2023.10.28:KazFosternChallenge
| Kaz's Fostern Challenge | |
|---|---|
| IC Date | October 28, 2023 |
| IC Time | After Dark |
| Players | Kaz, Sergei(st), Pancake |
| Location | Caern and nearby wilderness |
| Prp/Tp | None |
| Spheres | Gaian Garou |
| Theme Song | Metallica - Of Wolf and Man |
Sergei is sitting by the firepit, near a communal cauldron that's bubbling with delicious smells of two legger stew. The stew is being tended by a human kinfolk and there are other members of the community moving about near by. Every once and a while someone will step up to talk to him, its office hours for the elder.
Kaz strides into the area clearly on a mission and looking for something. His eyes sweep the area and settle on Sergei. He takes a breath and moves towards him with purpose. He gives the elder space and waits until any business he has is concluded before giving him a deep bow. He can't help but give a glance towards where the moon would be in the sky as he rises. "Elder, I am Kaz named Throatcrusher by Rite, Ahroun of the Shadowlords and member of the Mistseekers. I challenge for the rank of Fostern."
Sergei looks up at the ceiling, which if the sky could be seen would draw a line right to the moon. Then he looks to Kaz "Well, Its a good night for it. I have heard good things about what your pack is doing with securing portions of the city. I suppose you've had to get used to fighting with limitations of form or magic yes?"
Kaz grunts as he again looks to where the moon would be. "Yes, Elder. We have often had to fight that way in the city. Our most recent battle was against a den of leeches and their tainted thralls."
Sergei nods and considers "So that skill is already proven. Hmmm what is the largest thing you have fought in single combat? That can be a different set of skills and also a traditional sort of Fostern challenge."
Someone said the word challenge, and so of course Iris is doomed to arrive and take up cheerleader duty. She appears on this plane mid-crash-landing, blinking into existance from the spiritual plane just in time to crash through the branches of a tree, sending a flock of birds into a fleeing tizzy while she hits every branch on the way down. THUD. She hits the ground, pauses a moment while swaying, and then throws a fist up into the air. "STILL ALIVE!" Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing! While standing up, she grips her left arm and gives it a hard jerk to pop the shoulder back into its socket. This doesn't appear to bother her, in fact it happens all the time. She's double jointed and has a high pain threshold anyways. And hey, people! She waves like an idiot at Kaz and Sergei while getting up to approach with a big smile.
Kaz is about to answer when Mercy arrives in her way. It wasn't the most unusual thing that Kaz had seen from her by far but her sudden and loud arrival does have his head snap over to look. After a couple heartbeats he closes his eyes and takes a breath. He gives Mercy a respectful bow before turning back to Sergei. "The largest? In single combat?" He thinks for a moment as he goes over some of the things he has killed with his pack. "In single combat I have faced nothing larger than a man but many at once."
Sergei looks over at Mercy's arrival and sighs before turning back to Kaz "She ran my fostern challenge. With a strategy game that I did not grow frustrated and try to murder her during. For you I think we will go for something much simpler. One of the recently returned patrols reported possible wyrmsign out side of their area of responsibility that the scout I sent only just returned from. It should suit."
Kaz 's eyes light up with eagerness. The moon has him filled with rage and the prospect of unleashing it on something, especially a creature of the Wyrm. He stands a little straighter as he looks to Sergei. He manages to reign in his eagerness long enough to seek confirmation. "We leave now then?"
"You did single handedly stab the hungering darkness in the face single handedly! I mean. No one else was working on the face." Iris offers while coming up and catching a bit of the convo. While getting all up on the stew train - she's convinced of the sept's all natural food selection enough that her eating disorder doesn't crop up or anything - she gives Sergei a grin at the memory of his fostern challenge. "You did super great." she tells him, and has a seat to listen to what's being set up. "You want me to go get a sparrow so we can watch Challenge TV?"
Sergei nods at Kaz and gets to his feet and nods to Iris "We can find one on the way and watch from there if needed." Then to Kaz and he points to the scout "He will tell you where to find the cave. Its south and east, outside of the patrolled lands."
Iris hoorays around a mouth full of food, and decides she's taking this stew to go. She just sorta follows along while stuffing stew soaked bread into her face, since she's basically just a spectator for all this and is kinda sorta just using this all as an excuse to be entertained by other people.
Some time passes as the group makes their way through the forest. Eventually Sergei and Iris peel off after performing the Rite of the Sparrow to mark Kaz for surveillance. There is a hole in the side of a hill under a bit of an over hang, and there is a bit of a smell.
Iris chills with a bird in her hand, the critter strangely chillaxed while trapped in Iris's hands Because Magic. The sparrow, tranced out as well, is on stand by to transfer One Help Please, if needed. Otherwise, it's all seein the world through puddles and drips. Might be a weirdass view for Sergei for a minute.
Throatcrusher makes a disgusted face as he sniffs the air. The rage in him grows as he realizes what this might be. This thing whatever it was should not be here. It was one thing for such things to be in the scab but not here. He shifts into his black furred dire wolf form and lets out a challenging howl at whatever was inside. He paces nearby waiting for a response.
The ground shakes with a SLAM from inside the hole and a shower of dirt falls as large MONSTROUS pig creature comes roaring out in response to the challenge.
Throatcrusher lets out another howl as the skullpig charges out of it's lair towards him. They run towards each other and Kaz manages to score first blood on the beast moments before it hits him with its tusk. He goes up in the air but lands on the beast's back, biting it again and ripping a chunk out. The stories of these things were true. They tasted terrible but he didn't have time to think about that now.
The Skull pig starts pawing at the ground in frustration and continues its run, coming about for another charge. Surely, this time will be different. Writing reality out to disk. Please wait... Reality saved. Thank you for your patience.
Throatcrusher snarls as his foe gets close again and takes another small chunk out of it. The skullpig slams him with its tusk again but he just grunts and bites into fat as they pass each other again. He turns and gets ready for another charge. Throatcrusher loses one Magical Essence
Throatcrusher and the skullpig charge at each other again. They meet and blood flies. Kaz manages to catch the beast just under the eye but and sets himself to take the skullpig's charge. It doesn't go as planned as the skullpig catches Kaz in the midsection with its tusk driving through muscle and flesh to come out the other side of him. Impaled Kaz has no choice but to go along for the ride with the pig until it slams him into a large tree. He coughs up some blood as he stares at the full moon and lets out another battle howl before bringing his paws down on the beast and twisting. A loud snapping rings out in the forest as the tusk breaks off and Kaz falls to the ground with louder thump than Mercy made with her arrival earlier.
He hops right up like a spring seeming not to feel the pain of still being impaled by the now broken off tusk. He drives himself forward and knocks the off balanced and raging skullpig over. Before it can react his fangs find the beast's neck. Blood flows as he tears the throat out and not content with just that drives his fangs even deeper as the beast continues to froth and flail as it makes unholy noises. Finding the mark with his fangs he jerks with all of his dire wolf might and another snap is heard. This time it's the beast's neck that snaps and its flailing stops abruptly. He rolls off the now dead thing and limps away a few feet and lets out a victory howl before starting to work at trying to get the tusk impaling him out.
Having seen the victory via the scrying rite the Elders approach and Sergei says "I declare my challenge successfully met. Now let the healer here mark your wound to commemorate the occasion and then it can be healed and tended to."
Iris is already digging around in her Bigass Purse to find a pouch of ashes. She finds them, takes one step towards Kaz, then pauses. A quick glance up at the sky, and back down to the wounded Ahroun, and then she cheerfully says, "Nope!" and hucks the pouch at Sergei instead. She takes the much safer route for herself and starts digging out some rite of cleansing stuff! The sparrow has, by this point, been released from the rite bonds back into the wilderness.
Throatcrusher stops working on the tusk and forces himself to stand up when Sergei arrives. He nods to the elder in recognition of the words. He looks to Mercy and waits for her to mark his wound. He looks confused when she tosses the pouch back to Sergei. His confusion shifts to irritation and he reaches down to bite the impaling tusk and rips it out quickly. He lets out a howl of pain as he tosses the offending tusk away. He sways on legs that are briefly shaky but shakes his head and uses the pain to focus himself on the moment and not let the rage of the moon take him.
Sergei snatches the pouch out of the air with a slight smirk and opens it dipping out some of the consecrated ash on his finger tips as he steps up to Kaz "Your first of many. A significant wound from a minion of the Great Enemy." And he places the ash on the wound, and yes it probably does sting "Remember this. We are the tip of the spear, this is for what we were made. Your pack is your support, you go ahead of them into danger and take these hits so they do not."
Throatcrusher growls as the ash is put in the wound. He manages to grit out through clenched teeth something he's said to many. >>No wolf... hunts... alone...<<
While Sergei deals with tempting wrath and jamming ashes into owchies, Iris get crinosed up and starts flailing pure water all over the place with a willow branch and a smoldering stick, howling to banish the taint of the area, the corpse, and the Fostern. She makes short work of the ritual and then sliiiiides on over and back into Homid so's she can make with the laying on of hands. She has some poetry while she gets in there. "Remember the Grondr, the mighty cleansers of Gaia's earthy skin. Cry for the Grondr, who died at our hands to defend Gaia's children. Pity the Grondr, who in desperation took the only help left to them, the Wyrm. Honor the Grondr, release their tortured souls back to the Wyld, back to Gaia. Remember the Grondr."
Sergei nods solemly at the other Elder's clensing and then her recitation, waiting in silence before he responds "Correct, you are wolf born so of course you understand this without being told. While the strength of the pack is the Wolf most suited to the task, the strength of the Wolf is the pack they walk with."
Throatcrusher 's eyes widen as he listens to the Theurge's telling of lore. He turns and looks to the now dead skullpig with new understanding and it horrifies him. As Mercy administers healing magic to him he can't help by let out a chuff and say, >>We made them...?<< He looks to the elders for confirmation.
"Well, we certainly put them on the path, if nothing else. You could say we lead them to that outcome." Iris tells Kaz while digging out a tea towel to wipe her hands on and do a little fur grooming for the Ahroun. "Who knows if they'd have ended up there anyways without us. But, we did kinda slaughter them en masse and leave them unable to stop being domesticated and enslaved, so. BUT, this Gronder Kin is dead now, it's soul is where it belongs aaaaand... I mean there's always the next cycle, right? One less doom piggy in the present as well. Hey nice job, by the way! That was pretty awesome. You should keep that snapped fang, have it made into a badass fetish of some sort. Fang Daggers are popular!"
Sergei pats the bone knife on his belt "That's where this came from. A skull pig I fought back in Siberia. Your pack has two talented Theurges in it, I imagine they could come up with something if you asked them."
Kaz nods solemnly at Mercy's words. He grunts as he stretches where the wound was and leans over to sniff it a few times. He shifts back into his human form and heeding his elders goes to retrieve the broken tusk from the ground. He stares at it for a few moments and then back to the dead beast. He walks back to the elders and stops near them. "My littermate sister had her pups the other night. Battle seems different now for some reason. Is this normal?"
Iris answers this question by clasping her hands together at her chest with genuine delight on her face, "Awwww! You're growing up SO FAST!" before hugging the stuffing out of Kaz whether he likes it or not. "You're Dading, Kaz. Don't worry, it's totally natural and not at all contagious. You've got kids you have to survive for, and it's gonna tame your recklessness and inform your tactical decisions from now on. Which is good, that's gonna make you a better dad than some others."
Sergei nods at Iris and says to Kaz "You are the Garou in their lives. It is up to you to be a good example and stand up for them, the law says you are their voice."
Kaz can't help but look uncomfortable and awkward as Mercy hugs him. "Dading is not a... verb?... I am familiar with..." He grunts in understanding as she continues. He nods to Sergei as that makes things even more clear to him. "It is good I brought her and my brother with me then." He thinks for a moment. "So it is more about having something to live for rather than something to be willing to die for? I may have read this somewhere."
Sergei nods at Kaz "That is very important also. Harano is a very real concern but Family is our biggest reason to hold on."
