Season Three
Summary of Events
2021-03-15
Payment was made, the pack made £14285 each. It's now Late July 2020. We all donate letters to Sunny to form a name and she calls herself Sunny Enpeem-Kaj and Ariane helps arranged forged documents for her. Brexit has happened early (July 1st is now Independance Day), we cleaned up the Wyrm Spirit Factory that Big Ben told us about offscreen. Watched an open air production of A Midsummer Nights Dream at the Hotel, they're now working on The Merchent of Venice. Sunny learnt some humaning, the rest of the Pack learnt some wolfing. Ariane got her sword repaired and paid for extra quiet.
At 10am on a summer morning we get a note saying "I know what you did last March, I am watching from the shadows, naughty puppies", all typed up on a typewriter (Maybe Ben Valis's friend David Vasiry?), we get fingerprints from the door and track it to a delivery van. There is first aid and self defence training. Holly goes to the local Bone Gnawers' moot/curry and social evening at Abdul's, run by Sanjeev, also present Abed and Clark (police clerk, doesn't like Watford), Alan Garren (a bonegnawer courier reveals someone is ordering silver and mercury). They engage in the Worship of the Rat Ritual which involves offerings to rats. We hear the Stargazers are arranging a Deep Umbra moon bridge ritual to try and hunt for the source of covid in a month (worth watching for impressive magic possibly failing).
Also Sunny makes a quiche from a recipie to practice both cooking and reading. Lydia meets Margareeth / the Old Lady again (who knows the True Londoners, lives with Jim under Westminster Bridge) who says that Jesus and the Seraphim appear once a month or so at services at Islington Tube Station at 9pm Sunday.
Jules and Ariane stakeout the Pack House in the Umbra to watch for spirits, we see weird skittering spiders watching us from the distance, feels like the ones seen at parliament? We go to bed to tell the others in the morning.
2021-03-22
The Pack shares information about Margareeth, the Spider. There are two stations The Angel (Underground) and Islington Station (Overground). Carlie and Ariane (as lupus) sniff around churches near The Angel and find nothing suspicious. Jules & Sunny goes tagging, Sunny gets takeout, Jules gets chased by police. Holly sees the spider-spirit. The Pack has a picnic on the roof to spot for it, Holly gets Sunny to chase it towards her, she gets an idea of it (Weaver Spirit - Rage 0, Gnosis 2, Willpower 7) before it vanishes into the concrete leaving a very cold hole, Ariane pokes a paw in and Jules sticks her whole head in - icy cold, lights and spiders riding a web. Goes to draw it.
Sunday we head to the stations, split up, Margareeth arrives at The Angel and we gather, she gives a knock code (3-2) takes us through a service door with a hidden bouncer, down 5 flights of metal stairs, downstairs is a hidden rave and we're greeted by Emily who smells inhuman like Margareeth. The Vicar is "the sound of music and the beat that gets us to god". Inside is a Barrel Vaulted Rave Church with some pews, a DJ setup on the altar. Lydia is unhappy with the dancing and drinking, its too loud for Sunny but she bounces from the Umbra (gauntlet 5). Half the room is inhuman. The DJ welcomes everyone (including the Garou) and bigs up DJ Sera very not human, Sunny licks her (taste of sunshine and joy, has white wings with flaming feathers) and goes human, dancing naked. Lydia resists that before being hit with a direct mind whammy and seeing the figures wings, Jules and Ariane manage to hussle people out after we get drained of gnosis. Everyone a bit unhappy with the situation and we leave before anything else happens (Lydia "It's wrong!" re: free will)
2021-03-29
Everyone heads back to the pack house for sleep. The next day woke up late, Jules made coffee, Carlie made a fry up. Lydia is unhappy and grumpy. We talked of clothes for Sunny, talked of the night club - possession? Drugs? Good spirit feeding? Bad spirit feeding? How did they know we were Garou?
Holly realises she's late for work so Jules gets her a sandwich and she heads out at speed! The rest of us bicker about religion (mostly Ariane and Lydia). Jules phones Jimmy The Drug Dealer to score some acid/cartoons, they also chat about finding Ben Valis's head in a river.
Lydia calls David Chetstow (Bishop of Southwark) asks about the underground church, directed towards the Church of Our Lord the Saviour aka Grace Life who do a lot of music/church outreach. So Ariane and Lydia head out to church, meet a blonde woman with a bob who answers the door, inside there's offices + a church and its very corporate/US republican. Meet Elder Pastor Tom Drion who doesn't know about that specific underground church and recommends his own with patriarchial leaflets. Head back via The Angel tubestation, the door smells non-human but is locked. We spot the woman with the bob is tailing us but leaves once Lydia says hello politely.
Back at the pack house Jules is painting, can see into the Umbra a little, sees a large Weaver spirit below through the floor, leans in to see it and gets the face coldness, also sees tiny golden sparkling spiders in the electrical cabling. Also becomes fixated on large purple elephants as the key to everything.
Holly arranges a meeting with her parents for Next Thursday to talk about spirit rituals and maybe the Angel Islington.
The evening at the Pack house a house goes up from the Daganum Deadbeats (they killed a wyrm spirit in a factory, also some masked men immune to the delerium shot at them), Jules appears - tries to explain her work, takes us to see it, the elephant one isn't useful, the spiderweb one really is. Ariane checks for cabling where she saw the Weaver spirit, Holly checks the Umbra for anything that could be parsed as an elephant, nothing. Ariane suggests putting Jules in a hot air balloon. Pack debates plans - talking to the spider? leaving note for the note-leaver? sending spirit email? Holly talks to The Bell of Southwark who explains to talk to Weaver need a messenger spirit (small Spiderling) who live near tech boxes, or Glasswalkers have specific gifts. Pack plans a message ("meet us on the rooftops late in the evening") and agrees to at least for now go by the pack name of The Southwark Belles and Holly sends that with a spiderling.
2021-04-05
The pack prepped for Packnic II: (This time it has Tesco's Finest) by sending Holly to the shops with her staff discount in the hope that whatever shows up will be friendly and they can make friends with it. Then in the Umbra about 23:55 there is almost an earthquake, the building shakes and Jules can see flicking in the road below, with an effect like tearing a seam of fabric a huge Spider spirit emerges head first (the road healing up behind it) - The Weaver of Laws and Rituals aka The Mother of All Parliaments. Ariane tries to consult her ancestors for advice and gets a general "use caution" for weaver spirits, Holly meanwhile just talks to the spirit, introducing the pack formally and acting as a go between. The conversation includes these key points:
It's here to get to know us because we got a boon from its Bell pledging ourselves to defence of the realm and it wants to know what we can do that isn't just killing Wyrm influence (which is what Garou are normally good for). It notes we discussing things more than other packs and asks if we are a democracy (it likes those). It notes we got read of Ben Valis (a non Wyrm threat to the country) but wonders if we will finish the job of persuing David Vasiry ("The Alchemist") and if we will kill him or deliver him to it's "Agents of Enforcement" (The Met). It wants us to follow the right "processes rites and rituals" to have a judgement passed on David Vasiry (Ben Valis already had a judgement passed by MagiPol). If we do just kill him outright then it will judge us for how and why we do it (i.e. we need to get the Grandese to sign off on his death or have a very good excuse and be willing to stand trial). Also it approves of the New Testament that Lydia offers it because it is a "higher power for the people that helps them find moral fortitude". It tells us that in the future instead of sending a Spiderling to it we should seek it out at the Palace of Westminster.
Ariane tries to explain to Sunny why the English don't eat horse meat (Jules brings it up in conversation) and comes down on horse cults and dislike of the French then has to try and explain countries. Sunny is baffled by human sillyness. The discussion is that memory loss and possibility of having eaten demon-horse is worse. Sunny discusses how she doesn't recall the first time she turned human well either (shape shifting can be traumatic in general probably) and Ariane suggests the pack can come hunt deer on her families land in the summer once Covid has died down (and Lydia talks about preaching the good word).
So on a Thursday in June there's does a Research Montage (Jules, Sunny, Ariane, and Lydia): Ben Valis and David Vasiry met in Washington D.C. and before Valis was preparing for death, but Vasiry did something that gave him hope, they joined several people in doing something before it went wrong (MagiPol worked out they were murdering people for immortality?) and they had to flee the country. There is a gap of a few years before David joins Ben in London at which point the diaries get more vague. We discover that David has a reliance on quinine.
Carlie hits the net and discovers that David Vasiry has been posing as a prep school chemistry teacher and "retiring" every 30 years since the 60s, working for very rich schools that include things like research trips to Israel and Egypt. She tracks down its the same man in the photos each time.
Holly meanwhile goes to see her Parents, they talk about how it feels to be Garou, and its revealed her Great Uncle went by the name of Harold Styles as a Stargazer. He told them tales of meeting a great bear spirit, transformed in front of family members to save them in the war. Holly talks to them about Bell and the other spirits shes met, they talk about their pagan religion being around feeling the spirits but they know they can't directly contact them. Thave have heard of the Barrel Vaulted Rave Church, a DJ (DJ Sera?) shows up there 1-2 times a month and everyone at the events is cured of Covid and protected from it, this was witnessed by Angela's Kids who took Angela there and her cough went away. An old lady (Margareeth?) managed to get into a Zoom call they were in on where a Reverand was giving a service and talked about the DJ, she then said that sometimes Jesus appears there and was kicked from the call. They pass on a scroll from her Great Uncle and ask for a translation. Holly then goes to the Bone Gnawers meeting, where Alan Garren gives her the address for David Vasiry who is the one who has been ordering mercury and silver (Holly owes him a favour now). She also learns the Stargazers are going from Hampstead Heath. They have heard of The Angel Islington as a figure who shows up, does magical things then vanishes. She once interuppted a brewing fight between Vampire clans by making them all perform singing in the rain.
The pack reunites at the Pack House and makes plans to stalk and hunt David Vasiry.