sound of splintering wood and surprised zombies tumbling to their doom.
Evan gets his hands on a locked wooden box with a small window in its rune carved lid. Inside is an old hat, it's not in the best condition any more, but it's authentic and still has a small pin in front denoting some cavalry unit or another. Rhapsody can confirm it with her photograph.
Aside from looking like a starvation victim, Micha looks... worn the fuck out. There's no human signs of that, no heavy breathing or sweating or anything, obviously, but the slump of his bony shoulders, the weary look to his shining silver eyes, being a maniac and throwing shit around takes a lot out of him, as does this back and forth through the shroud. There *is* damage to his corpus where Jackie's spear hit him, not a bloody wound exactly but he is stained with ectoplasmic goo and there's a hole in him. "Don't! Stop it! I'm *warning* you!" his hands are clenched into fists at his side, but you know what they say. Any tough guy that has to warn you like that hasn't got anything to back it up. Probably. Course, if he DID any of his telekinetic bullshit, he might hurt his own fetter and that would be bad.
From the basement are smashes and splashes as the dead fall in and find themselves trapped. There's zombie sounds in other parts of the house though, the lumbering goons falling in through windows or banging at the front door, as of yet held up by their horrible dexterity and the old timey penchant for having a lot of shit in their house.
Protector-of-Hope nods, seeing the hat. "That's his hat. We should head upstairs. Is it clear?" She asks.
Evan takes out an ornate horn handled knife of the Fianna tradition "A relic of my grandfather to free the relic of yours. Be at peace son of Glory." and scrapes off the runes the way he saw the theurges do earlier on Penelope-Grace's (the doll) bindings.
Jackie backs up as Evan takes care of the hat, then pushed back out into the hallway to check into the other rooms. She yells down the stairs. "Kind of clear? At least one ghosty person yelling in a corner, maybe more somewhere?"
"Move when you got it!" Irsa calls out. "Stairwell, go go go!" She throws one last pot at a zombie standing stupidly in the blasted-in kitchen doorway and hauls ass outta there to cover the others when they retreat.
Protector-of-Hope helps to be sure the right parts are scraped off by Evan, letting him do the glorious work of freeing the ghost here. "Perfect!"
Throatcrusher looks down at his handiwork with satisfaction. He considers the scene before him and his eyes narrow as he tries to think of something clever to say like in the movie the pack had made him watch recently. "Now they are... dead... weight..." He spares another moment to look to his alpha to see if this is correct or not before moving to intercept any of the zombies coming in the windows.
Primal Figure gives Throatcrusher a thumbs up. This was indeed correct!
Evan turns to Micha as he returns the freed fetter "Your sister should be near by with friends of ours, go to her. We'll free anyone else that's left." Then he moves to follow his packmates further up and further in.
Micha shudders, and for a second there he eyes his now freed Favored Thing, but... Then he looks up at the ceiling with a hateful, 'I am going to fuck you up' look on his face. Without so much as a thank you or any help for what's above, he blips out of existence (and back into the shadow lands). Whatever strength he has left to him, he has ideas on what to do with it. As soon as he vanishes, BAM! Sunlight through the windows. Fog gone, weird creepy angles gone, dread gone, Micha's haunting illusions have fully ceased.
As the gang rushes towards the sagging old stairs up to the second floor, the not at all illusory dead begin to pour through the doorways of other rooms. Strangely not the bedroom where the fetish was, though. Would have interrupted the dramatics or something. Any how...
At the top of the stairs is... a hallway! The place is in bad repair, rain damage through gaps in the roof and all. Chanting can be heard in some nearby room. Door choices are slim here, you have left or you have right.
Primal Figure snatches up a console table in the hall and jams it into the stairwell. It won't hold back the zombies for long, and she knows it. "Find that last fetter, quick! We'll cover you."
Evan is looking around frantically when he turns on Irsa *snarling* trying to shove her out of the way and knock the table loose.
Jackie follows behind Evan, a 'what the fuck is he doing' look on her face.
Kaz and Rhapsody towards the front of the group, they're able to get up and inspect them doors a little more than the rest can. (Chanting sounds a little heavier on the left, but the moans and yells don't help. Evan hot on their heels, as is Jackie while Irsa prepares to try and halt the zombies. Right when Evan goes rogue! The Galliard's gone turn coat, trying to let the lumbering hoard up the stairs. Which sucks because that *totally* would have worked the way Irsa planned it, but noooo, now the zombies have the table and it's gone, chucked over the banister. No time for thinking, you've got mere seconds before the zombies are up in the hall with you! What do you do?!
"What th' fuck?!" Irsa snarls as she's shoved from behind. No time to figure this out, there's a zombie horde coming up the stairs. She whips out a gift from Mercy herself: The Brick Storm. A literal whirlwind of bricks shoot from her hands, tearing into the zombies coming up the stairs as the Bone Gnawer howls defiantly.
Throatcrusher glances over at the commotion behind him but continues on with his plan of kicking in the door and cutting the head off of this dead snake. He kicks the door with the chanting behind it and looks inside for a target.
Evan looks horrified all of a sudden, staring at his hands and backing up from Irsa. Seriously freaked out.
Protector-of-Hope follows in Throatcrusher, her power blade at the ready in case they need to hack and slash or what. The chanting is never a good sign!
Kablam! The door is kicked in and partially breaks in half around Kaz's foot. As it turns out, it didn't really matter which door you picked, the upstairs is aaaaaalmost all one continuous room. There's PARTS of walls still intact, but there's big sections where they're gone completely, be it from intentional breakage or just rot over time. The gloomy interior is just a fucking *wreck* too. Mainly due to weather damage but the human sacrifices and necromancy haven't really helped the decor much. The attic loft area doesn't actually have much of a floor left, making it fairly useless as a space, mostly it just makes the second floor really tall.
A ghostly, transparent woman's hand reaches through the shroud between life or death, grasping towards Kaz's head... but then jerks back and disappears. That's a boss fight for Branton and Mercy, not this group.
Instead, the pack gets one dude standing within a black ring of runes and symbols and complicated lines, a quartet of acolytes knelt around him. This man is deathly pale and his forehead is beaded with blood-sweat. More crimson runs down his chin and onto his chest, a dead cultist lies at his feet. The vampire is heavily cloaked and cowled against the shafts of sunlight bleeding through the wounded roof of this haunt.
Behind you, the hoard ascends the stairs, slowed and held up a bit by their brick faced companions falling under their feet. The banister snaps and crackles, breaking apart as they try to shove their way up. Irsa's brick is lost in the thick of them for now, don't forget to pick that up after all this.
While Evan is 'oh fuck!'ing his way out of what might have been a possession or something, Kaz has entered the axe murderer portion of the horror movie. He catches a little bit of an axe blade, but he's not a red-shirt so he doesn't immediately die. The axe wielder, however, becomes a projectile weapon himself, Wilhelm screaming his way across the second floor. Before the guy can hit their glorious leader, one of the chanting cultists jumps up to take the hit himself.
Throatcrusher grunts in surprise as an axe comes swinging at him once the door flies open. Some of his blood splatters against the wall to join other older stains. He looks at it and his eyes go wide as he turns back to the cultist who had dared made him bleed his own blood and let's out a low growl followed by an almost whispered, "Leech spawn..." A heartbeat later there's a sickening crunching noise as Kaz wraps his large arms around the cultist and bends certain limbs in ways they aren't meant to. Satisfied this cultist won't repeat its error he looks to the leader in the circle. "This one is broken. Have it back!" He hurls the broken body at their leader in the circle.
Primal Figure roars in fury and tears off a section of the banister. 'KILL THAT FUCKIN' LEECH!" she yells, lashing out with that improvised weapon. She's focused on keeping the Horde back, leaving her pack free to straight-murder a Necromancer jerk.
Jackie charges up the stairwell after Kaz and Rhapsody ready to support them in some fast and furious violence.
When his pack leader calls for the vampire's death Evan's body starts heading that direction as his mind is still snapping back into clarity. Finding himself backing up Kaz is a very familiar place and Evan gets his horn handled knife out and goes in to assist in the stabbing.
Protector-of-Hope looks at the photo and then to what she sees around. She is looking around and there it is! "The ring! We need the ring! It's a woman's ring! Right there!" She'll get up to the leech and start to take off the ring herself.
Necromancy is hard to do, you cant be out there swingin' knives and stuff when you're trying to control an entire hoard of undead, so there's no immediate leaping up when the Garou rush in and start chuckin' dudes across the room or anything. Only one at a time do the cultists pull themselves out of their trances, the first one being the guy that took the hit from his flying brother to protect his master. The other three begin to rise up out of their kneels, drawing wicked looking bone daggers. They're fangless, ghouls probably, but they look... withered, sorta, as though their life force has been siphoned off along with their blood. Or maybe they're just coming to reflect what they do and how they do it, who knows with these types.
As Rhapsody reaches out to try and take a slim ring off the chanting vampire's hand, one of his rising cultists lashes out at her with his knife.
Throatcrusher blurs forward in a swirl of brutal violence. He grabs the first cultist in his path by the back of the head and slams his face down into the floor with a crunch. He rubs the now bloody face into the rotting wood and gives a quick stomp on its back as he moves to his next target. This one gets met by a meaty fist to the jaw as he tries to stand up to meet him. He leaves it spitting out teeth as he moves to his the last cultist. This one is more ready for Kaz and only takes a front kick to the gut that drives it back.
Primal Figure doggedly keeps at it, knocking zombies back as her packmates tear into the Necromancer and his ghoul minions. "Hell yeah! FUCK 'EM UP!"
Protector-of-Hope avoids getting hurt by the cultist that is after her as she's trying to take the ring from the vampire chanting. She then pulls her power blade and slices off his hand so she can then take the ring off to get it for herself - leaving the vampire for the others to stab into oblivion!
Evan moves off to the side to cover one of Kaz's flanks, giving one of the wounded cultists an hard stab in the belly with his fighting knife. Snarling "Are you even trying?!" in the enemy's face.
Jackie runs into the room behind the lead elements and leaps into the air behind Kaz like Michael Jordon going for a dunk, only to instead thrust the spear down into the chest of the leech like a lawn dart gone wild and dangerous. She grins as she lands, her spear digging deep into the undead fuck in front of her. "Yeah, get some, motherfucker!"
The first cultist is left bloodied and dazed by Kaz, taking a clumsy swing through the air with his bone dagger. He misses by a mile, vision all obscured by stars, blood, and wood splinters. The second cultist is left reeling as Kaz waltzes with violence through their midst, and before he can do anything, he's forced to exhale his last when Evan sinks a knife into him. He looks *so* confused staring at Evan's face. But... but... I'm a fucking *ghoul*! And alas, he's also super dead. The last cultist is still painfully sucking wind back into his lungs after getting the boot from Kaz, but he valiantly slashes at Jackie in a desperate attempt to save his master from her spear.
Speaking of the vampire... He's just doing his business, chanting away, not operating at full strength due to it being not-night outside, so he's not able to split his attention well. He's concentrating, keeping the zombie hoard surging up the stairs, driving Irsa back as she swings her banister club, backing her into the room with the others. The second door crashes and there's only so much of Irsa to go around, so she's keeping one stream of them at bay at that left hand door that Kaz kicked in, but others are beginning to stream in through the right...
But then Jedi Rhapsody fucking slices his HAND OFF! Most of the way off. Like it's still hanging on by a bit of flesh, BUT STILL. "FUUUUUUCK!" the leech screams at the same time all of the zombies collapse into unmoving heaps of corpses. And then "AAAAHHHH!" at a SPEAR through his PERSON! OW! He's driven back by the force of the blow as well as the pain, but he lashes out, swiping at Rhapsody's sword hand. Her skin begins to whither and darken, her knuckles swelling and becoming painful as her arm begins to whither with rapid onset of age.
In a panic, his minions all but defeated, the vampire grabs the last standing (still wheezing) ghoul and *shoves* him at the garou as he goes running, wrapping his robes tight around himself so that he can throw himself through a covered up window. He'll take his chances with the daylight, thank you very much!
Primal Figure lets out a string of curses in Spanish as she's forced back. And Korean. Wut oh! The Bone Gnawer throws the ruined piece of banister into a zombie's face and swings the door shut to try to slam more as they close in.
Protector-of-Hope takes her power blade and goes to hack into the Vampire. Shifting with rage into Crinos, the damage done to her arm means she needs to use her off hand thus she can only gets it so far into the leeches neck. It's halfway in there as the Vampire is out fallen to the lawn now. She does not stop and LEAPS out the window to grab her power blade and slice the rest of the way to end this vampire before the sun does it for her. She ROOOOOAAAAARRRRSSS as she is one pissed off furry death machine.
"Protector-of-Hope!" Irsa shouts, racing after her packmate and diving right out the window after her.
Evan does not even take the time to be disappointed at how easy the cultist goes down and he just sweeps to the next target, stabbing them in something vital and moving on till there's no one left. At his leadership diving out the window he pauses but then sticks to his assigned task. Surely the senior wolves know what they're doing.
Throatcrusher takes a moment to look around and watches his alpha and Rhapsody go out the window after the vampire. He sniffs and draws his blade. "Your master is dead or soon will be. You who worship the dead will now join them." He locks eyes with the cultist he kicked and keeps staring at him as he reaches down and calmly slits the throat of the unconscious cultist. He then leaps forward and slashes the cultist in the belly and then shoves it towards Jackie to finish off.
Jackie stabs the cultist through the gut as he's shoved in her direction, then lets go of the spear shaft to point with two fingers at her eyes, then turn them to point at the eyes of the dying cultist with dramatic emphasis. She then yanks the spear out of his guts and heads out to follow the pack, even it means going out a second story window.
The vampire, stabbed while in free fall and now just sort of pinned to the earth by a burning blade of energy, the sun scorching his flesh in the few spots where he isn't covered, he begins to scream. Fangs catch the angry rays of Helios as his uncovered face blackens, starting to split like a ham left too long on the spit. Flames begin to erupt from the place where Rhapsody's sword is lodged in his neck, his scream becoming ragged as a lick of flame bursts from his mouth, but his agony is cut short as she finishes the job, decapitating him. His body begins to rapidly whither, sliding too quickly through the decay process of a corpse until his remains are half mummified, as of a creature that's been dead for a long, long time. The wedding band slips loosely off his skinny, skeletal finger.
Rhapsody's arm is not okay, it looks a lot like he does right now, not TOO dissimilar from the effects of the gift Whither Limb, kinda. Fixable with healing, but currently owchie and very weak. Upstairs, blood begins to soak into the aged floor boards and things are... quiet. No shambling undead sounds, no flying objects, no moans or screams or chanting. The party may regroup at their leisure with all three rescued fetters.
Evan looks around and doesn't find any more targets so instead he looks for the vampire's severed hand with the ring on it. Wanting to be certain the ghost lady is freed to be with her ghost kids.
Protector-of-Hope has the ring at least, after putting down the power blade now that the leech is dead. >> I got the ring! << Her arm - she looks at - and ROOOAAAARRRSS >> MY ARM!! DAMN LEECH!!! << But she has the ring and that is enough for her right now. She looks at it the best she can as she shifts back to Glabro now to get a better handle on it without large claws.
Jackie takes a wincing shuddering breath as she peels herself up off of the earth and looks around. Her eyes fix first on Rhapsody's withered paw. "Ooh, that does not look good..."
Ragged Brown Wolf twists mid-air as she shifts to wolf, landing cat-like with all four feet under her. >> Sister! << she yowls, darting over to the Black Fury. >> He hurt you! << she snarls, sniffing at her withered arm. She kicks dirt over the leech's remains with her hind feet. >> Come inside and I will heal you. <<
Throatcrusher wipes off his blade on a dead cultist and moves to the window to look down. Seeing his packmates down there he leaps out the window to join them. Once on the ground he shrinks to his human form. He can't help but grimace at Rhapsody's arm. He looks to Irsa hoping that they this cursed wound can be healed.
Evan will follow the rest of the group out the window, trying to at least land properly and trusting his natural regeneration to make up the difference. Once landed he looks to his pack leader for further direction.
A woman appears on the lawn, with her two children beside her. She's lived a hard life and it shows in her sallow cheeks and lean body, her back bent from hard labor on a farm and the horrors of her era. A little but of dark mud trickles from the corners of her mouth, and when she speaks, it's with the rough voice of someone with breathing issues. "Put them down, please." she says politely, but firmly.
Long ago, this farm had failed, the crops had died and the dust made its claim. The boy died of starvation, and the girl who stands beside her mother with the choking hand prints around her neck, well those prints look like her mother's hands size. A callous act perhaps, but maybe better than watching her daughter waste away as her son had. It fixed nothing, however, the dust claimed her breath and she died choking on mud. Of the man featured in that photograph Rhapsody found, there is no sign. Unless he was the vampire, but it'd be hard to tell, given his current state.
Protector-of-Hope looks to Irsa "Please ... but first." She puts down the doll and the ring together - waiting for Evan to put down the hat as well with them. She looks like she could shed a tear at that moment seeing the family there. Her arm is the least of her concern, "Was... he... him? In the photo?" She does not know if she will get an answer, but tries.
Evan adds the fetter he carried to the pile and stays quiet as the Theurges deal the spirit stuff, not feeling the pull of the Narrative calling him to speak yet.
Ragged Brown Wolf follows the Black Fury, sitting down next to her and tilting her head at the ghosts. >> It had better not be her mate who did this to them, << she growls. >> I will go back and piss on his ashes if it was. <<
Kaz crosses his arms and watches quietly. His role in this was mostly done. "Are Mercy and Branton all right in the what was it...? Shadowlands?"
Jackie groans at the fresh aches in her body from bouncing off the ground, cracking her neck as she stretches out and makes sure nothing's broken that seriously. Then she sneaks up on Rhapsody and reaches out to try and see if she can heal the crazy bullshit.
"That is not my husband." the woman says, a globule of mud sliding from her lips to roll off her chin and vanish in the air. It's not really an answer, she might mean she has no idea who he is, or she might mean that's not her husband any more, either way she doesn't elaborate. The emaciated boy flicker-stutters his form in that creepy ghost movie movement way across the lawn to crouch protectively over the fetters, staring with wan silver light in his eyes at the garou. As much as these fetters are a weakness, as much as they'd love to be rid of them, they *need* them, desperately, and they will do anything to protect them. Serve someone holding them hostage, or fuck up their rescuers, either or, even if that'd make them sorta sad.
The girl enjoyed dolls, and so she used the dead like dolls and puppets in the basement. The boy is filled with anger and all the fury of a soldier, so he wielded destruction. The woman commands as a matriarch. Speaking of which, she glances at Evan and says, "Forgive me."
At about that time, way over there, Mercy and Branton exit the shadow lands, probably like puking up ectoplasm or something equally gross after doing whatever battle in the shadowlands (better effect description TBD, their adventure is next).
Protector-of-Hope looks over as they hear and see Mercy and Branton exit. "Mercy! How can we help them pass on? We need to help these poor souls?" She's still hurt, withered, but she asks while she can - is Mercy is not barfing.
Evan grins and shrugs at the momma ghost "It wasn't your call. And it did point out something for me to train against and get stronger."
>> How can we help them? << the brown wolf calls over to Mercy. >> Is there a way for them to rest, or should we hide these things so no one can do this to them again? <<
Mercy gets herself up and comes over towards the group. She's wearing a cloak of dull grey doe hide with Greek-speak all around the hem. Armor of some kind, probably. "Cant do it." she says with a wince. "It's not like in the story books. They'll hide their fetters themselves, so that no one living knows where they are, and then... The rest is their business. But they're free to DO that business now." She adds to the materialized wraiths, "Work your stuff out, find a way to transcend and... I'm sure you'll figure it out."
The boy, strong enough to scoop up the physical objects, flicker-stutters away and into the house with them, so no one can see where the fetters are placed. The woman gives the living a longing look and a thankful nod, before wordlessly slipping back into the shadowlands. The girl smiles and says, "You're not a bunch of stupids. Bye!" Which is high praise from a... what, 8 year old? And then she too vanishes, leaving the group with nothing to do but go to Golden Corral. And BURN IT TO THE GROUND!
