WEREWOLF: West Virginia, Wyld & Wonderful

[SirNitram]

"Welcome to Huntington." Michael announced, driving through the perfectly ordered streets. "And the college. We're gonna hit Morrow Stacks, little cramped, but it's where my client is. If you're sensitive to the smell of college kids getting busy, stay in the van." Pulling up near the library, Michael led the way. A Bronze Statue of the man the college is named for, crossing the quad towards what.. Well, it COULD be a summoning circle, or a very big compass rose. Seats all around it. Michael self-consciously avoids stepping -in- the circle.

(Edited since posting)

[General Havoc]

Blessed wifi! Beautiful, gorgeous, wonderful wifi. The air here, so close to the university, was full of it, and one by one, her various devices began drinking it up. She could practically feel the relief pouring off of them as each one found the spirits of the web that it was seeking and began the hundreds of millions of conversations that were now available to have. It might have been her imagination, but she almost thought she could feel the microprocessor in her tablet easing down, despite the increased workload, while her phone pulsed in her pocket and her earpiece emitted the slightest beep, inaudible to anyone else.

As Michael got out of the car, Sophie did the same. Nothing about a university was intimidating to her, indeed she hadn't felt this much at home since coming to West Virginia. A place like this, where the worst threat was a drunken frat party and the greatest crime was an internet outage, this couldn't be more welcoming.

She followed Michael across the Quad, not bothering to avoid the circle as he had, for she never even glanced twice at it. She was too busy decompressing herself in the presence, at last, of a number of spirits she actually understood.

[LadyTevar]

The circle in the center of the campus was red brick, surrounded by alternating rings of concrete and brick. The N S E W compass points were metal set in the outmost concrete ring, and the brickwork design separated the inner ring into quarters on those lines. Backless concrete benches sat on the outside of the ring, as if marking the cross-winds. Tall oak trees shaded the benches, but few sat here in the quieter shade. The students seemed to prefer the larger square with the U-shaped fountain near the Student Union.
Sophie was too distracted to notice anything when she walked over the concrete into the center ring, and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Michael obviously did not like it. It was up to the others if they stopped to inspect the ring or ignore it.

Morrow Library was an example of expanding old buildings into new. The original 1930s NeoClassical red-brick building with its cupola topped roof had been totally surrounded by a newer facade in the 1960s; the original roof with its chimneys showed overtop the flat roofed extension. At the base of five roof-tall black-tinted windows were white-stone archways, the center three framing their own double-door entries to the building.

[Josh]

Paul didn't talk, just followed along. As he walked, he seemed to become slightly smaller, inobtrusive. It was subtle, no work of spirit or magic, simply a practiced routine. He was the face to overlook, the one that the casual observer wouldn't place. As he moved, his eyes carefully scanned the environment.

There were old wolves and there were bold wolves, but few old, bold wolves. One didn't reach his age by taking any locale for granted. As they walked, he placed the environment and layout in his memory. The faces were noted, any aberrations in behavior carefully observed.

It wasn't pure militancy- a college campus was an excellent place to score when the old stash ran low, so in all likelihood if he was going to be spending a long period of time in cousin-fucking country he would probably be coming back here.

[rhoenix]

"Joe Smith" was attempting to act casual.

The lupus normally known as Sees-Faces-In-Stars was in the form of a homid, with senses dulled and stifled. He wore cloth coverings on his chest, called a "shert," with words for "I gnaw on things" on it. He also wore a heavier covering for his hindquarters and legs, called "jeens." He'd heard once from Sophie that "jeens" also somehow dictated your children's eye-color, fur-color and pattern, and so forth. He'd never understand why homids were so willing to make things that dictated what their children would look like, but that was a mystery for another time.

Meanwhile, he was walking along with the others, watching the others as they moved and walked to better walk and move like them. As much as he was used to life in the wilds, the homids had reshaped most of the world to their tastes, and knowing how to move through that reshaped world was necessary.

As such, he was also trying to keep his senses open, despite them being dulled from being in homid form.

[Cynical Cat]

Alex couldn't help but notice pretty girls wearing summer clothes. Hell, to be honest he didn't even attempt to fight it. They looked good enough to eat. Figuratively, of course. He smiled and jumped out of the van, his Not Really A Map Case slung over his shoulder. "Let us go," he said and began whistling cheerily.

His lying was so good not even his eyes gave it away.

[rhoenix]

As he walked around, and as he got somewhat more comfortable walking on two legs instead of four, "Joe-Smith" began to appreciate the sights, sounds, but not necessarily the smells. Several very attractive homid females were about, attractive enough that "Joe-Smith" began to wonder about the nuances of sniffing their hindquarters to see if they were in season yet, but the cloud of eye-watering miasma-scent that hung around most of the ones he noticed made him cough more than once. It wasn't as bad as the very particular spiritual stench the Wyrm left traces of, but it was bad enough that "Joe-Smith" suspected the Wyrm had some hand in those awful smells.

Then again, as bad as the smells were that made him cough and his eyes water as he got close to the attractive female homids, he supposed it would be much worse if he were on all four paws.

Soon enough though as they were walking, "Joe-Smith" passed by a homid female reading a book as she walked. No eye-burn-smell surrounded her, and he sniffed a few times to make sure that scent wasn't just being sneaky. Sure enough though, she only smelled of wind, and sun, and some homid soaps, which weren't all that bad, all things considered. She smiled at him as they passed, and "Joe-Smith" couldn't help but turn his head to follow her as she passed by.

Enamored as he was with the fresh discovery that the homid world held attractions other than many different varieties of food, "Joe-Smith" took a deep, happy breath as he walked with the others. He was struck by the notion that since she had noticed him, that he should probably do something, as his eyes widened in realization of this fact - even though he hadn't smelled anything from her that said she was in season.

Sees-Faces-In-Stars, in the guise of "Joe-Smith," was confused. The homid females that hadn't smiled at him all reeked of that horrible almost-Wyrm scent, but he didn't smell any real signs from the one who had smiled at him. So, he decided to start by trying to gather more information, as a proper Theurge should. He asked his question quietly, in the homid tongue, to his present, and possibly future packmates. "How know if homid female wants to mate? Do they smell like sink-smells only when they not want to?"

[Josh]

Paul began to quietly cough, then softly cleared his throat. "It's complicated," he offered. "Take more time to explain than we have here. But remind me later and we'll talk it over."

[SirNitram]

Mike closed his eyes at the door to the library as he heard the talk of 'homid females'. Infinite grace of Gaia, don't let this go ugly. This guy is wierd enough as it is, seeing our sort openly discussing wolf-human relations would make things worse. He pushed in, holding the door for the others. "As always, keep it down a bit, this is a library. Just gotta find the good Doc and give him his package." A pat of the parcel.

[LadyTevar]

The main room of the Morrow Library was a three story atrium that let in the natural light. Directly opposite the door the pack had entered was the other entrance, leading to 3rd Avenue. To the left and right, stairs lead up to the balconies of the second and third floors with their shelves of books. The first floor was taken up by the circulation desk (a marble-topped wooden circle-desk), and to the sides were rows of study cubicals, each with a computer and most with students at them.

Back to the far left was an elevator that had clearly seen many decades of use, the inside painted a industrial yellow that might once have been lovely. There was a back door that listed the floors as G 1 1M 2 2M 3, while the main door only listed G 1 2. Michael hit 2M with confidence and the elevator rattled to jerky life.

[Josh]

Elevators were just another example of the debased nature of city living. Rather than work their way to the top by effort and struggle, monkeys just jumped in a confined little box, punched a button, and let the spider pull them right up into the web.

He glanced at Sophie out of the corner of his eye. Of course, the Glass Walkers were just as tangled in the web as the city dwellers, mistaking being trapped in the strands for being a part of the pattern. Not that the ubermacho Walkers would ever admit to such a thing.

Like any other addicts, they were 'in control'.

[SirNitram]

"I can /hear/ you judging me, Paul. Anyway, the stairs are fire-alarmed." Michael said as the elevator rose with the makeshift pack. "Honestly, I should take you into the capital just to see you freak out at the escalators."

[Cynical Cat]

Alex unfolded a pair of sunglasses so no one would see him roll his eyes. Fuck, he missed the city.

[Josh]

"I've seen monkey-mover stairs before," Paul said. "At least they're not easy boxes to trap the whole crew. Besides," he jerked his thumb at Sophie "Any Walker worth their salt can handle a little fire alarm."

It gave him a bit of a twitch that Michael could read him. Even if they'd done some time together, banged around doing a bit of this and that, he wasn't comfortable with anybody picking up any of his internal signals. He resolved to put a better mask on.

[General Havoc]

The contempt was written all over Paul's face, as they faced down the elevator, and Sophie could practically hear the lecture that was coming, no doubt another wonderful diatribe on the glorious purity of garbage-eating or some damn thing.

"I probably could," she said, glancing at the fire alarms, "but I'd hate to deprive you of the chance to talk about monkeys some more. Especially since you're on the wrong continent for them."

She got into the elevator and flashed Paul a winning smile. "Humans are apes, not monkeys. Kinda like how we're not foxes? If you're gonna play the whole 'stupid humans' game, you can at least get them right."

Her first time in real civilization in eighteen months, and she couldn't glance at her phone for more than a minute without someone starting up the Wise and Noble Wolf of the Woods routine...

[Josh]

He shrugged in disinterest. If she wanted to disregard the implications of being in a box and pass it off with some snark about proper classification, there wasn't much conversation to be had.

Paul was more a wolf of the cities himself, but not the high rises and the towers and pretty much never a place with functioning elevators. Out in the wilds of the city, the scrapyards and the urine-scented project houses, that was where the Wyld still flourished. Where a wolf, or a monkey for that matter, could still get by with some semblance of freedom.

[rhoenix]

The others were barking and snarling at one another, as they do. Sees-Faces-In-Stars couldn't tell exactly what it was about; something to do with Sophie, and how not everyone understood her spirits as she did. As they all walked into the small room, 'Joe-Smith' sniffed delicately - was this a place where people peed? He smelled quite a few patches of pee, and some of vomit in here, though they were faint.

Though he was now growing concerned that the rest of his growing pack wanted to perform some kind of pack uritation ritual he'd never heard of in order to bond, he said nothing as the walked with the others inside the small room.

Then the room began to move, and he began to understand why he could smell vomit and urine. He kept his breathing slow, as his Elders had taught him. If his pack wanted to bond together by a shared desire to vomit, then so be it.

The thought struck him - was this just a homid thing? That they made small rooms that...ah! Now he began to understand, as he looked up, seeing above him the place where they had been just a few moments ago. He remembered his own lesson a few months ago about how homids built things into the sky, and how painful it made getting down to the ground if one were to leap out the window, and he nodded to himself. This made sense - this is how they moved up and down those tower-things.

'Joe-Smith' simply kept to himself, walking with the others, observing.

[SirNitram]

"Can we PLEASE not do the monkey thing now? We're in public. Or will be when.." -Ding- goes the elevator and Michael leads the way out. "We're looking for Doctor Tennet. Older gentleman."

[LadyTevar]

Doctor Peter Tennant was not that hard to find, as there were only two souls in this section of the stacks other than the pack. One was a tall young man of a mixed heritage that gave him a bronzed Mediteranian look, while the other was older and handily dwarved by his companion, coming just up to the young man's chest. Wearing braces upon twisted legs too small for his body, the gray-haired man pointed with one of his canes to a book on the shelf over his head.
"Now, Samir, here's the books you were looking for, The Tell-Tale Lilac Bush (and other West Virginia Ghost Tales, Ghosts along the Cumberland (Death Lore in the Kentucky Foothills), and Coffin Hollow and Other Ghost Tales. I hope these can help you with your research. You might also try Green Hills of Magic, but those are all retellings of European folk legends brought over with the Poles and Italians." Dr. Tennant said dismissively in a faint British accent, before turning slightly as the pack trooped around the corner.
"Ah... and here's the others we were awaiting," the dwarven professor smiled. "Michael, my boy, you're looking well. Would you care to introduce your friends to Samir and I?" With surprising agility Dr. Tennant moved over to a low table, his two canes allowing him to swing his twisted legs almost as one. "Here, let me see what you're brought, I'm hoping it will make a nice pair with Samir's own package." The table already held the item he mentioned, a true antique of technology: the Panasonic IC TV MODEL TR-001 -- the smallest CRT television set ever produced, so small it was HandHeld.

[Josh]

Paul instinctively faded to the side, surreptitiously watching their surroundings while Michael handled the conversational portion.

Not that Paul couldn't talk, his less-than-cordial elevator experience notwithstanding. It was simply another talent that he carried close to the vest.

[Hotfoot]

Samir smiled, a few days of thick, black, untamed scruff covering his face as his eyes danced over the books. "Thank you Doctor, I will make sure to return these before I leave. If perhaps I stay longer, I will look at that last one anyway. It is always interesting to see how these stories change through retellings or more recent occurrences."

As the others entered, he began to scan the books, distracted somewhat by the new wonders in front of him. He quickly stopped himself and put the books down for a moment to properly see the people before him. He himself was dressed in well-worn clothing of a fairly rugged nature, his hair wild and curly black hair that reached down to just above his eyes. His nose was long and pronounced, his skin a tanned olive, befitting one arabic or mediterranean descent who spent much of his time outdoors. His features were fairly lean, as was the rest of his body. At his feet was a backpack of the sort one might expect on an expedition, complete with a frame, an adjustable harness, and a variety of straps and ropes for attaching other objects, including a few personalized additions that might allow the pack to be carried by someone or something much larger, if one looked close enough. He smiled as he waited for the assembled group to introduce themselves, his eyes darting from one to the next to watch their reactions.

[SirNitram]

"Dr. Tennant, I beleive you already know Paul.. Samir, this is Paul. Fellow West Virginian, never met a Hollow he didn't prefer to a city." Michael smiled. "These cityfolk are in town for a while. Sophie, Alexander, Joe. Cityfolk, I'm Michael Cooper, and this is Paul Morrison. I'm a courier and Paul is a professional redneck. Thinks Charleston is too urban, what with a whole ten feet between trees." There's the signs of a good-natured ribbing, there. "Out of towners, this is Doc Tennant. Great guy, always ready with any books you might need, and a collection of old electronics that makes the local museum envious. Speaking of, Doc, any more on the Mounds?" Paul knew the Uktena's obsession with the lost Mound Builders who were originally native here.

[rhoenix]

Like Paul, "Joe-Smith" watched. However, he did smile and nod once in greeting to both Doc Tennant, and Samir, though careful observers would note him mouthing the names silently to himself to better understand the sounds.

He caught most of Michael's words, but had to guess as to the meaning of a few. However, that was enough for him to at least launch his own greeting when he was introduced, though again, careful observers would note the careful enunciation of his words. "Hello Dawk Ten Nent, hello Sameer. I am pleased to meet you."

[Josh]

Paul nodded, throwing a mock-glare Michael's way.

Everybody was a wiseass these days.

[Josh]

Paul offered him a small, noncommittal smile. He recognized a fellow smooth talker in action, and of course that begged the eternal question: 'what is his game?'

Because there was always a game. He marked Samir down as one to watch. They might get along just fine, if their purposes roughly coincided. If not, keep friends close and enemies closer.

Owl and Rat had history, and so did their respective tribes. Some Striders were still full of angst over losing their homeland to the leeches a long time back. Hopefully Samir wasn't one of the ones who was hung up over that.