WoD - Life at Dusk

As Ruth starts to draw a map of the location Mark, some of the cops come in and start asking the patrons questions. Marcus takes Kat aside to learn more about the 11:30 meeting with Bearhugger. Afterward, he calls his contact in the ghost walkers while Kat makes a call to Bearhugger. Marcus asks for backup, filling in some tidbits of the situation and saying it involves “the entire people, not just one pack.” Marcus arranges a meeting for 30 minutes out at a cemetery Kat chose. Bearhugger, however, won’t be able to provide assistance until 11:30.

Ruth reveals that there are six vampires underneath the Chinese restaurant, as well as some computers, and slabs for clamping humanoids down, likely for experimentation of some kind. Stark asks if they’re hooked up to the Internet, wanting to hack in from the diner, but she is not able to discern that. Mark asks if she got a good look at the vampires, describing his sire in some detail and Ruth confirms that he’s there, and she thinks they are expecting more vampires to show up later in the night. After Stark asks what they were saying, Ruth says only that they were talking about a feasting later.

Marcus returns to the discussion from her phone call and asks if the map is of the location and says he had some people can be picked up along the way. Marcus asks Mark how much time it’ll take to deal with the cops, he says that if they choose an indiscrete manner of leaving they won’t have to deal with them at all. Stark asks Ruth where the 2 backup mages are and she says out back on his Seko’s bike. A moment later, Stark fades from everyone’s attention and walks out the back. After another moment, Rigel blatantly walks out the back. The rest, sit for a moment, stunned that the two walked out without any incident, then the rest head to slip out through the bathrooms. Mark keeping the rear to ensure everyone got out before fading away in a manner similar to Stark.

Stark greets Seko, “We’re going to kill some vampires and rescue some werewolves and mages…” Then introduces himself to Janine, the female mage sitting on the back of Seko’s bike, who returns the favor. Everyone else introduces themselves as they get outside. Seko mentions there’s a hallows at the holy sepulcher, after learning of the meet up with the Ghost Walkers, and the crew heads out.

Stark gets a heal from Janine and gathers up what tass he can find before a junker van enters the cemetery. Two from the Ghost Walkers, the leader and Marcus’ mentor, approach Marcus and he fills them in on the situation. The Ghost Walker says it sounds like a trap, eyeing Mark, and Mark responds, “Then don’t go.” Kikyo asks if we know whether or not the werewolves are ‘pure’, nobody knows. “Certainly, it could be a trap…”, agreed Marcus. “How do you want to play this?”, ask the GhostWalker. “We should at least scout it out.” “You need us to scout?” Mark interjects with a comment about how he thought that werewolves were supposed to be the fanged furry death…

After some growls, the GhostWalker asks Mark, “So, you speak for the pack now?” He looks surprised and glances back at Kat, who shrugs. Stark begins to say that Marcus is speaking because he knows them, but Marcus interrupts saying, “Yes, ignore the mage he knows nothing.” The other clan leader says she “heard about the ‘whelp’.” At that insult, Stark glares at the back of Marcus’s head for a moment and strides past Markus and the GhostWalkers to get on his bike to leave. Mark and Seko inquire as to his destination and he says he needs to arm up before heading in.

Stark’s ammunition and weapon run took as long as the rest of the dialog between packs and he arrived shortly after the rest. When Mark had arrived, he had to drive past the restaurant due to recognizing a man that had just walked out the rear entrance. After pulling around a corner and dismounting, he had to hide himself to avoid being seen by the same man walking around the corner. The werewolves, a few yards away, cease approaching when Mark disappears and the other man comes around the corner to get on a Harley and ride off.

After commenting on how the vampire had werewolf blood on him, Mark details what the police normally do in a storming/raiding. Stark does some magical scouting and the group sketch out a plan of attack.

As they prepare to enter, Stark gestures to Mark to let him know there is one right beside the door. Mark attempts to quietly open the door, but it is locked. Mark then braces himself, his muscles seem to ripple beneath his clothes, and he tears the door off its hinges. After half a second of spent in stunned amazement, Stark takes aim with his two automatic pistols and unloads half of each clip at Mark’s Sire. Stark then spun behind cover and the sire took only a moment to realize that the group running in past Stark was comprised entirely of werewolves before exclaiming “Oh, shit!”, and running through a back door shooting blindly behind himself. With a well-aimed and unexpected shotgun blast, the vampire standing by the door is left without a head. Marcus enters in near human and shoots the nearest vamp with his shotgun with a glancing blow and covers behind a support beam. Kat walks in with the flamethrower and catches two of the vampires with the flamethrower. Seko quickly jumps up the ladder that connects the room to the floor above and seals off the hatch, welding it with his will.

As the group advances and engages, Rigel, Stark, and half the ghost walkers run out the door to head off the Sire and one of the other vampires that followed him. They approach the HumVee, occupied by Kikyo, as it’s being launched a foot into the air by the trapped vampire lackie, the sire drawing a silver sword and returning to the fight inside. While the fight with the sire ensues, Seko and Janine put the two mages out of their misery.

After a couple bounces and noticing voices from under the HumVee as well as the group approaching from the rear, she pulls off the grate to allow the group to reach the vampire. Rigel steps up to the edge, glowering at the vampire, and disrobing in a most intimidating fashion. “I surrender!” cries the vampire lackie. As the rest of the Ghost Walkers approach, they hear the Sire within offering, “Perhaps we can work out a deal?” The attack inside ceases for a moment, then Marcus’s voice stating, “I have 30 brothers who say ‘No Deal’.” Then the sounds of a vampire being torn apart.

Rigel and the Ghost Walkers above the grate snarl at the vampire lackie as Stark runs up to the front, out of breath and oblivious to the recent dialog. “Hi, I’m Stark,” stated with a smile before unloading the weapons into the lackie’s skull. Inside, Mark’s sire pushes his way through the wolves and runs into a shotgun blast to the face from Mark, falling backward, unresponsive. Marcus walks up to the body and shoots it again making sure he’s dead.

As Mark walks out the back, he sees a van pulling up, slam on the brakes and begin reversing. After another brief, and impressive combat, including some leaping onto a retreating, spinning van. The vampire occupants are dispatched and the mage in the rear is rescued and healed. Stark runs inside to take hard drives from the computers in the “lab”, noticing the decapitated mages. Marcus asks Seko why he and Janine killed the mages and Seko said Ruth told them to because the torturous experience had destroyed their minds. He added, “You might want to consider that when dealing with the werewolves.”

After gathering up the drives, Stark explores the office while Marcus and the other pack’s leader discuss what to do. In the office Stark finds a skeleton of werewolf, vampire, mage, and golden bones. He walks out with it while the rest of the wolves begin the chanting death rights and slaying the captured wolves that weren’t sane enough to be released.

Stark asks Seko about the dead mages and is told the same as Marcus. Afterward, he gets Seko’s opinion on the skeleton’s worth, “That’s thing’s disgusting…” Stark dumps the skeleton in the back of the HumVee and everyone starts heading out before the cops arrive.

“This isn’t done, by the way…” Marcus declares, with a threatening tone, to Mark.

On the way home, Stark decides to grab a bottle of Scotch and spend the night conversing with Rez’Ale while getting drunk. Mark and Kat, back at the hotel, have a conversation about the pack’s leadership and Stark’s role in the pack.

Stark switches from guns to magic, hoping that getting the spirit's own body to hurt itself will prove more debilitating than his inaccurate gunfire did. It proves to be only slightly more effective, but succeeded in exposing Kovak McKallister to distinctly less risk of injury from friendly fire. Kovak was promptly thrown into the center of the warehouse where several boxes marked as fertilizer were effortlessly collapsed by his transformed weight. He let out a wail as a blade of silver broke through his skin, hidden inside the fertilizer. Kat shifted into near human while Rigel shifts fully into war. As the two engage the spirit with definite effort, Stark gets in a lucky shot to the base of its skull and it slumps to the ground devoid of life. The warehouse is strangely not filled with an unexpected silence, instead the dreadfully familiar sound of spider legs meeting various surfaces in haste fills the air. Kat was the first to spot one of the smaller spiders climbing a pile between the three by the still collapsing Azlu and the recovering Kovak. She managed to kick it, sending it rolling toward Kovak, who grabbed a blade by the non-silver handle and flung it at the spider. The spider managed to find its footing and leaped onto Kovak, biting him. Rigel turned away from the fallen Azlu to spot a group of spiders and promptly charged into them. As stark retreated away from whatever hostiles he could make out, some of the spiders began to attack each-other. Kat looked about for a fire alarm, spotted one, and pulled it to set off the sprinklers. The water quickly washed down the webbing that filled the majority of the warehouse's open space. Kovak, again, attempted to dismember the spider attacking him with another sword, but missed. As Kat turns away from the wall to engage the spiders, Marcus kicks open the door, shotgun in hand. Rigel continues to maul and claw at the group he charged while stark gets a shot off at the spider that had been hassling Kovak. Kat charges in and manages to get a hit on the thing just before Kovak cut it to pieces with the sword. Stark nearly got hit by a spider the size of a compact car that snuck down the wall beside him, only to have his leg bit into by a cat sized one that was behind him. His leg immediately starts to numb. Kat avoided being bit as Kovak finished off another one. Marcus overcomes the initial shock of the scene and uses the shotgun to shred the larger spider by stark to pieces. Stark quickly turns to the smaller one and splatters it with his handgun. Kat discerns which of the spiders started the infighting, assuming it was Stark's doing, and assists it. Kovak heads over to assist Stark by slashing at another small spider that had approached. Marcus manages to kick another away after being bitten and notices his leg numbing as well. Stark manages to finish off the one Kovak sliced into as Rigel crushes another in his jaws. Kovak turns to find another target, but the spiders have all retreated. After a moment of concentration, Stark says "The rest of them seem to be setting up defensively in the other buildings…" Marcus asks, "What are you doing here?" Stark grins and replies, "Having fun!" Kat explains how the group found out that the spiders are taking over the warehouses. "Okay… What next?" Rigel heads over to investigate the office, but it's locked. When he asks for someone to pick the lock, Stark shoots the lock instead. Rigel rifles through some papers until he finds an order form for the fertilizer that Kovak fell into. It was ordered by Menard's, and the General Manager just happens to be John Craig. Before relaying this to the rest of the group, he decides to put on a jump suit to replace his shredded clothes. Stark's cell phone rings, it's the girls, he picks up long enough to say, "We're busy," and puts his cell phone away on silent. Kat starts opening crates and finds 6 of them crates with silvered swords. Kikyo calls stark again, he hangs up again. Then Kat's phone rings and she ignores it. Finally stark picks up on the next call and listens. Kikyo explains that she wants to help out and join the pack. Stark tells Kat as much after ending the conversation with Kikyo. Marcus then gives Kikyo a call and asks her to bring the HumVee to the warehouse to help haul the weapons away. Once she arrived, loading of the weapons began. Kikyo spots the wounds on Kovak and asks, "What happened to you?!" and grabs a first aid kit from the HumVee to bandage him up. Once the weapons were loaded, the group drove over to Ruth's to let her know what they'd been up to. Ruth was able to answer some questions about the swords and John Craig. As the conversation progresses, everyone at the table slowly notices that Kikyo looks like she had a fight with a wolf at some point, but nobody mentioned it. At least not before the conversation was interrupted by Kovak receiving a call, "You're shitting me!" He hangs up and asks to borrow a bike, rushing out after Kat gives him a nod. As Kovak walked out, Marcus suggested that the pack's territory was much too large and they should cut it down. Stark promptly replied, "You're insane, shut up and sit down!" Before Marcus had time to reply, the air was filled with the sound of an Uzi firing in the parking lot, bringing the sound of Kovak's motorcycle engine to an abrupt end. The entire pack runs outside to find Kovak bleeding profusely and two men standing outside a caddy with weapons. Stark stops in his tracks and one of the two men starts to immediately convulse before a shotgun rings out from Stark's left. The convulsing assailing manages to unload his weapon into Kovak while the other returns fire toward the shotgun blast. Marcus bolts for the HumVee while Kat lights and tosses one of the two Molotov cocktails she'd forgotten to use in the warehouse toward the two men, engulfing one completely. Kikyo notices where Marcus is heading and follows while Rigel charges the less crispy man, shifting into garou form, but misses him. Stark concentrates for a moment and the space around Rigel begins to distort to his advantage. The mysterious shotgun-wielding ally finishes off on the flaming man as the other dives into the caddy and slips it into drive, slamming on the gas with his hand. Marcus gets to the HumVee has to wait for Kikyo to catch up with the keys. Kat runs up, lighting the second Molotov, and manages to toss it into the Vehicle. Kikyo reaches the HumVee and starts it, but Marcus decides to shift and intercept the Caddy personally, flipping it on a side. Stark, seeing that the fight is almost over, calmly walks into the diner and begins glancing around at the patrons, who start to comment to each other about the events that just unfolded. Some say how they didn't know a movie was going to be filmed here, others make grave comments about the gang violence getting worse each day. The newcomer pulls out his cell phone and makes a call, "Yeah there was a car accident outside… Ruth's Diner…" He finishes with some short instructions and enters Ruth's, following Stark to the booth in the back. As he approaches it, Ruth says, "You're not supposed to be here." "I'm not with them, got very important news," is his reply as he hands his gun to her, handle first. Marcus ensures that the two in the flaming car are dead as Kikyo drives the HumVee full of weapons away from the scene. Rigel storms over to the vehicle and knocks it back onto its wheels before shifting back. Kat manages to get some sweatpants and a sweatshirt for the, once again, naked Rigel. Marcus rushes over to Kovak, still pinned under the bike, and is saddened to find he didn't make it. Kat stands next to Marcus and the two stare and mourn for a moment. Marcus states that they have to do a death ritual for him, Kat agrees and calls Kikyo to return quickly for the body. They manage to get the body in the back of the HumVee and drive it down the alley and over to Kat's garage before the Police Sirens get too near. They stash Kovak's lifeless form in the garage and slip back into Ruth's just as the police vehicles arrive. Stark and the newcomer, who introduced himself as Mark, are already in the back of the diner, sitting across from each other. With some slight difficulty, Stark managed to realize that Mark is a vampire, but the wolves smell it immediately. Marcus sits and Mark tries to make nice, but Marcus claims that he's, "not letting you out of my sight." A man in a uniform approaches the table looks to Mark, who gives the officer an explanation for the accident. The uniform immediately walks out to ensure nobody is able to disprove the explanation. Marcus then demands, "Explain yourself!" Mark calmly starts with "You know how people have been going missing? I know where they are and I'm not with them…" He then explains that the vampires responsible for the disappearances are coming for the pack next. He was being introduced to the group, and was to go through initiation, but intends to "turn them down." When asked if he knew Kovak, since Kovak was in training, Mark said that he had only heard of him. Then returns to the issue of disappearances, stating that he is an hour late for his first meeting with the group in question and invites the pack to "raise hell". Kat asks who the people are, Mark replies, "I'm not naming names." Kikyo hastily writes out a text message to Marcus with "We could get help." Marcus doesn't check his phone when it vibrates, too busy berating Mark with comments of distrust and demands for proof. Tired of listening to Marcus waste time, Stark walks away from the table and calls Walken. "Yeah, I got a lead on the missing mages, can you send me anyone to help with a fight?" Walken asks, "What's the timetable?" "Five minutes." Walken lets out a long sigh at that, states he'll need at least then, then asks for Stark's location. "I'm at Ruth's." "Oh, then hand the phone over to Ruth, that's who I needed to call." Stark returns to the table to hand the phone to Ruth, who walks away and talks to Walken quietly. While waiting for Ruth to finish with the phone, Stark listens in on the conversation at the table again. "There were a dozen there last time… and three dozen werewolves chained to walls." Mark fills in more details about what the possible situation might be. As Mark tries to describe the location, Ruth returns to the table, giving Stark the phone and says she'll commit two mages. Then she grabs a napkin and begins drawing the location Mark was describing…

Looking mostly for something to do, but partially for food, the pack wanders over to Ruth’s Diner. A waitress by the name of Shellie Sullivan starts off the small talk by informing the group that there’s a new gang in the neighborhood, putting up their marks all over the area. The description made it clear to the group that they were the ‘gang’.

A regular by the name of Dave dave comes in, visibly stressed. The pack, after ordering, overhears that his warehouse is overrun with spiders, everything’s ruined. Stark breaks the ice by tossing the man a flask of scotch, but continues to listen from the booth while the others approach and ask the questions.

Through the banter, the pack learns the location of his warehouse, off ridgeland avenue, and that the city has been called in to see whether or not it needs to be demolished. Kovak asks what he stores, and avoids the question, saying he’d rather not say. At that, stark begins to read his surface thoughts and catches that he stores fertalizer and other chemicals and he is worried about how to meet his quotas.

As the conversation continued, Kat recieved a phone call from Bearhugger. “It’s time you met the neighborhood,” he said, likely prompted by the recent scuffles with the packs on the eastern and western edges of the newly defined territory. He informed her that he set up a meeting with the neighboring packs at 11:30, on the golf course. As the phone call ended, Kat spotted a parts truck on its way to her shop, making a delivery. Choosing to leave that for later, she stays and eats with the pack.

Towards the end of the meal, Stark gets a call from his associate Jim “Jimmy” Tucker. It seems he’s gotten himself into some trouble and needs to get off the street. Stark makes a couple quick phone calls and finds a place to rent for $150 a week, an apartment near the Holy Sepulcher graveyard managed by a man named Dick. Stark says he’ll take it immediately and will be by to sign the paperwork shortly, claiming his name is Jack Black. Stark called Jimmy back and told him to wait at Ruth’s while while he secured a place to lay low.

Kat then proceeded to make calls for a hotel, since her house would be a crime scene for at least a couple nights, and finds one nearby for $100-200 a night. On their our way out, Kevin walks in, a guy that works with Kovak. Kovak makes some small talk with him and he mentions some kids in a cemetary who’ve been leaving burnt candles and opened up squirrels.

Stark leaves to sign the paperwork while Kat goes to see what the parts guy from napa has to say, “you hear about the spiders at dave’s place?” Apparently it is a larger, and more widespread problem than it seemed. Dave’s is the third warehouse in the last month, all adjacent. Exterminators have been spraying every day, and the napa man claimed to hear some are the size of a football. Kat suggests someone must’ve been drinking on the job and got spooked.

Rigel sits in the office with his computer and tries to find Valume online, believing there must be some magical properties or perhaps a vampire conspiracy involved in its production. His searches yield a high school kid selling valume and he sets up a meet to buy some.

Kat departs to investigate the warehouses, and finds that dave’s stores fertilizer, while the other three store ammunition, clothes, and paint. The four warehouses are the largest buildings in the area. Kat creeps around the alleys between the four buildings, listening for noise and hears stuff moving around inside and comes across holes the size of cars in some of the buildings… after that they leave to return to ruth’s.

Stark returned from his new appartment to find Jim downing a coffee, shaking like it was his 100th for the day. As Stark approached, Shelly said to Stark, “I don’t want to know what’s up, you should get him some rest.” Stark tells Jimmy to pay the bill and follow him. On the way out Jimmy mentions that he had to steal his car. Near the appartment, Stark has Jimmy ditch the stolen car and walk the rest of the way on foot. Inside, Jimmy brings Stark up to date on his situation. “I… helped move some stuff last week. And I guess the guy I was moving it for didn’t tell me how hot it was.” Stark then asked, “Okay, what was it?” “Um… uh… uh… some drugs. I was desperate for the money, dude, I’m sorry.” Stark, didn’t really have a reason to be receiving apologies, so started reading his thoughts to find out more… Apparently, Jimmy was holding on to a 7’x3’x3’ crate, stolen, with a coffin inside. Stark confronted Jimmy, claiming his story was crap, mentioning something about drug deaths being no higher than normal. In Jimmy’s mind, stark sees walter kelvin was who handed the coffin off. Jimmy hesitantly tells the whole truth. Stark hands Jimmy a throw away phone and makes him call Kelvin, “Uh… the contents are missing.” After some more words, he hangs up and says he’s got to get the contents back or Kelvin will kill him. Stark decides to call Kat and get her take on the situation, she fails to pick up the phone as they all decided to try out the hotel’s swimming pool. Stark then calls walter with the same throw away phone, who seems much more lenient now that he’s aware that Stark has an interest in Jimmy’s well being. Walter says to wait for a call, shortly afterward Stark gets a call from Thomas on the throw away phone and sets up a meeting for jim to talk with Walter and the 12 hour time limit postponed. Stark tells Jimmy, who is severely relieved. Stark then leaves for the hotel to talk to Kat.

Stark approaches as they are finishing cleaning up from the swimming. Kat fills Stark in on what was discovered at the warehouse and the pack then leaves on motorcycle for the warehouses. Stark uses a spell to sense for spiders and finds that there are lots of spiders in the area. “I mean, LOTS of spiders, guys…” And so, the group leaves to collect the flame throwers from their hiding spot…

Kevin’s, Kovak’s associate, is at the shop getting a lift kit when the pack arrives. While Kat and Kovak make some small talk with Kevin, Stark wanders off to grab the the flame throwers. Stark opens up the secret compartment, dons a flamethrower, casts a quick spell to make himself less noticable, and walks right out through the shop, past the cop, and into the parking lot. The rest of the pack find blunt instruments to use as weapons and they all head back to the warehouses.

Peeking into one of the large holes, the warehouse is pitch black inside. The alleys are clear, there are some dead spiders in a dumpster outside dave’s warehouse. Some cables are noticable running between the buildings. Kat decides that it would be best to investigate from across the Gauntlet, so they leave for the nearest loci – the golf course. Kat takes Stark through and the rest cross on their own. They then head to the warehouses in the spirit world. They head to the roof of the warehouse with a giant hole, the inside looks empty, stuff scatterred all over, and a hint of a haziness inside. Rigel realizes that the haze must be the echo of recently spun webbing.

Kovak and the others looks across to see material world, sees that what was blocking light was a lot of webbing. They also see see the dog sized spiders, pallets still boxed up, and spot the loci, a the turned over fork lift, has been weakened significantly. They then move to check dave’s building, less haze, no loci. Kovak sees a spirit, humanoid with extra appendages, extra legs…

The pack proceeds to run to the golf course to cross over and ride back to the warehouses. They cautionsly enter and suddenly the door slams! A large humanoid torso with the lower body of a spider lands between the pack and the door. Stark spins around and opens fire, missing wildly. Kovak shifts forms and takes a bite out of the spirit, Kat and Rigel join in immediately afterward.

Stark continues to scry the Pure Bloods as they hop onto a train and ride it to 294 and hop off just a short walk from the Square. From there, they headed northwest until they ran into 5 other werewolves. After exchanging words about whose territory they were entering and their lack of caring, they faught… and the pure bloods perished.

After the fight, the five new werewolves followed the pure bloods’ trail to the park the egressed from the train at. After checking the place a little, they proceeded to post fliers, marking it as their territory.

Stark gave the phone number on the flier to Kat and insisted she call, contesting their claim to the territory, due to its being between her house and the square, and the square being between their territory and the park. Kat was at a loss for what to say, however.

Meanwhile, from his post guarding the perimeter of the scene at Kat’s house, Kovak spotted a mutt urinating on Kat’s back fense. He left his post to yell at the wolf, who refused to leave, so Kovak covered its marks with pepper spray. Kovak’s superior then came out and yelled at him for leaving his post, so he returned to it and calls Kat about the intruder.

After some urging from Stark, Kat then left out the back door of the diner to find the same wolf and begins confonting him. They discuss the territory she desired, while on of his pack mates watched from down the street. After Kat and the intruder agreed upon the borders of her territory, they left.

Kat returned to the diner and called the number from the fliers and makes a claim to the territory of the Square and surrounding area. That wolf, named black paw, offered to allow Kat to keep the park, but she would have to sell the square. During the entire conversation, Stark had been telepathically answering Black Paw’s questions before Kat had a chance too. That seemed to upset Black Paw and he told Kat to tell her “welp” to stop. After some more bantering and weak offers that were unacceptable to Kat, she tells Black Paw that we’re on our way to challenge their claim…

On the way, Stark continues scrying and sees that Black Paw made a call to someone named “Seko” for assistance. Stark makes a call to the same number, attempting to find out more information, but Seko does not answer. On the way, Kat spotted a motorcycle speeding past that she recognized as being parked behind Ruth’s diner before they’d left.

Kovak, while on the way to dropping something off at the Police Station, pulled over that very motorcycle and gave him some crap, warning that Seko that he didn’t want to see Seko or his bike again tonight. Kovak arrived at the park to meet Kat and the rest of the pack for this meeting, annoyed that Seko was there and arrived first.

Kat and Black Paw agreed to a one on one fight for the territory. It was a slow and fairly even fight, but Kat drew upon some Martial Arts training to pull out the victory in the end.

After the fight, Kovak returns to the Police Station to drop off the package he initially left the scene to deliver. Seko returns to the diner, Stark sending him a “no hard feelings” text, Seko agreeing.

The rest of the pack spent the night marking the territory between the Square and Kat’s house. While marking, Bearhugger called and said “I think it’s about time we introduce you to the neighborhood.” Kat responded, “We have been kinda… meeting some of the neighbors it seems.” Bearhugger calls a meeting for the end of the week.

While perusing the teritory, a few loci are found, and Stark discovers a a lvl 1 hallows that had been tapped for the day. Stark decides to crash at his old apartment for 2 hours, rather than get a hotel room, crash at the garage, or room with Kovak and his mothoer. Upon waking, Stark found himself being surveiled by a van full of werewolves. After discussing whether or not his presence in the area was offensive, Stark tired of their narrow minds and offered to do them the favor of moving out of immediately. Riding his motorcycle into the building to his appartment, Stark piled his clothes and few belongings around the bike and proceeded to teleport it all to a back room in Kat’s garage.

Another leisurely morning at Kat’s place was interrupted with the ringing of the doorbell. Stark finished off the three or four gnomes he’d been harassing, cast a portal, and set his laptop down to answer the door. Opening the door resulted in an unexpected group hug from Kikyo and Kagome, exclaiming that they were back. “Oh…”, was all Stark said before heading back to his laptop.

Stark filled the girls in on what had been happening, Kovak glanced over from the rug he’d claimed as his and returned to slumber. During the conversation Kagome decided to lay near him. After Stark finished his recent history lesson, as if by divine providence, the news station ran a story regarding the bear attacks. Dirk, better known the the group as Bearhugger, was mentioned but declined to comment.

Kikyo asked for food and relayed what happened during the girls’ time with Bearhugger. Tiring of the background chatter, Kovak proceeded to the yard to find the infamous squirrel. Stark shortly follows to the yard to watch Kovak’s progress, and finds Rez’Ale is already spectating. Kat remains inside and browses the internet, half listening to the tale from Kikyo, while Rigel researches valume.

Stark looks down at Rez’Ale and asks, “Should I help?”, to which Rez’Ale replied, “I want to see if he can trick it.” With a smirk, Stark asks, “Want to see me trick him?” After what Stark assumes was a smirk in reply, he hopped over the fence near a loose board and convinced the squirrel that the board would be moved out of the way when it got there. A few moments later, the squirrel was frolicking in the neighbor’s yard, Kovak was half stuck in the fence with the board broken free, and Stark was hopping over the fence laughing with Rez’Ale on his way inside. Kovak was not amused.

Kovak eventually returned to the house to change into his work clothes. Kat drove him to work and the girls waited a while before heading to the shop to meet Kat and pick up their Hummer. Upon being dropped off, Kovak was delighted to discover he would be riding along with officers later that day.

Back at the house, Stark recieved a call from Detective Walken. Walken explained that he was under investigation because SI wasn’t happy with his answers about Squint’s death. He also warned that SI was going to start investingating the pack’s area, because of the large animal incidents and the two dead FBI. “Be careful, the disappearances have gone up,” Walken warned, in regards to the missing mages and werewolves. He mentioned that none of them were vampires and they were mostly mages, also that the Adamantine Arrows were looking into it, “That’s all I got, if you find something else let me know.”

Rigel was pleased to discover that he was getting a lot more hits on his website, though he was curious as to why the extra traffic was not using the forums, just viewing the blog. The extra traffic was high enough to get him shutdown for a few days for exceeding his bandwidth quota.

Tiring of his online studies Stark decides to scry on Freddie. Stark finds that Freddie’s strung out on something, and still a ghoul. Other than that, he appeared to be doing his work and nothing shady…

At the shop, the girls checked in on their car and waited a bit for Kat. They talked to mark about the car and the bill. Upon inspecting the car, they found it was like new, newer than when they bought it, shiny… They eventually tired of waiting, paid their bill, and headed back to the house.

On her way back from dropping off Kovak, Kat smelled a couple werewolves, a mile from the house. She decided to investigate and found they were centralized north of the house, near/in a park. She caught sight of them from the road at the park and they did not seem pleased to see her. Kat returned as the girls were investigating new buttons on the console of the Hummer, Kat told them to check the manual. The girls opened the glove compartment to find 12 new manuals…

Upon opening the door, Stark informed Kat that Freddie’s strung out, but seemed to be doing his work well. Kat relays the news about the wolves to the north. Outside, Kikyo discovered that the buttons were for a nitrous oxide system Kat had added. Kat began looking up deer appearances and animal killings around the park. She found there have been more missing in the last week than normal.

Kikyo and Kagome talk to Rez’Ale a little before returning to the Hummer to finish looking through the manuals. Kovak returns home to prepare for the evening’s ride-along. After changing he opens the front door to leave and there’s a werewolf standing in the doorway. “Can I help you?”, he asked, to which it replied, “You can die!”

A werewolf suddenly crashed through the front window towards Rigel, another is spotted by Kat in the kitchen, and the girls fail to notice the Hummer shaking due to their loud music. Kat got the jump on the one she spotted and got it pinned. Kovak fended off the one at the front door, and Rigel faired better once Stark closed his laptop and gave him some magical protection.

Kovak received the same before Stark walked into the kitchen, two pistols with silencers drawn, to see how Kat was fairing. He popped in just in time to see Kat thrown across the room into a wall before shifting and returning to the fight. He gave her the same protection and walked out the front window to see Kikyo and Kagome fending off their assailant with the ever so subtle choice of weapon, a shotgun.

Upon seeing stark exit the building, brandishing two handguns, the wolf on the front lawn breaks from attacking the girls and charges Stark, to no avail. Stark, as if he is unaware he even has the guns, walks backwards away from the werewolf as it begins to shake violently before being torn asunder by one final swipe from Kagome. At that, the other wolves break off and flee, taking a couple parting blows from the defenders.

Moments later, while Stark is gathering blood samples, Kovak receives a phone call, “Can you show up early, actually where are you… ok, we can meet you there, but be careful, don’t get involved.” The Officer he was to ride along with is on his way to the house, responding to the call. Stark departs on his motorcycle, taking some shortcuts between houses and down alleys. Kovak quickly changes clothes and runs down the street to where he claimed he was walking. Everyone else changed clothes as well, the girls take their leave as Kat and Rigel work out their story.

Kovak gets picked up less than after arriving at his position and asks, “What’s the story?” “Dunno, gunshots fired, big animals seen,” Kovak gets tasked with keeping people away from the scene. Upon arriving Kat pretends to be hysteric, yammering about wild dogs. On the lawn is a tall black man with his back opened up in the lawn. The police check the house…

Kat is told to stay in a hotel for a while and the house is taped off with an outline placed around the deceased fellow.

Stark decides to stops in at Ruth’s instead of going all the way to his apartment and scries the scene. Kat and Rigel head out to the diner shortly afterward. Kovak helps with the scene work. The police find the body has gunshot in him, but the wounds do not appear to be as fresh as the rake on the back.

When Kat and Kovak arrive, Stark begins scrying on the wolf that was at the door and finds they’re at the river, speaking in the grunts and growls he always hears the others communicating in. Stark tells the others where they are, recognizing that the river is not far from where they had chased the rogue wolf earlier in the year, and decides to try out a new spell he learned online called Universal Language… Suddenly the grunts and growls make sense. Stark relates that the dead wolf’s name was little tale, and continues scrying until he had picked up all their names.

Throughout the fight comments were made by the assailants that lead Kat and the other werewolves to believe that they were “Pure Bloods”. Kat makes the call to Bearhugger…

Kat confronted her employee, Freddie McGee, that Stark discovered had become a ghoul. All the innuendos in the world failed to clue Freddie in to what he had become involved in. He still believes, or impressively pretends to believe, that all he had done was perform some sexual experimentation and was not exposed to anything dangerous. Freddie claimed that, though the women and men he was with were into “different” stuff, they were “nice guys, though.” So Kat decided not to let Freddie go.

Kat went back into the shop and crawled under a vehicle to work on it when she heard Stark’s voice. She slid out from under it, but Stark was nowhere in sight… She considered whether or not she was going crazy then dismissed it and continued working.

As Kat walked in the door, the news was reporting a bear attack near a high school in the city, a rather large bear from the size of the tracks. Stark was sitting on the couch with his laptop and Kovak was laying around as a wolf, as usual, and the three began discussing how the attack may be a shape-shifter.

Changing the subject, Kat says that she decided not to fire Freddie. “She probably didn’t fire him because he’s cute,” quipped Kegger, appearing at the open door without warning. Kegger said the paper work was all in order and our accounts were unfrozen. Kovak suggested celebrating with a pizza delivery, Kat asks Kegger if he heard anything about the bear attacks at the school; he did not. Kegger said his farewells and took off.

Kovak then began a half day long quest to catch a squirrel in the yard that he claimed was taunting him. While Kovak busied himself with that, Kat began researching the bear attacks and some cults and clubs online to learn more about Freddie’s predicament and the possibility of the bear being supernatural. She discovered little about the bear, but did find that the club Freddie went to, Lube Alley, is the goto place for alternative recreation.

Once the light faded from the sky, Kovak ceased his chasing, Kat, ceased her researching, Stark ceased whatever it is he does online all day, and the trio departed to do some old school researching at the school itself. Stark pointed out that if Kovak insisted on remaining in wolf form, Kat and he would look like a couple walking their dog. He remained in wolf form anyway.

At the school, Kovak and Kat smelled a lot of blood, Stark noticed nothing out of the ordinary with the resonance. There was police tape all over the soccer field the attack occurred on, scent as well. Kovak and Kat lead the way along the scent’s trail to the school. In the parking lot, shreds of leather, plastic, and cloth suggested someone shifted and the scent trail changed a little to confirm it.

At the front entrance of the school, Stark picked the lock and cracked the door open while Kovak peered about the spiritual world. A fox darted past the door, grabbing the attention of all three. Stark, recalling motion sensors in other high schools, pulled out his laptop and invaded the school’s network to discover where the sensors at this school were, “Let’s go over to the loading dock, there’s a motion sensor here…”

At the loading dock, Stark picks the lock again and warns the other two were the motion sensors will be. Kovak tries to find the bear’s scent, but what he finds leads to an area covered by sensors. The three moved into a janitorial office to discuss options when the fox quietly closes door behind them…

Stark looks up a way to disable the sensors without tripping the alarm and Kovak proceeds along the top of the lockers towards the nearest one when he notices something funny at one of the lockers, something weird with the top of it. As he feels around trying to figure out what it is, he sets it off, a balloon and confetti bomb. The fox snickers in the distance and says, “Friend and foe have tricked you each, tell me which and I will help you.” Stark says to Kat, “Well Ruth’s the friend for sure… I’d guess Ruth and Marsh.” Kat relayed that to the fox and he ran off along the top of the lockers. Shortly after he returned walking in the middle of the hallways, the sensors disabled. The fox led the way to the locker of the werebear once informed that they were after the beast.

As Stark picked the lock open, the fox introduced himself as Rez’Ale. In the locker were books and personal affects. From wich the werebear’s name, John Forest, his girlfriend’s name, Nicki, were discovered along with pictures and a lock of Nicki’s hair. From the hair Kovak discerned that she was one of the victims on the soccer field. Upon opening Nicki’s locker we find a note saying to meet on the soccer field from someone named Greg. Smelling the note, Kovak discerns that Greg was the other victim on the field. Opening Greg’s locker revealed nothing new.

While Stark collects personal items from the three in in vials labeled with their names, Kat discovers a false back to Forest’s locker and a journal hidden inside. The journal says he’s getting moody, smells affect him, and in the last entry he smelled greg on nicki and how he is going to kill them.

Stark thanked Rez’Ale for the help, “No problem,” was it’s reply. Kovak tells Rez’Ale that we’ll take care of the bear and Rez’Ale said that he’ll help. As we walk out Kat called Bearhugger, who was unaware of the attack so she fills him in on what we learned. When we get out the door there is an ominous growl, too deep to be anything normally found in a city…

“And we might have just found him…” Kat says on the phone, as she and Kovak catch wind of the unmistakable scent. “Get the hell out of there, you’re at the school now?!” is all Bearhugger gets out before the 8’ tall bear charges the group.

Kovak manages to shift and leap over the bear, raking its back, which makes Starks attempts to play with the bear’s emotions futile. Kat stands her ground and attempts to intimidate the bear with a scolding. Forest rears up raking at Kovak, missing, and shifts to near bear form. Kovak runs. Again, Kat tries to scold him down while Stark tries to catch up with Kovak. Forest throws Kat through the dock doors that Stark had closed behind them. Kat then runs out attempting to catch up with the others. As the trio get around to the front of the building, an 80’s caddy careens around the corner and guns toward the bear, Bearhugger in the driver’s seat.

Kovak ceases his tactical retreat and assesses the situation while Kat and Stark immediately head toward the wreck that is a ton of sandwich metal formerly in the shape of a car and a bear of probably similar or greater mass. Bearhugger clibms out of the vehicle and onto the back of the bear, going for its jugular. Kovak runs in and latches onto a leg as Kat grabs the other. Stark, standing in the distance muttering chants to himself, watches as the bear fends off the three werewolves and begins to shake a little as if it were having a mild seizure. Bearhugger then swings down from Forest’s back, ripping out his throat.

As the bear fell limp, it shifted back into Forest and Bearhugger turns back into human form stating, “That’s how I got my name.” Stark smirked, “That looked more like necking than hugging, why aren’t you named Bearnecker?” At that point Bearhugger gave Stark one of those looks that silences everyone in sight.

As sirens became evident in the distance, Stark suggested, “Bear attacked, you hit bear, bear ran off”, to explain the wrecked car and dead boy. Bearhugger agreed and Stark walked Kat home while Kovak stayed to witness.

The police bought the story and Kovak left for Kat’s place. As the trio were relaxing after the excitement, Bearhugger showed up inquiring how we got involved in the whole mess. Kat said it was close to home so we checked it out. Bearhugger suggests we keep some silver on hand for the non wolf shifters, comments on how Kikyo and Kagome have “interesting personality types”, and that they’ll be home soon. Rez’Ale, still present, though not entirely helpful throughout the fight, is informed of Kovak’s trouble with the squirrel and is deeply amused.

Before calling it a night, Stark discovers that 5 mages have gone missing, each in different cabals, each disappearing with in the last 2 days and that Walken is looking into it…

The man from Hudson, Watts, and Releu called back and agreed to Friday, 1am.

Rigel, Marcus, and Stark scoped out the Macaroni Grill, the agreed meeting place, while Katarina worked on cars in her shop. Stark setup a backdoor into the restraunt’s security, which was little mroe than some cameras in the parking lot and around the inside.

Reservations were made for the party room, which was a three walled area with a privacy curtain on the fourth side.

Katarina called Bearhugger asking about pointers and whether guards should be hired. He said that neutral guards might be acceptable, but to take care not to break the agreed number of attendees and to keep them outside the grill. Going through the list of people who would be willing to stand guard for a shady meeting between the pack and a set of lawyers responsible for originating the legal action against them resulted in realizing that none would be neutral. Katarina and Stark arrange for some relatively nameless black market contacts to act as lookouts from across the street.

The night before the meeting, after closing, Stark snuck into the Macaroni Grill and spent a few hours creating a portal to Katarina’s house that would be large enough for the both sides of the meeting to use in case the need for hasty egress arose.

The pack arrived at the location at 11 p.m. prior to the meeting and proceeded to eat while they waited the two hours. Ruth arrived early and took her seat on the neutral edge of the table. The crew from Hudson, Watts, and Releu arived 15 min late. They included Jonathan Hudson himself, Sasha Sheli, three other vampires, and some “snacks” in the form of human females.

Marcus politely asked that the “food” be left outside the meeting, due to the agreed upon limit of attendees. Hudson considered it for a moment, then nodded to one of the others, who ushered the girls away and returned.

As Marcus walked the Vampires into the room, Stark recognized Sasha as the vampire of Marsh’s that attempted to turn him while he ascended. Stark winked at her and she returned with an attempt at a seductive smile. After all were seated, Marcus began the introductions, listing off Kovak, Rigel, Stark, himself, and Kat. One of the vampires did the same for their side: John Craig, Walter Kelvin, Sasha Sheli, himself as Rascall Thomas, and Johnathan Hudson. Rascal was one of the lawyers at Hudson, Watts, and Releu, now the assistant D.A. Hudson is the original Hudson of Hudson, Watts, and Releu, not a decendant…

Rascal begain with, “So, you want to talk about the charges levied against you?” “Correct.” replied, Kat. “We fail to see how this affects mister hudson,” said Rascal. Kat eloquently replied with, “We were told that, when dealing with certain… sensitive situations, Mr. Hudson was the person to talk to.” “Sensitivy situations like?” asked Rascal. “Like conflicts between supernatual societies,” replied Kat.

After much deliberation, including the revealing of the pack’s knowledge of the underground, vampire crewed chemical plant, the expermental attempt to make vampire hybrids is what got their attention. Stark gladly brought up Sasha’s involvment, with another wink to Sasha, to kill any suggestion that all parties involved with the experimentation were dead and gone. With that, Hudson finally began speaking for himself. He offered the charges dropped in exchange for the pack’s silence in all matters discussed. Katarina added that in addition the vampires would have to cease all pursuit of the square, interference with the pack, as well as clean up the chemical problem at the site of the Square, and Hudson agreed.

After the meeting, Ruth suggested that we let off the vampires far too easily, as well as withheld too much information from her. Rascal returned to the party room and slid a note to Ruth before leaving again. After reading the note, Ruth added, “And caused too much trouble for me…”, referring to her learning of the experimentations and the agreement not applying to her. Kat pointed out that Ruth would not have agreed to moderate had she known of the experimentation and, without her moderation, the meeting would not have taken place. Ruth reluctantly agreed, slipping the note away without sharing its contents.

“Well,” Stark stood up, “thanks Ruth, and I’ll see the rest of you back at Kat’s,” he said before promptly walking through the back wall, reopening the portal he had made the night before.

After his long day as a recruit, Kovik stepped off the bus and made his way home to Kat’s. As he approached, he spotted Stark and “Spiders?!” He began to run toward the fight, for surely his assistance would be needed, when a loud thunderous crack rang fourth as a bolt of pure energy flew forth and forked to hit every spider on the premesis.

After Stark and Kovik halted and gathered that the fight was over, they each noticed an elderly woman standing across the street where the bolt came from. As Kovik and Stark each approached her from where they stopped, the recognized her as Ruth, the owner of the coffee house down the road.

“Fancy meeting you here…”, remarked Stark. “Looks like you made enemies with [insert spider spirit name here]”, commented Ruth. “Um,... sure,” said Star, “Hey, how much do you know about Life? Because they might need help inside.” “Well, let’s have a look,” replied Ruth.

By the time the three got through the door, everyone had gathered in the living room. Ruth check on Rigel, who was still unconcious, and told everyone that it would be best to take him to the shop.

At the shop, Ruth prepaired some teas and cider for everyone. Rogel was forcefed some vile smelling tea which woke him fairly quick. Everyone else was served cider, except Stark, who was served the same tea Ruth was enjoying.

As Rigel muscled down the rest of his drink and regained his strength, Ruth and the rest discussed the square, the fire spirit that brought it down, the spider spirit that harries it now, and the lawyers who are orchestrating the recent legal action.

It turns out that Ruth knows Hudson personally and suggests that we meet with the lawyers, who are all vampires or associates of theirs, as they would likely honor some old rules regarding peaceful meetings. Ruth agrees to be a moderator of the meeting for us and drafts the invite in exchange for an unspecified favor at a future time.

After returning home, Katarina used her gift to repair the driveway while Rigel stepped inside to do the same to the car part he used as a weapon. After the repairs, Katarina called Bearhugger and arranges for him to take care of the girls during the meeting with the vampires.

After a night of surprisingly uninterupted sleep, Stark awakes to find Katarina looking for the car part that Rigel had fixed the previous night. “Oh, Rigel was playing with it,” smirked Stark as he started playing WoW. The game caught the attention of Kagome who began to pester Stark incessantly.

When an attempt to contact Keeger Green (Kegger) was made, the office said that he was busy in court. Kikyo and Kagome decided to make breakfast for everyone. Shortly after breakfast was served, Keeger Green (Kegger) showed up. He was informed of the decision to have a meeting and he assisted with finalizing the invite. Kegger delivered the invitation later that day and after sunset Katarina recieved a call from one of the lawyers from Hudson, Watts, and Releu and they agreed to meet, but wanted to push the date back several days. Katarina proposed Friday, which was between the original date and the date proposed by the caller. He said he would have to call back after he conferred with the others…

Shortly after getting back from the altercation at the construction site, with barely enough time to crack open a bottle of Stolichnaya, the Katarina’s doorbell rang. Rigel took it upon himself to answer it, everyone else busying themselves with more important matters or too timid to open the door. Waiting on the other side were two of Chicago’s Worst, one male and one female, from the Twelfth Precinct. “We’d like to speak to a Katarina O’Riley,” was all the less masculine one said to him and Rigel asked them to wait while he found her.

Finally getting a couple shots down, Stark decided it would be entertaining to see what was at the door. As he opened the door and saw what rang the bell, Stark swayed a little and beligerantly splashed some of his drink towards the officers before resting against the door jam and demanding, “Whhhat do yyyou want?!”

“We are here to speak to Katarina O’Riley,” stated the Sow. “About what?” inquired Stark, staring intently at the two. “Regarding the fire at the Square and the death of Mr. Marsh. Are you Jon St…” Stark slammed the door on them once he discerned they were ghouls by their resonance. Passing Katarina on his way to refill his drink, Stark smirked at her, “Couple of ghouls for ya.”

While interrogating Katarina regarding her meetings with Marsh at the Square and her near immediate purchase of the site following its elemental mishap, they inquired about Jon Stark. To which, “I’M NOT HERE!” was bellowed from the kitchen. Marcus came to the door and stood behind Katarina for support and the younglings neared the door to listen in but stayed out of sight. The interrogation proceeded and mention was made of evidence that Katarina was on camera at the appartment building of Mr. Marsh. Katarina admitted to being in the area, but not for the purpose of visiting Mr. Marsh. Katarina changed the subject to the contamination that she was not made aware of that had halted her construction crew.

At this time Stark decided to join on the fun. After making a lewd comment regarding the combination of the officers’ surnames, Johnson and Withers, Stark repeated the same answers that Katarina gave and after some more conversing the playthings took their leave, driving off in their Crown Victoria.

Katarina was informing Kikyo and Kagome about ghouls when she was interrupted by a phone call from her lawyer, her accounts had been frozen. It appears that the police were able to freeze her accounts that morning pending the investigation into the arson and murder accusations.

While Katarina and Marcus were discussing how the situation should be handled, Stark left them to find out what he could on the net regarding these happenings. Katarina offered Marcus the position of Manager of the Square and Marcus jumped at it without hesitation, spouting out a plethora of ideas for the theme and layout of the place. Once Marcus returned to the present, he left to pound the pavement for a while and find out what he could about the investigation and the motives behind it.

Finding little of interest before Marcus left, Stark and Katarina walked down the street to the shop to begin construction of some flamethrowers to combat the spiders at the Square. After completing the flamethrowers Marcus returned and relayed the information he gathered while Katarina stashed the flamethrowers and meandered through the shop doing other work, including some fixes to the Higurashi HumVee.

Apparently, the parties behind launching the investigation, the Mayor and the D.A., both worked for Hudson Watts and Releu, the biggest cutthroat law firm in town. This is the very same law firm that Mr. Marsh was a client of and their reputation is very menacing. Katarina promptly phoned her lawyer and relayed the news, the poor man nearly had a heart attack. After getting off the phone with him, Katarina phoned bearhugger and brought him up to date. Stark picked up on the “phone a friend” trend and began trying to get Detective Walken on his phone, but there was no answer. Katarina gave him a try, suspecting that Walken was simply tired of Stark’s lovably humorous dialogue, but she could not get him on the phone either. Stark opened his laptop and was able to triangulate Walken’s cell phone as being downtown somewhere. He tried again and was forwarded to voicemail early. The next try went to voicemail immediately and the triangulation program lost Walken’s signal.

Bearhugger called back and informed Katarina that someone was sent to meet with us at her place, so the group left the garage and began walking back. The sun was set by this time. Stark was able to contact Walken with a limited telepathy spell and Walken replied with, “Don’t Call IA’s Riding Me.” Stark told Katarina what Walken said when the group noticed a man with a custom Dodge Viper waiting for them. The man was apparently called “Kegger.” Kegger, whome Stark promptly made a Winnie the Pooh reference about, was apparently a good lawyer. Good as in “Good VS Evil”, his legal abilities compared to Hudson Watts and Releu remains to be seen. Legal stuff was discussed and Kegger shared a video of us sitting at Marsh’s table in the Square and then a video of Kovak assaulting Marsh’s apartment. Kegger brought up the idea of meeting with them, Hudson Watts and Releu and possibly the new Mr. Marsh, since they still honor the old ways.

After Kegger left, the group entered the house to rest off the events of the day. Mysteriously, Kikyo remained in the driveway fixated on the many cracks and crumbling chunks in it. Rigel looked out the window a while later to check on her and discovered that she was tearing up the driveway, pulling chucks off and tossing them into the lawn. “She’s tearing up your driveway,” he said. “Why do the pups always have to start trouble,” sighed Katarina, and she walked out the front door with Kagome to see what she was doing. As they walked out, Kikyo shifted into a wolf and ran into the backyard, Kagome running after her. By the time Kagome caught up, Kikyo was human again and disrobed. A neighbor caught a glimpse of Kagome walking her naked sister back into the house. As everyone gathered in the living room, Kikyo shifted back and forth several times and Kagome ran upstairs in fear. Rigel went upstairs after Kagome while Katarina and Marcus began to lead Kikyo into the basement, trying to calm her down. Stark walked up to the basement door and said a few indistinguishable words under his breath. Coincidentally, Kikyo suddenly calmed down and stopped shifting back and forth. A “your welcome” was muttered down the stairs and as Marcus turned to snarl and yell at Stark, a howl was heard from Kagome.

“You two stay with this one, I’ll go help Rigel with the other,” ordered Stark as he leisurely turned and walked upstairs. Marcus told Katarina, “I got her, you go help them,” in the wolf tongue and Katarina quietly retreated upstairs as to not disturb the now becalmed Kikyo. Stark reach the top floor to found Rigel calming down Kagome, who had begun shifting as well. “How can this be, we’re not werewolves, werewolves don’t exist?” cried Kagome. Stark replied with, “Aside from me, everyone in this house is a werewolf. You’ve seen everyone else shift and now your sister’s shifting. I can tell what people are and you are a werewolf.” Strangely, that did not seem to startle the child. Instead she began vigorously rubbing and slapping at her arms and legs. When Katarina called upstairs, “Is everything okay?” Stark replied, “Yeah, we’re fine.” Then he asked Kagome, “What are you doing?”

“The spiders! I can’t get them off!” Stark gave an alarmed look and then concentrated for a moment. Pulling out his firearms, he yelled downstairs, “We have spiders coming in the sewers!” Katarina spun around and went to the basement to inform Marcus. By the time Stark got to the front door, Rigel and Kagome were at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m going for the flamethrowers,” Stark called over his shoulder as he opened the door to find an arc of six spiders in front lawn. Still holding the guns at the ready, rather than taking aim and firing, Stark rushed towards the garage narrowly avoiding the attacks of the two spiders that followed him, the two in his way fighting eachother, the last two heading for the door. As he continued on, evading another attack, one of the two pursuing him broke off to join the fight between the other two spiders. Still a long way to go before getting to the flamethrowers, Stark considers turning to fight with the weapons he has before he hears a scream…

In the basement, Marcus, Kikyo, and Katarina had toppled the dryer on top of the drain to stem the flow of spiders and stomped out the few that made it in before they could block the way. The spiders began pushing the dryer off and it had to be held to keep them out. Katarina suggested the possibility of welding the dryer down when a scream was heard from upstairs; Kagome…

Rigen and Kagome headed for the front door, where they were surprised to meet spiders leaping in to attack. Kagome was hit first and hard, she retreated back into the house leaving Rigel alone in the doorway, still too caught off guard to react. The second spider leapt at him, sinking it’s fangs in as he yelled in pain. The two in the basement could then hear the scream cut short by a loud thump and then only sound of sixteen heavy legs padding across the floor above…

Stark was taking a break from studying his trade, by practicing his old trade of infiltrating and humorously compromising secure networks. Something that was taking as much effort as Kovak was exerting toward sunbathing naked in the front lawn. While trolling a forum to muse over all the Sleepers that believed what they were doing was important, the lazy afternoon was interrupted when Katarina recieved a call from the George Culkin, the Foreman in charge of reconstructing the Square.

George was calling to inform Katarina that they would be unable to finish the work due to poisonous gas encountered while digging. He seemed rather calm about the situation, despite several of his workers falling prey to the noxious gas and suffering injuries that look more like giant spider attacks than fall injuries from passing out. After some more words with George, Katarina said she’s come have a look as well as contact the city and inspectors for their failure to discover and/or notify her of such hazards.

While preparing to leave, Katarina recieved another unexpected call regarding two individuals who had previously gone missing, Kagome and Kikyo. Their conversation was only slightly less troublesome. It seems they had gotten their HumVee scratched up and dropped her name when they brought it to Katarina’s shop for repairs. Kat admitted that she did know the sisters and said she’d stop by to have a look. During this phone call, Stark spent a few minutes looking up records regarding the gas and discovered that Marsh and local businesses had been pumping the area with the gas, which was sold by an extermination business also owned by Marsh, to kill off spider infestations in the area.

While finally heading out the door, Katarina nearly runs into Marcus, who was about to ring the doorbell. Marcus had discovered Katarina purchased the Square and came to learn more about the location and possible visit it. As Katarina and Marcus exchanged a few words, and Stark marvelled at Marcus’ lack of psychosis, Rigel Smith, of all people, came walking up. Apparently he was stopping at Ruth’s to meet up with Marcus and spotted him crossing the street to Kat’s.

Since the quota of reunions was not quite fulfilled, Katarina took Kovak and Rigel to meet up with the sisters at Kat’s shop while Marcus and Stark rode seperately to the Square to get a first look. Marcus, claiming to be an inspector for Katarina, talked to George and prepared to take a look around the site while Stark took some photos of the injuries of one of the workers and sent one to a local entomologist to have what appeared to be bite marks identified.

After calling the entomologist and confirming that the bite marks that were too large for a natural spider to make were indeed from a spider, Stark cast a spider radar spell and caught up with Marcus shortly before Katarina and the rest of the troops pulled up. Slightly unnerved at the massively numerous spiders in the area, Stark revealed his findings about the gas and suspicion of a spider god in the area. George and the rest of the construction and paramedic crew had finished leaving the area when Stark noted that some of the spiders were getting much closer.

When the first spiders, which happened to be the size of a cat, emerged from the rubble, Stark pulled out his Glock and opened fire. The sisters were pushed back to the vehicles when one of the spiders attacked them and latched onto Kikyo. Kovak, Katarina, Marcus, and Rigel engaged the enemy, which were coming forth in great number. Mini-fridge sized spiders, some of whome Stark was able to turn on eachother, were coming forth when Marcus succumbed to venom from a bite and fell into the pit, Kovak and Rigel followed to assist. While in the pit Kovak and Rigel both had shifted to war form. Katarina, staying in human form, managed to get into the pit and pull Marcus out while Kovak entered a death rage and was forced to flee. Everyone retreated to the vehicles as Marcus regained consciousness. As everyone got into vehicles and drove off, Stark remained moments longer attempting to get the preposterously large, as in full refrigerator sized, spiders to turn on each other to no avail before hopping on his bike and taking his leave.

Kovak was able to regain control of himself and caught up with everyone else a few blocks away where they are currently regrouped and preparing plans for the next assault.