(Under Control) Broken In Half

[West]

Material Realm

It's not easy for Thao to work in the darkness. The pale moonlight is a poor substitute for the sun, and his phone's screen a poor one for a flashlight. Still, he makes some progress. Aside from the obvious, the body has several deep cuts on it. All of the cuts, and the massive severing point, are incredibly neat and precise: the tissue is cut as cleanly as any scalpel Thao has ever wielded. Stranger, though, is that they're all... cauterized. The blood on the ground seeps from ruptures in the severed portion -- most likely when the body hit the ground. Now that he's taking a closer look, he can also smell the distinctive scent of burned hair, as well as flesh.

Note

3 Penalty assessed for darkness -- subtracting from the right converts the Perception and Investigation rolls into Failures.

Shadow Realm

The man takes a step backward as Firebringer snarls and Daniel growls. Whether Firebringer is trying to be menacing or not, its an intimidating sight. His eyes move back and forth as the Uratha separate. The same eyes widen slightly as Chantay shifts.

Closer now, the man has a slight build and open features. If not for the bloodied clothing, he would fit in perfectly as a restaurant waiter or maybe a young professional. At his sides, his hands and fingers move as if he's trying to relieve cramps or is thrumming the strings of an air guitar to an unheard melody.

His expression becomes mixed when Chantay speaks, but then she's just turned from the Big Bad Wolf into Hot Chick. A flicker of curiosity crosses his eyes as he gives her the once over. Where did the clothes come from?

"English, please?"

The question gives away that he hasn't recognized First Tongue for what it is.

"That trick's something you probably want to save for a second or third date," he continues. His tone is friendly, and has a trace of an accent to match his features.

"Can, ah, they change too?"

[Lesingnon]

Definitely not a spirit, then, if he didn't recognize First Tongue, and he seemed even less likely to be a werewolf. Especially since he seemed caught off-guard by her shifting, too. Really, she'd have rather him understood the ancient language. Then she'd at least have some guess as to what this man was. Having no idea whatsoever was...disconcerting, to say the least.

Her eyebrows arch slightly at the mention of dates. She hadn't been sure what to expect from him, but that wasn't the topic she'd have expected to come up. At least he sounded friendly, though. She'd certainly take that over hostility given what he seemed to be able to do. "Oh, I have better tricks I can pull out for the later dates." His shifting question bears a moment's consideration or two. Namely whether she wanted to give that information away. But he could probably guess the answer easily enough anyway, so there was little to lose in telling him. And if she gave the impression of being open with such things, hopefully it would encourage him to be similarly forthright. For now she just needed to get him talking.

"Yes, they can. And I hope you'll forgive them for being on edge. Finding a body with those kinds of wounds, seeing that," she motions towards the darkness radiating out from the body's lower half, "corruption...it has us all concerned." Especially since, you know, it was all on Tur grounds as well. But she wasn't quite so sure she wanted to inform him of the significance of these lands quite yet.

[Firebringer]

Firebringer, meanwhile, really would have preferred hostility. It fit better with the narrative he wanted, and with the disorder the man's mere presence had caused. His tail flicks impatiently side-to-side and a menacing glare fixes the man. He wanted so desperately to pounce the intruder, to get caught up in the thrill of a fight or a hunt. Anything to cut the needless banter.

But somewhere, he knew that the banter wasn't quite as useless as all that, that this was a man of unknown capabilities, and information could be life or death. It's not a happy realization, but it's just enough to keep instinct at bay.

For now.

[Matamune]

Daniel continues looking around but his ears perk up in the curiousity. It's not often you find something this side of the Gauntlet that can't speak First Tongue. Something that's not scared out of its mind after falling through a Verge or being brought over by a powerful Urdraga. Whatever is before them flirting with Chantay while standing over a corpse cut in half deserves caution.

So he waits.

[West]

A hand batted at a mote that floated in front of him, then resumed the odd dance with his other hand. Perhaps he was using American Sign Language.

"Oh. Pardon my... phrasing. English is nott native," he explained with a small smile.

"That was not a question of curiosity but a request."

By degrees, the man was relaxing, becoming comfortable with the situation. His eyes follow Chantay's motion down to the body.

"That was unfortunate, yes. Have you come across to return what he had taken from me?"

[Firebringer]

A short, sharp snarl. <<Not a chance.>> And if the interloper was prevented from understanding by the language barrier ... well, that was just unfortunate.

Of course, a cold glare tends to carry its meaning equally well in any language. Likewise the fact that he continues to sport four legs and a tail.

[Matamune]

Daniel echoes Firebringer even if his tone and manner are more neutral:

<<Not until he tells why the fuck we have innards all over our home>>, - 'fuck' - that was a nice word. A concept present in any language.

[TheMalkCat]

The Wizened continues to look over the charred body on the forest floor. There isn't much else he can think of doing in the way of scoping out the scene. Even with the light of the moon and the light of his phone, the dark hides all but the most vulgar details. Thao stares at "Rifle-Breaker"'s frozen snarl with a measure of wonder and fear. Ah don't think someone like this'd go down without a fight. Somethin' tells me th' other guy might look just as bad. His thoughts turn to who or what could do something like this.

Whatever th' hell it is, Ah'm not too keen on meetin' it...and this blood is fresh. That means whatever killed him can't be too far off. His eyes trace downward to the bisection across the man's torso. They linger on the sheer disconnect between his abdomen and his absent lower half.An' where's the rest o' th' body? Thao contemplates this for a moment longer.

Then, Thao reaches out with a hand and sweeps the back of his hand over the man's eyelids until both are shut. The simple courtesy is worth leaving a scant mark on the corpse.

[Lesingnon]

The flat refusal of either of the two wolves to revert to Hishu didn't really surprise her in the slightest. And she was grateful for it. The two halves of the body made it apparent enough that this man, whatever he was, was dangerous. So she'd certainly rather have her two companions in their most combat-ready forms, Tur or not. She just wasn't going to explain it like that, of course.

"They'd rather stay in their current forms. The Hisil is a dangerous place, you always need to keep a wary eye on your surroundings here. And lupine senses are much keener than human ones." Even if it wasn't the main reason those two wanted to stay in their current forms it was a very valid point. She would offer him some measure of assurance, though. "We do prefer to avoid violence, bloodshed, on these lands. Which is why this attracted our attention so quickly. We didn't know that anything had been taken from you." She glances to the body again, "Is that what this was about?"

[West]

I've narrated Vector's hands moving, but he is going to release a Spell.
By our rules, this calls for Initiative.