Wolf Moon Revel
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Date: 01/01/2018 |
Belle Isle, officially Belle Isle State Park, is a 982 acre island park in the Detroit River, between the United States mainland and Canada, managed by the State of Michigan. It is connected to the rest of Detroit, Michigan by the MacArthur Bridge. It is home to the Belle Isle Aquarium, the Belle Isle Conservatory, the Detroit Yacht Club on an adjacent island, the Detroit Boat Club, and other amenities. The city had maintained a Nature Center where visitors were able to traverse wooded trails and view wildlife natural habitats. The island includes a half-mile swimming beach. Roads and paths criss-cross the western end of the island connecting the James Scott Memorial Fountain with the aquarium and the boat club. The eastern half of the island has been left in its natural state, with only a few winding streets traversing its length. A herd of European fallow deer roam the park, though their numbers are drastically reduced. Driving onto the island requires a permit or day pass, though joggers and boaters are not required to purchase them. Alcohol is prohibited except by permit and the island is patrolled by the Department of Natural Resources Law Enforcement Division conservation officers in conjunction with Michigan State Police troopers. |
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Cast: Storyteller: | |
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It is not as if there's a shortage of foul spirits in the area to hunt. The markings that had it reading along the edge of Belle Isle, marks in the umbrakl sands that reek of wyrm taint, are a clear indication that something foul has been here, attacking yet smaller spirits, latching on to them and dragging them into the water, perhaps. Two hours to midnight, a howl tears through the Umbral landscape. The call of an Ahroun under her Auspice moon, meant to convey nothing more than the intent to run rampant over expanse of the Isle. There's nothing subtle about it, and no attempts to make it that way, the charge through the Penumbral reflection of the golf courses and 'nature trails' done at full speed. The ground is ripped up underfoot, claws upending soil and underbrush in their wake, the scents of the corrupted river driving both Garou onward towards the shoreline. Might not be "their" shoreline, but it hardly matters: the opportunity to beat back the banes that infest the waters is enough for the rampaging grey Crinos to come calling, bursting through the treeline to do some rather-- er, aggressive beachcombing. The howl comes in harmony with another -- much the same, despite it not being the caller's Auspice moon. There's nonetheless the same raw, aggressive fierceness in it, with an undertone of joyous freedom. The white Crinos is right along with the grey one, churning up gouges in the Umbral land as they go. It's not a proper hunt yet, not one seeking specific prey, but a revel; it's not until they near that shoreline and its scents that that begins to change, with the indication of a particular target perhaps not too far afield. Werewolves are hunters. It's in their blood, after all. It's who they are. Instinctively, the packed duo are able to understand the pattern of its attacks and where to go to get ahead of it, to lay in wait for the right moment for their prey. It's going to take a little time, but they know where it's going to be, further up along the shore sometime during the night. Words like 'stop,' and 'wait,' and 'patience' aren't a part of the Ahroun's vocabulary right now, which itself leads to a snort of frustration. She doubles back along the shoreline, running herself through some of that energy, looking very much like the overgrown variant of someone's overexcited pet experiencing their first day on the beach. A *frozen* beach, to be sure, but a beach, all the same. She does settle, eventually - sort of - doubling back towards the treeline and to solid ground to rake her claws over the earth in a rather exaggerated fashion, her eyes set on the spot in question. Hiding is certainly doable. Time is spent there, of course, waiting. It's not a pleasent wait given the the wolf so close to the surface. But, hey,eventually, there's a roiling in the twisted, tainted waters. Something lumbers onto the shore. A great, coiled body, covered in wretched, bleeding, twisting scales with smoke and green flame licking from the seams. It lunges towards another spirit upon the shore. It spots them, abandons the attack, and starts back to the water! SNEK, WHERE ARE YOU GOIN'. SNEK! STAHP! It does stop, mostly because it realizes there's no way in hell it can get back into the water in time. There's a pulse as the water itself rises on its command, a wave of crashing into the Garou in an effort to send them hurtling back as they close in. The great snake's efforts, however, don't appear to have paid off. It may well be that no man is an island, but Ouroboros does not too bad an imitation of one as the water crashes toward him and over his legs. It gives him half a second's pause and adjustment in his chase toward the snakething as he leans into the wave, and that lean adds to his movement through the (somewhat unpleasant) water as he continues toward the creature. The suddenly rising tide doesn't divert Razor-Eater's efforts in the least, the Ahroun pushing through the fetid waters, even as the crisp grey of her pelt turns a bit more-- muted?, losing the almost silvery appearance her breeding grants to the Detroit River's corruption. Nonetheless, she's dedicated herself to this, and the second she gets in close enough, she lashes out with what clearance she has above the water, claws cutting foul spirity flesh, the jagged lines left behind sealing up not long after. She snarls sharply, but doesn't spend any more time on it than strictly necessary. The 'snake'. The snake is not happy. It's a snake and here it is having its day ruined by these two frigging werewovles. It lashes out at Sandra, trying to wrap it bulks around her in a struggle that looks fairly impressive, though the Garou is able to keep it from getting wrapped around anythign vital in its effort to get bafck to shore. Ouroboros snarls sharply at the creature when it tries to coil itself around the Ahroun, and -- figuratively, despite the water -- dives in, lunging at one of those bulks and throwing his massive arms around it tightly. The snake is resilient against the attack so much like its own, but it doesn't manage to break free, not then, nor when then Ragabash begins hauling his partial-captive up the beach, out of the freshly-risen water. The howl from the west side of the Isle undoubtedly caught the attention of any umbral travelers. A reveler's howl, stating the intent to run and hunt, a trail of mild destruction left in the wake of the Ahroun and her packmate (said destruction almost certainly the Ahroun's fault), leading east. They've run to the opposite shoreline, it seems, as the sound of the fight between the web and the water is echoed here, localized to the sight of a massive serpent, and two Garou attempting to-- wrestle with it, one more successfully than the other. The beast is massive, easily over fifteen feet in length, its suppurating scales flecked with blood that weeps sluggishly from sores both seen and not, flecks of green flame like balefire seeming to burn harmlessly along its body. For now. And indeed, Razor-Eater thrashes rather impressively in the water in an attempt to break free of the snake's enthusiastic bid for a full-body hug, lashing out once to try and wrap her arms around its neck (isn't it basically one long neck, anyway?), right at the base of its head. Its own trashing attempts to get away from Ouroboros' hold on it turn the entire thing into an exercise of confusion, however, her first attempt to get a hold of it ending in full (and completely unwanted) immersion into the water as its head pulls back abruptly. When she surfaces, she makes *another* attempt, but the damn thing slips free a *second* time, ending in what, at any other time, might be a comical series of sputtered expletives. Then comes a *third* try, the Ahroun's arms finally latching around the base of the snake's head, her claws digging into the silt underfoot to start hauling the thing ashore. And who should come upon this gathering but a Japanese princess! Tall and elegant in a hakama and keikogi, her hair blowing in the umbral wind with a No-Dachi resting easily on her shoulder. Perfectly normal, average umbral sight, right? Kaminari is late to the party, but she is here and she brought a giant sword with her, the better to cut things to ribbons. With her grip on the snake's head, Razor-Eater shoots a brief, pointed look in Ouroboros direction, prompting the both of them to abruptly hoist the bane up, and hurl it straight for the shoreline. It's not the most graceful manuever, but it gets it *out* of the water, allowing the Garou to drag themselves out of the corrupted waters along with it. So hurled back onto the shore, the snake-creature's body unfurls and it flops madly for a moment before rising up. A blast, no, a /stream/ of foul, poisonous ichor strieks Sandra's fur and begins eating away at the flesh beenath, leaving a smoking burn across her shoulder. Fortuantely, it was not well aimerd. The Japanese princess is apparently not one to soil her feet in the filthy river water and even as the two crinos heave the massive snake, with a short running start she takes a third step, solidly plants her foot and launches herself into the air. For a few moments she sails gracefully before bringing now her No-Dachi point first on the creature's back. It's as she advances on the shore that Razor-Eater finds herself caught in that spray of concentrated awful, the glob of it that sticks to her and eats at her indeed digging deep into her shoulder. It earns another sharp snarl from her, and a sudden burst of speed, the Ahroun dropping to all fours to race ahead, and snap her hand out at the last second, sharpened claws digging into the thing's face and eyes. Seeing *again* that the wounds heal over just as rapidly as they're delivered, she looses a thoroughly impatient shout straight in the damn thing's face, not that it-- really does her, or anyone, any good. If at first you don't succeed? Transform into a giant rage monster! This seems to be Kaminari's approach as she drives the blade down into the creature's back and then shifts into her crinos form mid-thrust adding hundreds of pounds of crinos weight to the strike, which slices through the giant snake's thick scales and buries the blade deep, nearly to the hilt, visciously impaling it. That spray of venom at his packmate gets another snarl from Ouroboros, and now that his hands are free of Massive Spirit Snake, and as it goes to bite at him he lunges at it, dagger gleaming softly in the Umbral light. A duck and dodge puts him just below the thing's jaw as it snaps shut, and his slash comes around from below and slightly behind, aimed at the break between the scales of the throat. It works; the blade punctures the weaker spot and slides into the flesh, the spirit within biting viciously as the Ragabash brings his arm around on the follow-through, pulling the knife free. Though the resulting wound doesn't look as awful as it seems as though it ought to, there is at least a satisfying rent there, and a pleasing -- depending on what pleases you -- amount of what passes for its blood oozing viscously out. Razor-Eater raises back up to her full height, her fingers flexing and hooking in sharply, a dull snapping sound like cracking knuckles heard from the tips. As the thing lunges at her packmate - and both he, and Eyes of the Storm go after it with their blades - she makes the most of the snake's distraction (or as much as she can of it, anyway), and takes a swipe at one side of the oozing-- neck. Doesn't seem to matter where it hits, really; the second that it does, her claws snap off at the last possible second, all five buried deep between the bane's scales, and staying put. Funny thing about not having arms: it makes digging those things out fairly difficult. As for the Ahroun, herself-- well, yes, that fucking hurts - she *did* just effectively declaw herself - but she acknowledges it only with a flick of her wrist - sending the blood that pours from the tips of her fingers onto the beach along with the flecks of tainted water - and a sudden swipe with her *other* hand, claws burying in just as deep as they did with the other hand, though these don't snap off this time. Instead, she wrenches her hand downward, opening up trenches along the snake's back and side. It really did try. It rears around in an effort to bite Ouroborous, but the werewolves didn't survive this long by being easy to strike. It's bleeding green goo from multiple wounds, now. The stuff of taint, really. Ouroboros aims to take advantage of the snake's distraction, arm sweeping up as the creature's head turns toward the most recently arrived of his companions, moving to plunge the dagger into the thing's eye. It... nearly works. He doesn't quite judge the timing right, and catches it right in what would probably be the tear duct, if wyrmy snake spirit things can cry. In catching the corner, it catches a scale border as well, and ends up guided downward instead of deep into the skull as he'd intended. The blade doesn't dig in like before, just cuts like-- well, like a knife. It's damage, at least, but only the sort that means the thing'd never pay for a drink again in certain kinds of bars. Then again, massive wyrm snake spirits probably never pay for their own drinks anyhow. Eyes of the Storm leads off the giant snake grabbing the hilt of her No-Dachi and letting her weight carry the blade through the impaled snake's flesh, only to be left hanging there after only slicing a few inches. Her eyes flash with anger and frustration as she moves with rage induced speed, first doing what appears to be a chin-up with the weapon's long handle but then she kicks her feet skyward going up and over like it was one of the uneven bars and dropping again, apply her full weight to it once more. This time the blade severs whatever it had caught upon and she rides it all the way down to the ground splitting open the massive creature's stomach and letting it's innards spill out upon the umbral beach, before retrieving her sword from the carnage and turning to give a quick snap of her wrist removing the beast's ichor from the blade. With the snake just barely hanging on for 'dear life,' such as it is, and undoubtedly struggling to hit the 'reform' button as quickly as possible, Razor-Eater does what anyone would: she takes hold of the upper jaw, one clawed foot on the lower, claws digging into teeth and tongue, and she pulls. And she *keeps* pulling, even as the spirit skin struggles to knit the damage that's being done, until such time as she's wrenched the top of its head free of its body. That ichor leaves a slight burning sensation on the pads of her feet, but she pays it little mind, preferring instead to grip the thing's head and *beat* the thing once or twice for good measure. As close to a non-verbal 'and *stay* down' as there can be, followed by the dislodged jaw being tossed aside, and a low grunt issuing from her throat. ~In a *real* revel,~ she says, flexing the bleeding hand that's long since healed, her claws starting to come back in, ~there'd be no swordplay.~ A beat; a light huff through her nose. ~Good job, regardless,~ is, of course, amended. | |
