Caution: All Rails Are Alive

[Cayce]

The Sacramento Railyards.

For over a quarter of a century, the Railyards sat, a final vestige of the Transcontinental Railroad's corpse, slowly rusting beneath the glare of the California sun. But as with all burial grounds in this nation, the corroding bones were never meant to lie in peace. The tromp of workboots and the roar of bulldozers drowned out the Railyard's silent mourning, and soon construction began...

And now, with the skeleton of the ancient railroad staring at the churned earth and freshly poured foundations, and with an arterial road open and pumping a shallow stream of exhaust and steel through the desecrated remains of this industrial graveyard, the Forsaken of Sacramento gather...

A dark colored wolf with braids in its fur trotted up to a bench that sat overlooking the project and promptly hunkered down beneath it to wait for the rest of its pack.

Feel free to post your entry, to describe the railyards, and whatever else comes to mind Saber Sloth Yumyumcrow unlimited sink

[Kid]

Turns out, there's more than one wolf stalking the rail yards.

Kid moves on all fours from one shadow to another, a tawny colored beast, easily lost amidst the yellows of dry grass and the browns of recently displaced dirt.

Every now and again, the wolf pauses: ears pricked, nose sniffing at the air. Strange smells of old industry and fresh construction. Sounds of small animals close by, traffic in the distance.

Then, the wolf-scent.

And Kid knows: Iseult. Somewhere nearby. On silent paws, he makes his approach, until he spots her, laid up underneath that bench. Stopping a few paces off, he sits and tilts his wolf-head. Whines out a single word in First Tongue. A greeting and term of endearment in one:

<<Sister>>

Locking in Moon Phase

[Hector]

What is it with wolves? Quick! Call all the pest control! There is another beast in the city. This one is tawny, mottled, with patches of black and red. It even looks kind of scruffy, like its been living hard. Mangy, even, if one did not know how to read the play of muscles that churned and rolled beneath its skin.

Damn weird eyes though.

Lolling tongue. Panting. Exertion or too much excitement?

Hector moved at speed, pausing only to play with shadows, explore under abandoned carriages (or in them). Or bury his nose in the wild plants that clung tenaciously to the landscape, still recovering from drought.

All that changed when he scented the others. Muscles flowed as he padded across to where Iseult and Kid stood together. His posture turned respectful, snout to ground.

<<Pack>>

[Viola Jones]

Approaching from the direction Iseult-wolf had, her pace slows, as she comes upon the rest of this, her budding pack.

A scoffing snort escapes her.

Guess this fucking proves it. Just how connected they already are or some shit like that.

The only Rahu and last wolf to arrive is too an all fours, strong and sleek, not the pitch black fur that it seemed everyone assumed she should have, but a patchwork of colors, white, creams, greys to blacks, prominent and threaded throughout is a dull ruddy color.

Voila-wolf's body sills, though ears are perked, twitching at the sounds of the rail yard around them. Nose distracted by the scents, different, unique, stranger then what she's used to, and even if it grates to admit, the wolf-scent around her was comforting in this new place. If they really were going to make this the heart of their territory, they would have to do something about that.

Viola snorts again, Hector's already taken himself out of the running for alpha there. With her talk with Iseult, she knew the Cahalith didn't want to be alpha and Viola had her own reasons for not wanting the role either. Would Kid step up, or would they rotate the roll like Iseult said?

Scents, sounds and musings keeps the Rahu quiet. Though if she was thinking about talking, or greeting the others she probably would have kept mum anyway.

[Cayce]

The braided wolf beneath the bench gave a wuff of greeting in reply to Kid, and a flick of the ears to acknowledge the arrival of the other two. But then, just in case they took her lack of vocalization as a play for dominance, the Iseult-wolf cocked it's head, ears swiveling, nose twitching, clearly asking the question: What now?

The Railyards were a large place, filled with movement and activity. Even as strange a sight as four wolves (or dogs, most likely, to the average observer) might be, it wouldn't be hard to slip beyond notice as long as they kept moving, and stayed out of the Herd's path.

After all, not every building in the railyards had been torn down. There were at least two free standing behemoths of brick, wood, and steel that were slated for renovation and re-purposing, but which sat still and empty for now, ignored until more intensive projects had been completed. Perhaps there, in those ancient monuments to the railroad, a locus might sit.

Or, perhaps closer to the river, where an ancient train trellis had once sat, they might find a gathering of spiritual energies.

Rail yards

Attachment 5073

Choose your location, and give me wits+investigation+primal urge to detect a loci, and/or wits+empathy+primal urge to peek across the guantlet.

[Kid]

So much to explore. So many scents, sounds, sights crowding in upon him, pulling Kid's attentions this way and that. It's a comfort be surrounded by his newly formed pack. It provides focus, gives him direction.

Time to go. To run together, trace out this new patch of ground that would be their territory.

The Kid-wolf stands again and, with a flourish of the tail, turns and trots off. Everything about his manner communicates one thing: Follow. He doesn't look back, assumes the others are coming along.

It's the empty buildings he heads toward first. They can make their way closer to the river later. One thing at a time.

Trotting around the exterior of the buildings, the wolf sniffs at the air, searching for the hint of some spiritual power on the dry, summer wind.

  Sniffing out a Locus, 1 suxx

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2017-08-14 10:37:12		Kid rolls 6 to Wits3 + Invest1 + PU2 (10 Again)		4, 4, 8, 4, 6, 2		1 success

[Hector]

For a long while, Hector simply squats and stares at the others. He pants, tongue pulsating as he does.

And then he is scampering (yes, scampering) after Kid. At least till he catches the other wolf up and then his movements turned to careful purpose - in the span of four strides. Hector is much more used to his human and near-human forms, though. He hasn't mastered scent and is still too reliant on his eyes; body language gives him pause.

Once he figures what Kid is up to, Hector takes the opposite path. No sense finding a locus only to get flanked if something else has claimed residency. Hector is moving cat-like now, eyes narrowed, as he attempts to penetrate the Gauntlet, the veil between worlds...

  

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2017-08-16 02:52:11		Hector to Peer Across the Gauntlet rolls 7 to Wits + Empathy + Primal Urge (10 Again)		8, 3, 7, 6, 1, 2, 3		1 success

[Viola Jones]

To Iseult-wolf's unspoken question, Voila-wolf wuffs out a breath, and gives the Blood Talon a look, because clearly there was only one real option answer to that questions.

Which Kid-wolf's quick to provide.

As Kid-wolf's tail beckons and Viola-wolf snorts, rolls her eye, but stretches her muscles first in preparation to move.

Viola-wolf's stride is smooth, precise and measured. Darting over and around pieces of debris with a grace in direct opposition to Hector-wolf's gangly movements. For the Rahu days and weeks were spent on four legs instead of two.

Scent and body language come easier to her then words ever will.

For those that know how read such things - which should be those surrounding her now - her flat expressions and dead eyes are gone. Something Viola knew and accepted when she chose to finish her approach on paws instead of boots.

Trotting along after the down to business Kid and the almost pup-like Hector, she leaves her fellow Meninna to scent out what was out there to be scented, while Viola-wolf joined Hector-wolf in an attempt to peer across the Gantlet and just see what threats to her pack might lay just out of reach - for now.

  1 success

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2017-08-17 01:59:34		Viola Jones rolls 4 to Peer Across the Gauntlet (Wits 3 + PU 2 + -1 untrained Empathy) (10 Again)		4, 5, 8, 2		1 success

[Cayce]

Taking up the rear, the Iseult-wolf trotted after the others, content to watch their surroundings while the others turned toward the realm of the spirits...

For, beyond the scent of diesel and churned earth lay the faint trace of essence, slowly growing more pervasive with each yard they padded closer. The scent was difficult to place, at first, smothered as it was by the acrid fumes from the steel behemoths and the dust that they clawed up out of the earth. But, as they grew further away from the distractions of the material world, the scent of the locus became more cloying. At first, Kid thought it was simply the smell of rust, of metal cooking in the sun, but the scent grew wetter as he trotted closer, the unmistakable note of blood riding the air. Though it was not just blood. It was the scent of life ending, and each step was bringing him nearer...

But Hector and Viola were less interested in the scent, their eyes fixed, staring through the veil into the Shadow cast by this realm. It was eerily similar in some ways, for the cruel rays of the sun still beat down upon barren soil and the crumpled and rusting hulks of building ins the railyard, but there, in the Shadow, sun bleached spires of bone peeked up from the earth, and dark stains dotted the ground all alongside the spiderweb of railroad tracks that spilled out from the railyard complex...

[Kid]

When he picks up the scent, the Kid-wolf's entire posture changes. His gait slows. Ears prick, then flatten slightly. His tail is held in a rigid, horizontal position, straight out from his body.

It's clear that Kid is on high alert, any wolf could see. Something isn't right here.

His head swivels, eyes finding his pack-mates for a moment:

<<Essence>> the first tongue is guttural, yet softly spoken by his wolf's tongue. <<Blood. Death.>>

With that, he continues to follow the trail, moving forward despite his growing unease.

  1 success

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2017-08-19 14:06:44		Kid rolls 6 to Wits3 + Invest1 + PU2 (10 Again)		1, 3, 1, 9, 6, 6		1 success