Quote from Indy on April 20, 2020, 10:23 pm

The kitsune came to the end of her rope..

She'd once contemplated the meaning of the expression, yet now it was a literal one.In the dark ocean the lightweight rope tugged at her side, jerking her backwards so abruptly that a splutter of air escaped her. She considered the terrain, but nothing besides the ghost of her grandfather leered at her from the shadows.  She sighed, shaking her head as if to shake him loose.  A kitsune did not believe in demons, for they themselves were demons-- and there was nothing a demon need fear in the dark.

So why did her grandfather's ghost haunt her so?  Even as she banished him, he returned, the man's expressionless eyes watching her.  Yet she knew only disappointment lay beneath that gaze.  A true kitsune accepted no weakness and no fear.

Let go, her grandfather's ghost commanded...

Quote from Mae on April 21, 2020, 4:39 am

"I think you misunderstand my business." Douglas said. "That little man in there may be no more to you than a severely malnourished body, but to me he represents the mind in compliance with matter; the existence of the monster in us all. His skeletal condition is a result self-deprivation. He has had no want for food in these caves, nor want for water. He has only the want for the companionship of his kind, and I have given him that. Considering your nature, I would think you can understand: He will cling to me though he has no reason to love me, exactly as you cling to that association you call a pack. Your kind can create anew from other lifeforms creatures in his own likeness... through a metamorphosis that is truly prodigious... and all because the creature cannot survive alone."

"I, too, can reconstruct from existing matter a new creature." Douglas met Tiffany's eyes almost with the same contempt she met his. "If you think I have no use for Tiffany, you are mistaken. Ask her what led her here. Ask her what she has seen during her short employment with us. Our work could not be in higher demand..."

Douglas looked sharply at the elevator shaft again. "So make your offer, wolf."

Quote from Adriana on April 21, 2020, 7:52 am

I was at a wall in every direction.

He was waiting for a better offer. I had information, knowledge and resources, worth countless dollars in monetary value. But it was worth infinitely more in lives.

All my life I’d moved down the ladder, from one corrupt system to the next. My own kin, nefarious gangs, The Gang. I couldn’t imagine what was worse than the werewolf mafia. Except that I could. The Svalnaglas were without morals in many aspects, but not without rhyme or reason. There was no justification, just some sense of structure I understood and clung to, because I adapted well to it. Because the alternative was worse. Because I did have a good mind when it functioned, and I knew I could do something with that, but only if I didn’t turn my back on them for one second.

Tiffany’s faction operated on the low end of things generally. So if she had come here, was it because it was a step up, a step towards the sense of reasoning and structure I sought? If so-look where that got her.

So what was the trade off? I could sentence myself and them both. Or I could do what I always did-get eyes deep in it, and hope that maybe in the long run what I’ll learn will help me destroy it from the inside out, and hope it doesn’t do the same to me first.

I was waiting for Tiffany to speak or protest. Give me some clue. Some heroic gesture, knowing that what she may avoid, will in turn just be inflicted instead on countless other lives-maybe lives more innocent than her own. But she was playing a desperate game of cards, out of chips and clinging to the last flush she may ever be dealt. There was no heroism in here, none that would save me from the afterlife I was sure to claim.

I pressed my forehead hard on the elevator door.

”What is this? Some kind of werewolf breeding program, what? What are they doing, Tiffany?”

Quote from Mae on April 21, 2020, 3:00 pm

Now, at last, was an opportunity. Tiffany was unsure how much she was allowed to voice without putting herself in danger, but here at last Douglas wanted her to speak, for it played to his purpose. She would take advantage of it to raise Silas' moral even if her own situation worsened.

"Don't let him toy with you, sugar." Tiffany said. "He's playing a mind game."

A psychologist as well as an anesthesiologist, Douglas knew how to drug the mind as well as he knew how to drug the body. He had already obtained one purpose - which was to draw a parallel between Silas and his victim, to cause Silas introspection, and put him in a mentally vulnerable position.

Tiffany had to turn the conversation back on the hunter somehow. She rightly supposed that if she were Mercy Danbrook, it wouldn't matter if there were things even worse than werewolves there, she'd be hiding in the hills to get away from Douglas. But if Tiffany spoke her thoughts on the matter she'd be raising the hunter's ire, and somehow that didn't seem like a prudent thing to do. At any rate, Tiffany knew she could invigorate Silas just by speaking out and giving him a better sense of her presence.

For Douglas was right, werewolves could not survive completely alone. And no pack knew better than the Svalnaglas what sense of strength comes in numbers. The Betine and Talkane factions may operate on different roles, but they were still a part of the same pack. Except for the silent victim in the shaft - who Tiffany knew could not be discounted, if what Douglas said was to be believed - Douglas was still dealing his cards alone. Somewhere else in the mine, Ionone was still there. Tiffany knew she was not one to remain idle. She was a brave spirit, and the darkness was her element. Ionone would be coming in her own way, and in her own time. They just had to buy the time...

Quote from Adriana on April 21, 2020, 4:25 pm

I was surprised to hear a response. Tiffany's voice cut through the darkness, it seemed to carry without much effort on her part. It was warm and welcome in a place like this, where I was clinging to my nerves by a hair. Just when I thought the walls couldn't get any closer to my body, when I couldn't be more alone-there was some reprieve in the smokey undertones of her voice and the implication of her words.

She was however on a short leash, and I had to choose my responses carefully. I had hundreds of questions, and for each one a different reservation.

"Clearly there's a demand for our race... that much I'm aware of, and was given sound evidence of that by the exchange in the fields outside of Reknab Bend..  that, and you wouldn't be the first to try and meet that demand.." I couldn't get my words out in front of me fast enough. For one, I was walking on eggshells. Tiny little eggshells. Quail eggs-no, finch eggs. Tiny, fragile eggshells that were two lives. Secondly, was there enough oxygen in here? I think the oxygen was running out.

"I wonder, how you're meeting those demands... have you heard of Et Leonem Rubrum...?" even as I spoke the name I could feel every millimeter of the scar on my back, the one that was different than all the rest. It took up the space of my left shoulder blade-a gnarled burn scar, the result of a hot iron used over a long period of time, searing the shape of a lions head into my flesh.

Quote from Mae on April 24, 2020, 3:03 am

"I wouldn't go there if I were you." The hunter replied. "You're straying from the subject."
He stepped forward and looked down the long vertical shaft, from whence now came a pin-point of light twinkling in the abyss.
"And you're running out of time." He said.

While Douglas was distracted, Tiffany glanced at the shelf where the rusty blue lunchbox sat. To her surprise, it was gone.

Of course! Douglas wouldn't corner himself between a rock and two werewolves, even to lure them into a trap of his own make. The absence of the lunchbox was a sure bet that the card-sharp wasn't playing alone. Tiffany was willing to bet that the shelf had a false back, and whoever was behind it was accessible from the other side. If there was a way in, there was a way through and out on the other side. Wouldn't it be something for Lady Luck to appear wearing Ionone's face and claws? If there was a gamble in the game, Tiffany was sure the secret door was it. The last time Tiffany saw Ionone she was with Mr. Bones. Now, Mr. Bones was in the hoist with Mr. Dress Shoes, or else Silas was bluffing. Somehow, putting all three of them in the same box to be delivered to the hunter seemed too pretty a present to be believed, and Ionone wouldn't step into box at gunpoint let alone of her own choosing. There had to be another angle to come by...

"You're running out of time." The hunter said, taking back his steps from the vertical shaft. "And I'm running out of patience. If you don't know where Mercy is, then how do you propose to find her that I can't do myself?"

Quote from Mae on April 24, 2020, 3:35 am

Meanwhile, in the abysmal depths of Mount Turbulance's flooded bowels...

A shiver ran up John Camber's spine. He was sure to keep his light on. To think, at the top of that shaft, if everything went according to plan, Douglas had two werewolves captured.

"Ain't that something." John thought to himself, shivering again. There hadn't been much time to grab the best gear when Douglas informed them someone was looking for that old man in the mine. They ran up with what they could, - Hal Clenery, Mary Berg, and George Mattias. Douglas knew the mine better than any of them, so Hal and Mary waited at the mine exit to lay down traps in case the werewolves tried to escape. Douglas with George and his nephew John went in. John had never seen werewolves, though he'd heard quite a tale or few from the hunters now and then. As a rule, they didn't talk about it much, but when they talked - the stories they told!

John's Uncle George owned the mine, and the two had come up several times in the last few months to check on the insane man found by Douglas and the others wandering the mountains in May. John, though wary at first, had even met and spoken to the old soul. To him, though amazing, it wasn't surprising to hear werewolves were hunting the man. There were stories of an old abandoned asylum somewhere in the mountains near Middlecrest, and John always got shivers thinking of the inmates. But it had been so long since anyone lay eye on the place that many people in and around town doubted its existence. They called it fictitious make-believe, and told stories around campfires late at night. If this man was really one of the forgotten inmates like George said he was, then that was proof enough of its existence, and possibly verified a whole slew of other bone-chilling stories. How many other inmates were locked up only to escape and be eaten by werewolves? John wondered, even while he sat in the dark, waiting for Douglas or George to shine down a signal.

Quote from Adriana on April 25, 2020, 10:09 pm

I didn't think I was straying from the subject. I think I was right on top of it, but clearly that wasn't what we were supposed to be discussing. It was back on Mercy now.

"What are you going to do, have you and yours comb the mountains? Do you know how many miles span this land? And she's been missing... what, a couple, a few weeks?"

I scoffed.

"Split up, see how good your men are apart and blind on the mountains, knowing what you and I know. Ammunition only works if you can shoot first, only if you see them coming."

I slouched with my back against the door, trying to make the space feel a little larger than it was.

"I can be up and down a two hundred fifty foot pine tree in a minute. I can see a lot better in the dark.. you don't see me coming, and I shoot first, every time." I flicked my lighter on and off. "It would give me some chance to do a little field research, too.."

Quote from Indy on April 25, 2020, 10:59 pm

Something stirred in the shadows behind him.  John might have noted two violet specks glinting at him from the darkness, but the kitsune thought it unlikely. Men who grew confident in the light neglected to pay mind to the goings of the darkness.  Only the drip of the water off her pelt might have inclined him to her presence -- but in the bowels of the mine, what didn't drip?

She came up behind him like liquid given movement.  The flat side of a small kunai was pressed to his throat effortlessly.

"You seem lost," she whispered snakily, the register of her voice just above the tones of a beast's, "Where are your friends?"