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Entry 13 – Battle with the Leeches

I'm sorry if the following will be a bit confused. I'm undercaffeinated and already things are getting jumbled in my memory.
I was asked to come to Charlie, where sadly the girl with the pink limousine had appeared again. Bob and Brianna were already there and had agreed to help the little toad with her problems. The spirit of the girl who had drowned in the swamp that she'd run over the other day was now threatening to kill her. I thought that served her just right. I didn't understand my selfless Samaritans of packmates who didn't even bargain for a payment but I didn't want to let them down anyway. The changeling by the way put up its finest construction worker styled etiquette which only got worse during the course of the day. She randomly insulted people, got drunk and burped often.
To make things even worse Chang had called the same day. We were supposed to find a different place for the ghost that we had parked with them. The Children seemingly had not been very successful in turning him into an eco activist. On the contrary. Marcon thought deforestation was a great thing. At the moment he was at a public protest, beating the Children up with their own signs and placards. It was stupid however that the press attended the event too and filmed and photographed the flying objects. This had taken even less time than I had feared. In any case it was a welcome opportunity to keep the horrible fairy child in suspense for a bit. After we'd picked up Liam she drove us to the Children in her usual Darwin-award winning fashion. On the way she almost killed a hobo with a shopping cart. He did not only sovereignly triumph in the ensuing duel of insults but at a closer look turned out to be a Bone Gnawer. The changeling could identify him by just looking at him, by the way. The Gnawer named „Sammy“ or „Uncle Sam“, a Ragabash and Cliath like me, was picked up and proceeded to spread miscellaneous flavors somewhere between decay and rancid cheese.

The picture that presented itself to us when we arrived at the Children's demonstration is left to the reader's imagination. It was hilarious. Regardlessly, I tried to take away the ghost's „weapons“ and talk calmly to him while the Gurahl looked after the attending press. I think my hair turned gray when I learned just what they had told them. Something about drugs in the drinking water, renegade eco activists and Gaia knows what else. Not very convincing. Hope my lawyer will have more success. Chang got stoned again over all the stress and wasn't good for anything now. We were supposed to take care of a newbie, though, one who'd freshly arrived by ship. Some kind of vagabond Bastet, quite good-looking but also completely ragged. The only of his many nicknames that I could remember was „No!“. Unfortunately I couldn't prevent Bob from taking him aside and verbally hammering some obedience into him. That's actually a good thing but this was Brianna's job, goddammit. It generally looked like Anna let herself be ordered around by Bob. But back to our ghostly problem. Chang recommended to us to visit an ex-CoG ronin named Fernmore. And we'd sadly have to ask a vampire named Lysander or something like that for her whereabouts. There was another named Derek that we should explicitly avoid. Okay...

Since Curly Sue had meanwhile boozed herself unconscious I drove the pink limo. That wasn't the easiest of all things since the controls were seemingly designed by a madman. I managed however to deliver us all to our destination in one piece. We spent several hours waiting in front of the vampire's manor until it got dark. All of a sudden Curly Sue began to scream like a stuck pig. Obviously the girl from the swamp had just written her name on the car's window with her little dead finger from the outside. Pretending that this was nothing to worry about was very satisfactory for me. Then finally Lysander appeared and we could overhear some fragments of a conversation between him and a big, grim, Irish-looking leech. He too seemed interested in Fernmore. We got the Irish vampire named Brian as our guide. Really unfriendly guy who didn't feel intimidated in the slightest by us and even said that werewolves stank. I was about to open my mouth in protest when „No!“'s and Sammy's scents seared their way back into my consciousness. ...You can't choose your relatives. I'm glad that at least my tribe appreciates the invention of soap.

Brian piloted us away from Vancouver City and finally down a narrow forest trail. There we got out and looked around. It was very dark, even for us.
Until there was a bang and a silver bullet impacted in my shoulder. I wasn't badly injured but it hurt so much that I struggled for seconds to maintain my composure. The others split up immediately and launched a counter-attack, save for Brian who had suddenly vanished. For me it was clear now that this was a trap and we had guilelessly run into the open knife. When we didn't do anything now we'd be slaughtered. There was no logical alternative to Crinos. The pain, the confusion and the shame of the treason did their parts. I was like a wounded animal. But I didn't know where the others had run off to. I howled a battle cry and started off myself but unfortunately didn't get a reply. Seemingly there were only three enemies. One had hit Liam very badly with another silver bullet. Brianna was on her way to him and I joined the fray. The first claw slash missed, the second ripped off the enemy's jaw and some more of his head, and before he could realize this, Liam crushed him under his weight. The two Bastet and the rest of us struggled with another enemy who took it surprisingly well. Charlie and the new Bastet, some kind of cougar, made fools out of themselves by desperately trying to pick up the gun of their enemy but it was made of solid silver.

The third vampire was killed by Brian, I know that now. Only dust remained of him. Then he went over to the vampire we'd slain and began to drain him dry until he too crumbled to ashes. I've never witnessed something so fucking creepy. After that Brian didn't have too much in common with a human anymore. I'd actually rather compare him to a Garou shortly before frenzy, only that suddenly an aura of such intense evil lowered itself over the clearing as if the Wyrm himself had just exhaled here. Since on top of it I still thought Brian had betrayed us it was no question for me to do away with him. We two mindless blood-thirsty beasts faced off, ready to tear each other into confetti. Then Brianna landed on top of me and asked me to leave it be. To my own dismay I didn't care at all. My „wolf“ didn't respect her and I tried to shake her off, gaze still fixed on the vampire. But when Charlie joined in it was something completely different. I stopped long enough for them to explain to me what had happened and to get off my trip. Still in war form I helped to cleanse the Wyrm's taint with a ritual, even though the physical traces of the fight still marred the place.

The third enemy vampire had fallen into some kind of deathly torpor and was harmless. Luckily the pack kept Brian from draining him as well. When he could think clearly again he identified the three as Derek's men. He in turn couldn't have known that we'd been on our way here. So this Derek had permanent anti Garou troops stationed in this forest? And nobody did something against it? Don't we have a treaty with these slimebags, at least pro forma?

Many questions and no answers yet. I'm wondering where this all will lead.

Entry 14 – Fernmore the Ronin

Wounded and distraught we arrived at Fernmore's dwelling, a dark hole in the ground. It smelt of earth and rotting animal meat. None of us was in a hurry to get in there. Finally I sacrificed myself. The entry was narrow, so I risked to leave Crinos and shift to Lupus which I hadn't done in a really long time. I had to put weight on my wounded shoulder now but that was okay. Brianna and Liam followed me. The den became a bit wider after the entry but after only 20 meters it was already so dark that one couldn't see anything. Brianna and Liam produced magical lights. (Thought of making a belt with a lamp for my Lupus but that'd be too obvious. Maybe an infrared lamp with a corresponding objective?) The tunnel was decorated with illegible glyphs and ended at an old, smelly curtain that Brianna opened and thus revealed Fernmore. She was an old woman dressed in rags, with long claws on her hands and feet and fairly nasty. Her den was cluttered with all sorts of stuff. The rotten smell came from a chest in a corner that was surrounded by flies. I noticed that Brianna was insecure and maybe that's why I stayed in Lupus for a bit longer than necessary, just so that she'd be forced to say something. Fernmore quickly came to the question what we had to offer her. Liam answered jokingly that she could have the ghost and she immediately was like „Okay, I'll put him into one of my ghost cubes and keep him for later.“ When it came out that neither we nor the ghost would be exhilarated by this she became grumpy, called us liars and threw us out. We had to think of something good if we wanted to get her to just talk to us again. So we left.

Shot and bloodied as we were we went back to the Children who meanwhile were really pissed and even threatened the ghost with guns. We offered to move him back to Charlie's for a start to get rid of that problem. But when we asked how to deal with Fernmore we were coldly turned away. The phrase „Thanks for nothing“ was on the tip of my tongue but at least they cared for our wounds.

We thought for a long, long time. The lady had no interest in material things and could make most spiritual things herself. We quickly dismissed the thought to give her the stunned vampire adorned with a bow. Brianna finally had the idea that this was mostly about the gesture. After all, Fernmore had been cast out from her tribe and would be happy about some attention. Liam decided to bequeath an antique gun from his collection to her, Brianna bought a splendid bunch of roses and I went to the drugstore to buy ingredients for tasty space cookies. The next day when the vamps were hopefully asleep we tried again. Thanks to Google Maps we quickly found our way back to the burrow but Fernmore sleeping / meditating. We decided to wait outside for a while. That ended when somebody shot my freshly healed shoulder again, but this time so precisely and forcefully that I had to assume that this was final now. Luckily Liam and Brianna quickly dragged me back into the cave entry where I lay moaning until I found the willpower to shift to Glabro and regenerate. This time, praises to Luna, it was no silver. Two men appeared in the entry, both wearing green clothes, one carrying a silenced rifle. Liam turned off his flashlight but caught another bullet in the same moment. I let him hand me a knife since I'd been fairly harmless in Glabro otherwise and I wanted to avoid Crinos. Then I activated Blur of the Milky Eye and took my turn to attack.

Such a situation is where the fun definitely stops. I _don't_ feel inclined to die and I'm not only still Garou but also a fairly good close combat fighter. I'm just not particularly strong by our means. And I'm fully aware that my life is worth more than that of most humans out there, including these two halfwits. I'm not afraid to seriously injure or even kill someone if it must be – as long as I'm in control of my actions.

Unfortunately that wasn't so easy with the knife as I'd thought. I think I hit a bone and did almost no damage. Instead I tried to disarm the one with the gun but he wouldn't let go, even when I kicked him. Liam however exploited that fact to punch him, and then I finally had the rifle. Brianna had meanwhile shifted to Crinos and gone for the other guy's neck, had bitten his shoulder to bits and despite a hunting knife buried in her neck just snapped his spine. Strangely enough, none of them went into the Delirium, though. I thought the surviving one would surrender now and let himself be questioned but he ran away. When I tried to stop him with a shot to the leg that overbred thing tore off his whole lower leg. I cursed and dropped the gun. Then we searched the dead bodies, stole their small change and discovered that at least we hadn't killed any state officials. We hastily buried the two corpses.

Not many of my cookies had survived the slaughter but I collected them anyway. Fernmore had really woken up by herself and then informed us rather impassively that we had just killed her sons. But it was their own fault she said, to shoot werewolves. That didn't really lift my spirits, especially when the talk came again to these desolate death realms. Decided not to keep the stolen survival knife but to put it back. Interestingly the Ronin reacted very positively to our beaten-up souvenirs and our apology. Regarding Mr. Marcon she recommended to „abandon“ him in a comfortable umbral realm and the idea was really good. Regarding the girl from the swamp she built some sort of miracle rod from tree branches, capable of injuring and „killing“ the ghost. Despite all I have doubts if we aren't about to make a big mistake. The ghost is a nuisance for everyone, but does that give us the right to go and exorcise her? Especially because such an ill-behaved little brat thinks it's funny to run her over? I think I'll try it with words before everything else, even if this was announced to yield little success.

I'm worried about Brianna, anyway. I like it that our alpha is so community-oriented but it wouldn't hurt if she was a bit more representative. Particularly Bob could still take the wheel from here with little to no trouble, and if that happens, problems are guaranteed.

Entry 15 – The Girl from the Swamp

I didn't get a wink of sleep all night. Trying to keep myself awake with Machinae Supremacy and the coffee maker and soldier through until tomorrow night. Btw, thinking that the trojan in Rent-a-Car didn't do anything. Also read Werehacker's guide to the sabotage of W.I.Cs, should maybe concentrate more on that stuff. Anyway, other, graver decisions are coming at us at the moment.

Drove over to Charlie's to apologize again that we burdened him with the ghost. Charlie bore it with dignity but Bob was having a bad time. He now shared a room with Marcon and vented his temper on me. He should think twice if he really wants to make me angry. I can do mean things when I'm angry. For the time being however I forgave him. Turned out, nobody had read the mail I'd sent but Charlie was naturally quite taken with my idea to fool Lucy the fae. My mobile rang. It was my friend Evgeni, the Corporate Wolf, asking me to take care of a little Shadow Lord cub. Strangely, the idea appealed to me right away.

We picked up the little one named Fiona respectively Fio in front of her hotel. She stood there rather alone. The local Shadow Lords alpha Lukasz Kawecki wasn't with her, pity, I'd have loved to meet him. She was no older than 14 and had run away from home after feigning her own death. She had „come across a body“ and it all had „arisen“ from the situation. One of the Lords had found her but she actually knew next to nothing and strictly spoken didn't even believe in werewolves. Well, with some obvious demonstrations we could quickly turn the belief into certainty. Marcon freaked out and locked himself up in his and Bob's room. Tries to get Fio to shapeshift failed, however. I just wonder why. Bob did a nice job informing her about Gaia and the spirit world but I couldn't refrain from approaching the whole thing in a more analytic way. I mean, these are beautiful old stories but everyone who can think just a little critically will demand something more logical. We also contacted Game Brain via messenger and asked him if he knew a nice umbral realm for Marcon but he answered very slowly. Probably gaming all the time.

Fio explained that she had the talent to force spirits to do her will. Since we still had a problem with the girl from the swamp this might be useful.
At first we tried to find the ice-cream seller who'd been the last to see her alive. But the track went cold and promised too little success to waste any more energy on.
Without really knowing what we did we drove out into the swamps in the evening and tried to summon the girl like a Gaian spirit. It's still February and quite cold but Charlie put up a big show. He'd seemingly emptied a small esoterism store and put tea candles, incense sticks and stuff like that everywhere. Then he began began a summoning dance with lots of pathos. It was so embarrassing. I longed to sink right there in the swamp. On top of that Bob tried to make a fire that flooded everything with acrid smoke.

I got a coughing fit and fled from the scene back to Charlie's jeep. From afar the whole thing looked even crazier. The whole forest was disappearing in a cloud of smoke that was lit from within. Shivering I sat in the car again. Someone behind me remarked how ridiculous the whole thing was and I agreed before turning around and asking myself who the hell... Yep, the girl from the swamp. Pale and wet she cowered there. She understood that Charlie wanted to call her but now it was up to me to bargain with her. At first I managed sovereignly but the longer she just sat there motionlessly, grinned at me psychopathically and bestowed her uncompromising one-sentence answers on me the more uncomfortable I got. Finally I was shortly before losing my composure altogether and fled from the jeep. I learned however that she'd made it her task to punish and kill bad people (or Fae or whatever), especially those who hurt her.

Luckily the others soon returned from their botched ritual but unlike me couldn't see the girl on the back seat. This let Charlie put Fiona, who'd passed out from the smoke, right there until I made him take her away again in panic. A short time later Samantha, the girl from the swamp, appeared to all of us. I've no clue why we still had her attention. Did she find us entertaining? Did she plan to kill those of us who'd been in the car when Lucy ran her over? Charlie seized the word but stammered like I had before, which I found strangely consoling. Fio however came in with some useful approaches and that enabled us to get the following information: The girl hadn't accidentally wandered into the swamp but was murdered. She never had the chance to take revenge on her murderer but had to put up with other „bad“ people. She only had a very vague description of the man who was responsible for her death, but she gave us the name Oscar and said that he'd driven a truck with the writing „TRANS-CAN“ on it. As distraught as I was, I felt moved by that story. As an experiment I offered that we could try to find her murderer if she left our fae in peace. She was willing to give Lucy at least a second chance if we helped her to her revenge. Sounded good, and we could finally leave.

Charlie and I agreed that we'd find the guy and deliver him to Samantha. During the next few hours I had several doubts about that. The incident had been more than ten years ago. If we found a person who was rotten to the core and evil, no worries. On the other hand, what if not? There are laws for cases like him and of course therapies. I made myself believe that human courts and authorities were not to be trusted and the deed alone would make the guy deserve what we had in mind for him. Including the stay in the death realms until the end of time. But it was too late anyway. We had decided to get involved in all these things and there was no point in turning back now. Whatever we were going to do, we'd have to live with it.

Since nobody trusted themselves to close their eyes for sleep after the encounter with the little freaky ghost we immediately started our research. The central of Trans-Can (a truckage company that mainly dealt with food) responsible for British Columbia was soon found and not too far from Vancouver. By Canadian means, anyway. That was our best approach, and so we simply drove there. Three trucks were on the site, one of which matched Samantha's description pretty exactly. Charlie entered the compound via the Umbra in his coyote shape. Before the parking attendant drove him off with a hail of firecrackers he could see that there really was a nameplate reading „Oscar“ in the window.

We waited until the day and followed the truck when it left. Due to the vague description we couldn't tell exactly if the man was the one we were looking for. Fio offered herself as bait. She's more hard-boiled than meets the eye and that impresses me. Gave her my mobile for the case of emergency, then we dropped her by the side of the freeway a good way ahead of Oscar's truck. He took the bait. Fio who even cold-bloodedly introduced herself as „Samantha“ posed as a naive runaway. She even pretended that she had to pee by the roadside but the driver kept his manners. Finally she let him take her to the next town, made some photos of him and even arranged a meeting for the homeward journey. This gives us three days. We'll show the photos to the girl from the swamp, and then let's see.

Entry 16 – Samantha and her Murderer

After 36 hours awake I finally indulged in some sleep and went over to Charlie's in the afternoon with some breakfast. It didn't take long and the whole thing mutated into an extensive feast in which most of our pack and its satellites took part. Charlie and Brianna, Fio and the perpetually nagging Mr. Marcon, „No!“ who was really called Jost and Uncle Sam and also a stray Bastet that the latter had brought home. The Bastet, I think it was a black panther or something had next to no clue about anything and didn't provide us with any other name than „Tina Turner“. So far she'd survived by house- and veil breaking. This time it was up to us to explain our world and our rules to her since Bob was missing. But I'm not so sure if all too much of it got through. Fiona however distinguished herself with a pleasant thirst for knowledge. We joked that Charlie could open a flat share for freaks soon, considering all the critters that we placed with him. Why not the girl from the swamp too, she could live in the bathroom. Finally Liam joined us. There were news from Game Brain, too, but in order to ask him about our nagging ghost we'll have to visit him.

When the evening came we set off to the swamps with three copies of the photos that Fiona had taken of Oscar, planning to ask Samantha if we had found the right guy. Again Charlie started with a show that was hard to endure but the success stayed away this time. He tried again and wandered a little way off to call her again. This time all three pictures burst into flame at the same time for an answer. Yes, we seemed to have found the murderer. But at the same time we wanted to be 100 % sure that we didn't put an innocent in front of her. Charlie considered the whole affair to be some kind of delivery mission that didn't justify any moral excitement. I decided I'd see it similarly since my conscience meanwhile got to me.

We now had one and a half days left to plan the abduction. We had no Philodox in our pack and didn't know anybody who could help us, so we planned to ask a spirit of truth for it. We kindly declined Tina Turner's idea to go to bed with Oscar and coax a confession out of him. She didn't want to shower with Jost however, while he tried to hit on Brianna a bit. In the same night we carved and decorated a little wooden snake that you could curl around your ear. In it the spirit should be bound. As an offering to the spirit I crashed some of the most pertinent dishonest websites while the Rite of Summoning took place in Charlie's backyard. A falcon spirit in the colors of the night sky appeared and was ready to do us the favor for a bit of Gnosis. He more or less ignored the offering, he said he had nothing to do with the Weaver's affairs. That statement is so.... ARGHL that I don't even know where to start commenting, so I won't. We'd be able to call upon the spirit to let him judge one answer.

The next day Charlie bought a police outfit at a weapons store owned by a neo nazi while I got a cell phone and a taser for Fio. Plan A was to abuse Fio as bait again and then conk the guy when he left the truck to follow her into the brushes. Plan B was to pose as patrolmen and conk the guy if plan A failed. Well, and if all went wrong we still had Tina Turner.

We made teams and got into the cars, took our waiting positions and lay in wait until Fiona had been picked up by our „victim“ again. Fio however didn't vacillate and tasered Oscar when he stopped by the roadside to let her „pee“. Liam constrained him, then we blindfolded him, then our military bear hid the truck somewhere deep in the forest. We also drove far into the wilderness, called upon the spirit and began to question the awakening human. However, he was much too shocked to answer even the most simple questions. Tina Turner and Sammy growled at him menacingly which drove him even more meshugge. I thought it was a good idea to make noises by releasing the safety of Liam's gun and that he'd finally confess, but this was even less helpful. In the end all of us were angry, the guy was out of his mind with fear and the question was unanswered. Brianna then pulled out her harmony flute and relaxed the situation with a little song. As well our hostage as us were engulfed by a deep, peaceful calm which crashed the interrogation for good. We carted Oscar to a truck stop, bought him a sandwich and hung around in the parking lot getting along with him just fine. Then however Samantha appeared. Oscar didn't really get how serious the situation was when the kid confronted him with his deeds. Finally he remembered. And then the general harmony ended very abruptly when she started to make him pay. I don't feel inclined at all to write down any of that because it was by far the most unsightly thing I've ever seen. Anyway, under her constant abuse Samantha's murderer turned into a bog-body from the inside out and in the end lay in a very large puddle of mud that he'd vomited out. While all of us were still standing in complete shock, Samantha declared our fae would now be safe if she behaved. Some of us were mentally unable to move Oscar's body, others physically. Accordingly we fled after a pathetic try.

I feel in need of a thorough Rite of Cleansing, meaning very filthy. Furthermore I think that we'll bill Lucy very expensively for this, if she likes it or not.

Description
Entry 13 – Battle with the Leeches

I'm sorry if the following will be a bit confused. I'm undercaffeinated and already things are getting jumbled in my memory.
I was asked to come to Charlie, where sadly the girl with the pink limousine had appeared again. Bob and Brianna were already there and had agreed to help the little toad with her problems. The spirit of the girl who had drowned in the swamp that she'd run over the other day was now threatening to kill her. I thought that served her just right. I didn't understand my selfless Samaritans of packmates who didn't even bargain for a payment but I didn't want to let them down anyway. The changeling by the way put up its finest construction worker styled etiquette which only got worse during the course of the day. She randomly insulted people, got drunk and burped often.
To make things even worse Chang had called the same day. We were supposed to find a different place for the ghost that we had parked with them. The Children seemingly had not been very successful in turning him into an eco activist. On the contrary. Marcon thought deforestation was a great thing. At the moment he was at a public protest, beating the Children up with their own signs and placards. It was stupid however that the press attended the event too and filmed and photographed the flying objects. This had taken even less time than I had feared. In any case it was a welcome opportunity to keep the horrible fairy child in suspense for a bit. After we'd picked up Liam she drove us to the Children in her usual Darwin-award winning fashion. On the way she almost killed a hobo with a shopping cart. He did not only sovereignly triumph in the ensuing duel of insults but at a closer look turned out to be a Bone Gnawer. The changeling could identify him by just looking at him, by the way. The Gnawer named „Sammy“ or „Uncle Sam“, a Ragabash and Cliath like me, was picked up and proceeded to spread miscellaneous flavors somewhere between decay and rancid cheese.

The picture that presented itself to us when we arrived at the Children's demonstration is left to the reader's imagination. It was hilarious. Regardlessly, I tried to take away the ghost's „weapons“ and talk calmly to him while the Gurahl looked after the attending press. I think my hair turned gray when I learned just what they had told them. Something about drugs in the drinking water, renegade eco activists and Gaia knows what else. Not very convincing. Hope my lawyer will have more success. Chang got stoned again over all the stress and wasn't good for anything now. We were supposed to take care of a newbie, though, one who'd freshly arrived by ship. Some kind of vagabond Bastet, quite good-looking but also completely ragged. The only of his many nicknames that I could remember was „No!“. Unfortunately I couldn't prevent Bob from taking him aside and verbally hammering some obedience into him. That's actually a good thing but this was Brianna's job, goddammit. It generally looked like Anna let herself be ordered around by Bob. But back to our ghostly problem. Chang recommended to us to visit an ex-CoG ronin named Fernmore. And we'd sadly have to ask a vampire named Lysander or something like that for her whereabouts. There was another named Derek that we should explicitly avoid. Okay...

Since Curly Sue had meanwhile boozed herself unconscious I drove the pink limo. That wasn't the easiest of all things since the controls were seemingly designed by a madman. I managed however to deliver us all to our destination in one piece. We spent several hours waiting in front of the vampire's manor until it got dark. All of a sudden Curly Sue began to scream like a stuck pig. Obviously the girl from the swamp had just written her name on the car's window with her little dead finger from the outside. Pretending that this was nothing to worry about was very satisfactory for me. Then finally Lysander appeared and we could overhear some fragments of a conversation between him and a big, grim, Irish-looking leech. He too seemed interested in Fernmore. We got the Irish vampire named Brian as our guide. Really unfriendly guy who didn't feel intimidated in the slightest by us and even said that werewolves stank. I was about to open my mouth in protest when „No!“'s and Sammy's scents seared their way back into my consciousness. ...You can't choose your relatives. I'm glad that at least my tribe appreciates the invention of soap.

Brian piloted us away from Vancouver City and finally down a narrow forest trail. There we got out and looked around. It was very dark, even for us.
Until there was a bang and a silver bullet impacted in my shoulder. I wasn't badly injured but it hurt so much that I struggled for seconds to maintain my composure. The others split up immediately and launched a counter-attack, save for Brian who had suddenly vanished. For me it was clear now that this was a trap and we had guilelessly run into the open knife. When we didn't do anything now we'd be slaughtered. There was no logical alternative to Crinos. The pain, the confusion and the shame of the treason did their parts. I was like a wounded animal. But I didn't know where the others had run off to. I howled a battle cry and started off myself but unfortunately didn't get a reply. Seemingly there were only three enemies. One had hit Liam very badly with another silver bullet. Brianna was on her way to him and I joined the fray. The first claw slash missed, the second ripped off the enemy's jaw and some more of his head, and before he could realize this, Liam crushed him under his weight. The two Bastet and the rest of us struggled with another enemy who took it surprisingly well. Charlie and the new Bastet, some kind of cougar, made fools out of themselves by desperately trying to pick up the gun of their enemy but it was made of solid silver.

The third vampire was killed by Brian, I know that now. Only dust remained of him. Then he went over to the vampire we'd slain and began to drain him dry until he too crumbled to ashes. I've never witnessed something so fucking creepy. After that Brian didn't have too much in common with a human anymore. I'd actually rather compare him to a Garou shortly before frenzy, only that suddenly an aura of such intense evil lowered itself over the clearing as if the Wyrm himself had just exhaled here. Since on top of it I still thought Brian had betrayed us it was no question for me to do away with him. We two mindless blood-thirsty beasts faced off, ready to tear each other into confetti. Then Brianna landed on top of me and asked me to leave it be. To my own dismay I didn't care at all. My „wolf“ didn't respect her and I tried to shake her off, gaze still fixed on the vampire. But when Charlie joined in it was something completely different. I stopped long enough for them to explain to me what had happened and to get off my trip. Still in war form I helped to cleanse the Wyrm's taint with a ritual, even though the physical traces of the fight still marred the place.

The third enemy vampire had fallen into some kind of deathly torpor and was harmless. Luckily the pack kept Brian from draining him as well. When he could think clearly again he identified the three as Derek's men. He in turn couldn't have known that we'd been on our way here. So this Derek had permanent anti Garou troops stationed in this forest? And nobody did something against it? Don't we have a treaty with these slimebags, at least pro forma?

Many questions and no answers yet. I'm wondering where this all will lead.

Entry 14 – Fernmore the Ronin

Wounded and distraught we arrived at Fernmore's dwelling, a dark hole in the ground. It smelt of earth and rotting animal meat. None of us was in a hurry to get in there. Finally I sacrificed myself. The entry was narrow, so I risked to leave Crinos and shift to Lupus which I hadn't done in a really long time. I had to put weight on my wounded shoulder now but that was okay. Brianna and Liam followed me. The den became a bit wider after the entry but after only 20 meters it was already so dark that one couldn't see anything. Brianna and Liam produced magical lights. (Thought of making a belt with a lamp for my Lupus but that'd be too obvious. Maybe an infrared lamp with a corresponding objective?) The tunnel was decorated with illegible glyphs and ended at an old, smelly curtain that Brianna opened and thus revealed Fernmore. She was an old woman dressed in rags, with long claws on her hands and feet and fairly nasty. Her den was cluttered with all sorts of stuff. The rotten smell came from a chest in a corner that was surrounded by flies. I noticed that Brianna was insecure and maybe that's why I stayed in Lupus for a bit longer than necessary, just so that she'd be forced to say something. Fernmore quickly came to the question what we had to offer her. Liam answered jokingly that she could have the ghost and she immediately was like „Okay, I'll put him into one of my ghost cubes and keep him for later.“ When it came out that neither we nor the ghost would be exhilarated by this she became grumpy, called us liars and threw us out. We had to think of something good if we wanted to get her to just talk to us again. So we left.

Shot and bloodied as we were we went back to the Children who meanwhile were really pissed and even threatened the ghost with guns. We offered to move him back to Charlie's for a start to get rid of that problem. But when we asked how to deal with Fernmore we were coldly turned away. The phrase „Thanks for nothing“ was on the tip of my tongue but at least they cared for our wounds.

We thought for a long, long time. The lady had no interest in material things and could make most spiritual things herself. We quickly dismissed the thought to give her the stunned vampire adorned with a bow. Brianna finally had the idea that this was mostly about the gesture. After all, Fernmore had been cast out from her tribe and would be happy about some attention. Liam decided to bequeath an antique gun from his collection to her, Brianna bought a splendid bunch of roses and I went to the drugstore to buy ingredients for tasty space cookies. The next day when the vamps were hopefully asleep we tried again. Thanks to Google Maps we quickly found our way back to the burrow but Fernmore sleeping / meditating. We decided to wait outside for a while. That ended when somebody shot my freshly healed shoulder again, but this time so precisely and forcefully that I had to assume that this was final now. Luckily Liam and Brianna quickly dragged me back into the cave entry where I lay moaning until I found the willpower to shift to Glabro and regenerate. This time, praises to Luna, it was no silver. Two men appeared in the entry, both wearing green clothes, one carrying a silenced rifle. Liam turned off his flashlight but caught another bullet in the same moment. I let him hand me a knife since I'd been fairly harmless in Glabro otherwise and I wanted to avoid Crinos. Then I activated Blur of the Milky Eye and took my turn to attack.

Such a situation is where the fun definitely stops. I _don't_ feel inclined to die and I'm not only still Garou but also a fairly good close combat fighter. I'm just not particularly strong by our means. And I'm fully aware that my life is worth more than that of most humans out there, including these two halfwits. I'm not afraid to seriously injure or even kill someone if it must be – as long as I'm in control of my actions.

Unfortunately that wasn't so easy with the knife as I'd thought. I think I hit a bone and did almost no damage. Instead I tried to disarm the one with the gun but he wouldn't let go, even when I kicked him. Liam however exploited that fact to punch him, and then I finally had the rifle. Brianna had meanwhile shifted to Crinos and gone for the other guy's neck, had bitten his shoulder to bits and despite a hunting knife buried in her neck just snapped his spine. Strangely enough, none of them went into the Delirium, though. I thought the surviving one would surrender now and let himself be questioned but he ran away. When I tried to stop him with a shot to the leg that overbred thing tore off his whole lower leg. I cursed and dropped the gun. Then we searched the dead bodies, stole their small change and discovered that at least we hadn't killed any state officials. We hastily buried the two corpses.

Not many of my cookies had survived the slaughter but I collected them anyway. Fernmore had really woken up by herself and then informed us rather impassively that we had just killed her sons. But it was their own fault she said, to shoot werewolves. That didn't really lift my spirits, especially when the talk came again to these desolate death realms. Decided not to keep the stolen survival knife but to put it back. Interestingly the Ronin reacted very positively to our beaten-up souvenirs and our apology. Regarding Mr. Marcon she recommended to „abandon“ him in a comfortable umbral realm and the idea was really good. Regarding the girl from the swamp she built some sort of miracle rod from tree branches, capable of injuring and „killing“ the ghost. Despite all I have doubts if we aren't about to make a big mistake. The ghost is a nuisance for everyone, but does that give us the right to go and exorcise her? Especially because such an ill-behaved little brat thinks it's funny to run her over? I think I'll try it with words before everything else, even if this was announced to yield little success.

I'm worried about Brianna, anyway. I like it that our alpha is so community-oriented but it wouldn't hurt if she was a bit more representative. Particularly Bob could still take the wheel from here with little to no trouble, and if that happens, problems are guaranteed.

Entry 15 – The Girl from the Swamp

I didn't get a wink of sleep all night. Trying to keep myself awake with Machinae Supremacy and the coffee maker and soldier through until tomorrow night. Btw, thinking that the trojan in Rent-a-Car didn't do anything. Also read Werehacker's guide to the sabotage of W.I.Cs, should maybe concentrate more on that stuff. Anyway, other, graver decisions are coming at us at the moment.

Drove over to Charlie's to apologize again that we burdened him with the ghost. Charlie bore it with dignity but Bob was having a bad time. He now shared a room with Marcon and vented his temper on me. He should think twice if he really wants to make me angry. I can do mean things when I'm angry. For the time being however I forgave him. Turned out, nobody had read the mail I'd sent but Charlie was naturally quite taken with my idea to fool Lucy the fae. My mobile rang. It was my friend Evgeni, the Corporate Wolf, asking me to take care of a little Shadow Lord cub. Strangely, the idea appealed to me right away.

We picked up the little one named Fiona respectively Fio in front of her hotel. She stood there rather alone. The local Shadow Lords alpha Lukasz Kawecki wasn't with her, pity, I'd have loved to meet him. She was no older than 14 and had run away from home after feigning her own death. She had „come across a body“ and it all had „arisen“ from the situation. One of the Lords had found her but she actually knew next to nothing and strictly spoken didn't even believe in werewolves. Well, with some obvious demonstrations we could quickly turn the belief into certainty. Marcon freaked out and locked himself up in his and Bob's room. Tries to get Fio to shapeshift failed, however. I just wonder why. Bob did a nice job informing her about Gaia and the spirit world but I couldn't refrain from approaching the whole thing in a more analytic way. I mean, these are beautiful old stories but everyone who can think just a little critically will demand something more logical. We also contacted Game Brain via messenger and asked him if he knew a nice umbral realm for Marcon but he answered very slowly. Probably gaming all the time.

Fio explained that she had the talent to force spirits to do her will. Since we still had a problem with the girl from the swamp this might be useful.
At first we tried to find the ice-cream seller who'd been the last to see her alive. But the track went cold and promised too little success to waste any more energy on.
Without really knowing what we did we drove out into the swamps in the evening and tried to summon the girl like a Gaian spirit. It's still February and quite cold but Charlie put up a big show. He'd seemingly emptied a small esoterism store and put tea candles, incense sticks and stuff like that everywhere. Then he began began a summoning dance with lots of pathos. It was so embarrassing. I longed to sink right there in the swamp. On top of that Bob tried to make a fire that flooded everything with acrid smoke.

I got a coughing fit and fled from the scene back to Charlie's jeep. From afar the whole thing looked even crazier. The whole forest was disappearing in a cloud of smoke that was lit from within. Shivering I sat in the car again. Someone behind me remarked how ridiculous the whole thing was and I agreed before turning around and asking myself who the hell... Yep, the girl from the swamp. Pale and wet she cowered there. She understood that Charlie wanted to call her but now it was up to me to bargain with her. At first I managed sovereignly but the longer she just sat there motionlessly, grinned at me psychopathically and bestowed her uncompromising one-sentence answers on me the more uncomfortable I got. Finally I was shortly before losing my composure altogether and fled from the jeep. I learned however that she'd made it her task to punish and kill bad people (or Fae or whatever), especially those who hurt her.

Luckily the others soon returned from their botched ritual but unlike me couldn't see the girl on the back seat. This let Charlie put Fiona, who'd passed out from the smoke, right there until I made him take her away again in panic. A short time later Samantha, the girl from the swamp, appeared to all of us. I've no clue why we still had her attention. Did she find us entertaining? Did she plan to kill those of us who'd been in the car when Lucy ran her over? Charlie seized the word but stammered like I had before, which I found strangely consoling. Fio however came in with some useful approaches and that enabled us to get the following information: The girl hadn't accidentally wandered into the swamp but was murdered. She never had the chance to take revenge on her murderer but had to put up with other „bad“ people. She only had a very vague description of the man who was responsible for her death, but she gave us the name Oscar and said that he'd driven a truck with the writing „TRANS-CAN“ on it. As distraught as I was, I felt moved by that story. As an experiment I offered that we could try to find her murderer if she left our fae in peace. She was willing to give Lucy at least a second chance if we helped her to her revenge. Sounded good, and we could finally leave.

Charlie and I agreed that we'd find the guy and deliver him to Samantha. During the next few hours I had several doubts about that. The incident had been more than ten years ago. If we found a person who was rotten to the core and evil, no worries. On the other hand, what if not? There are laws for cases like him and of course therapies. I made myself believe that human courts and authorities were not to be trusted and the deed alone would make the guy deserve what we had in mind for him. Including the stay in the death realms until the end of time. But it was too late anyway. We had decided to get involved in all these things and there was no point in turning back now. Whatever we were going to do, we'd have to live with it.

Since nobody trusted themselves to close their eyes for sleep after the encounter with the little freaky ghost we immediately started our research. The central of Trans-Can (a truckage company that mainly dealt with food) responsible for British Columbia was soon found and not too far from Vancouver. By Canadian means, anyway. That was our best approach, and so we simply drove there. Three trucks were on the site, one of which matched Samantha's description pretty exactly. Charlie entered the compound via the Umbra in his coyote shape. Before the parking attendant drove him off with a hail of firecrackers he could see that there really was a nameplate reading „Oscar“ in the window.

We waited until the day and followed the truck when it left. Due to the vague description we couldn't tell exactly if the man was the one we were looking for. Fio offered herself as bait. She's more hard-boiled than meets the eye and that impresses me. Gave her my mobile for the case of emergency, then we dropped her by the side of the freeway a good way ahead of Oscar's truck. He took the bait. Fio who even cold-bloodedly introduced herself as „Samantha“ posed as a naive runaway. She even pretended that she had to pee by the roadside but the driver kept his manners. Finally she let him take her to the next town, made some photos of him and even arranged a meeting for the homeward journey. This gives us three days. We'll show the photos to the girl from the swamp, and then let's see.

Entry 16 – Samantha and her Murderer

After 36 hours awake I finally indulged in some sleep and went over to Charlie's in the afternoon with some breakfast. It didn't take long and the whole thing mutated into an extensive feast in which most of our pack and its satellites took part. Charlie and Brianna, Fio and the perpetually nagging Mr. Marcon, „No!“ who was really called Jost and Uncle Sam and also a stray Bastet that the latter had brought home. The Bastet, I think it was a black panther or something had next to no clue about anything and didn't provide us with any other name than „Tina Turner“. So far she'd survived by house- and veil breaking. This time it was up to us to explain our world and our rules to her since Bob was missing. But I'm not so sure if all too much of it got through. Fiona however distinguished herself with a pleasant thirst for knowledge. We joked that Charlie could open a flat share for freaks soon, considering all the critters that we placed with him. Why not the girl from the swamp too, she could live in the bathroom. Finally Liam joined us. There were news from Game Brain, too, but in order to ask him about our nagging ghost we'll have to visit him.

When the evening came we set off to the swamps with three copies of the photos that Fiona had taken of Oscar, planning to ask Samantha if we had found the right guy. Again Charlie started with a show that was hard to endure but the success stayed away this time. He tried again and wandered a little way off to call her again. This time all three pictures burst into flame at the same time for an answer. Yes, we seemed to have found the murderer. But at the same time we wanted to be 100 % sure that we didn't put an innocent in front of her. Charlie considered the whole affair to be some kind of delivery mission that didn't justify any moral excitement. I decided I'd see it similarly since my conscience meanwhile got to me.

We now had one and a half days left to plan the abduction. We had no Philodox in our pack and didn't know anybody who could help us, so we planned to ask a spirit of truth for it. We kindly declined Tina Turner's idea to go to bed with Oscar and coax a confession out of him. She didn't want to shower with Jost however, while he tried to hit on Brianna a bit. In the same night we carved and decorated a little wooden snake that you could curl around your ear. In it the spirit should be bound. As an offering to the spirit I crashed some of the most pertinent dishonest websites while the Rite of Summoning took place in Charlie's backyard. A falcon spirit in the colors of the night sky appeared and was ready to do us the favor for a bit of Gnosis. He more or less ignored the offering, he said he had nothing to do with the Weaver's affairs. That statement is so.... ARGHL that I don't even know where to start commenting, so I won't. We'd be able to call upon the spirit to let him judge one answer.

The next day Charlie bought a police outfit at a weapons store owned by a neo nazi while I got a cell phone and a taser for Fio. Plan A was to abuse Fio as bait again and then conk the guy when he left the truck to follow her into the brushes. Plan B was to pose as patrolmen and conk the guy if plan A failed. Well, and if all went wrong we still had Tina Turner.

We made teams and got into the cars, took our waiting positions and lay in wait until Fiona had been picked up by our „victim“ again. Fio however didn't vacillate and tasered Oscar when he stopped by the roadside to let her „pee“. Liam constrained him, then we blindfolded him, then our military bear hid the truck somewhere deep in the forest. We also drove far into the wilderness, called upon the spirit and began to question the awakening human. However, he was much too shocked to answer even the most simple questions. Tina Turner and Sammy growled at him menacingly which drove him even more meshugge. I thought it was a good idea to make noises by releasing the safety of Liam's gun and that he'd finally confess, but this was even less helpful. In the end all of us were angry, the guy was out of his mind with fear and the question was unanswered. Brianna then pulled out her harmony flute and relaxed the situation with a little song. As well our hostage as us were engulfed by a deep, peaceful calm which crashed the interrogation for good. We carted Oscar to a truck stop, bought him a sandwich and hung around in the parking lot getting along with him just fine. Then however Samantha appeared. Oscar didn't really get how serious the situation was when the kid confronted him with his deeds. Finally he remembered. And then the general harmony ended very abruptly when she started to make him pay. I don't feel inclined at all to write down any of that because it was by far the most unsightly thing I've ever seen. Anyway, under her constant abuse Samantha's murderer turned into a bog-body from the inside out and in the end lay in a very large puddle of mud that he'd vomited out. While all of us were still standing in complete shock, Samantha declared our fae would now be safe if she behaved. Some of us were mentally unable to move Oscar's body, others physically. Accordingly we fled after a pathetic try.

I feel in need of a thorough Rite of Cleansing, meaning very filthy. Furthermore I think that we'll bill Lucy very expensively for this, if she likes it or not.