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Northern Curve of the Wheel

Between the elements of fire and earth, the lines of the Wheel come into particular focus. About two yards apart, both defining grooves are composed of three quarter-inch thin lines, criss-crossing and weaving back and forth in a repeating pattern. Fire has scorched the edges of the path to an easily seen black. The small hill is forward on the Wheel, the firepit behind, and a path crosses to the middle of the clearing from outside. Obvious exits:

Earth Mound Fire Pit Center of the Wheel North

At the center, Thunder's Claws told her of the different Gifts last night, determined one and showed her how to test for the others. At the center, Thunder's Claws' packmate had already discovered her moon Gift; she has the ability to sense the truth in words.

Sword-Eater raises his head and sniffs the cold air. Snorting, he heads on into the center.

Currently on this calm and cold winter twilight in the general St. Claire area, it is 26 degrees Fahrenheit (-3.3 degrees Celsius). The wind is coming from the north at 4.6 mph. The ground is dry. Skies are clear with no chance of precipitation.

You turn to the south and make your way back to the hub of the Wheel.

Center of the Great Wheel

This circular clearing is about 40 yards in diameter and completely bounded by the Wheel of Nature inscribed in the ground. Soft green grasses cover much of the ground, but several paths have been worn to bare dirt over time. The only landmark within the Wheel is the low Table Stone at the center, but four important landmarks make up sections of the Wheel: the windy spot to the southwest, a small pool to the southeast, a firepit to the northeast, and a large mound of earth to the northwest. Contents: Thunder's Claws Sky's Mantle Table Stone Obvious exits:

Windy Spot South Pool East Fire Pit North Earth Mound West

Thunder's Claws looks over his shoulder and, spying the Get, turns around to face him. One ear tilts in question.

Sky's Mantle nods slowly, thinking on this. shortly he declares that he considers Black Ice to be one to whom the way of the sight for weaknesses would come naturally.

Thunder's Claws had suspected, with her personality, that she would bear the other Gift. We shall see.

Sword-Eater waits for the conversation to be done, a tad impatiently. His breath mists the air.

Thunder's Claws falls silent, looking quite done.

The air shimmers as the three stand, the light seeming to quiver. Sword-Eater's head snaps up and he snarls, openly. Without looking at the Lords, he barks, ~Warform, challenger. Duty isn't waiting.~

Sword-Eater contorts and blurs as he is transformed.

You shift into Crinos form.

Name set.

Thunder's Claws shifts up without a word, watching the table stone. Thunder's Claws contorts and blurs as he is transformed.

Sky's Mantle looks to Sword Eater, casually pausing in the other matter without any sign of concern. His attitude becomes more one of professional interest as the Get's manner abruptly changes.

Thunder's Claws shifts into Crinos form.

On the eastern curve, Soulcatcher makes his way out of the woods to the east.

Joshua Halfhand opens the moonbridge with a snarl. The light gathers, arrows, and darts into the sky. A flash, brighter than the usual response, fills the night air. A brief impression of a crossroads is burning into the retinas of those looking into the sky before the Get and the Lord disappear into the air.

Near the Fire Pit, Al Harsin looks curiously towards the center.

Near the Fire Pit, Al Harsin grumbles quietly, as if uneasy about something.

On the eastern curve, Soulcatcher's eyes narrow and blink at the flash, the wolf hesitating a moment. When it recedes, he continues, circling the Wheel to the pool. On the eastern curve, Soulcatcher heads into the center. Soulcatcher heads southeast to the pool.

The shimmering walls of the bridge offer brief glimpses of open sky and incredible depth as it flashes upward. The ephemeral floor of the bridge suddenly shudders violently, and the walls, as usual only allowing single-file passage, suddenly fluctuate in a very unhealthy manner for a bridge in mid-route, expanding and contracting wildly. The movement wrenches, and then comes to a sudden halt, the walls fading away entirely, the bridge hanging motionless in an infinite vaulted sky. Of more pressing concern is the grey figure approaching with light steps from the distance.

Thunder's Claws dances carefully to maintain his balance as the bridge rocks beneath him. Once he's sure of his footing again, he looks around, taking a moment to notice the other traveller.

Maroth walks towards the Garou on the narrow path with silent, distance-eating steps. Its voice is soft, dark in a beautiful, almost musical way, carrying easily through the stillness as it draws closer.. "Move aside."

Joshua Halfhand growls, disturbed, uncertain of his footing. His eyes lock on the approaching stranger and narrow dangerously as the grey figure treads closer on the bowed back of the moonbridge. The skald adjusts his posture slightly, so that he stands directly in the center of the bridge, his brow blazing with his totem's mark. ~Not so fast, stranger. Who are you?~

Thunder's Claws takes a step back to give Joshua more room but continues to watch, alternately in each direction along the bridge.

Maroth is perhaps a hundred feet away as it answers, continuing to move at an easy, rapid walk, wings flexing and rustling. Its tone does not change. "One not to be trifled with by discarded shells of the Creation." One hand dips into a fold of its robes, comes out with a dark saber, the blade sprinkling a small cloud of rust as it comes free. "Mercy meets restriction, as the Flash decrees. Step aside."

Joshua Halfhand's eyes narrow as he studies the strange being. ~Did you warp the bridge?~ The Get still, obstinately, does not move aside.

Fifty feet. "Everything falls, halfbred ones. As bound, I will reach the source of the flow."

Thunder's Claws takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, trying hard to maintain his patience. ~Just answer the fucking question,~ he mutters.

Joshua Halfhand keeps his arms apart and ready, matte-black claws flexing. ~You don't follow anything until you speak straight. What the hell are you?~

Maroth's sword moves into a loose ready state. "Maroth of the amesha spentas, keeper of the Secret Name, once commissioned to teach, fallen, and risen again." A few moments separate him from sword range.

Maroth pages: Hard to say. Of course, behind you is the caern. Come to think of it, it's hard to say who intercepted who here.

Thunder's Claws tenses, his claws flexing. Still he says nothing to the stranger.

Joshua Halfhand remains unmoving, a grey hulk standing protectively over his ravished territory. ~That doesn't tell me shit. You aren't going anywhere else tonight, bud, except back to Hell unless you fly off and leave.~

Maroth inclines its head. "So it descends." With its next step forward, the rusted blade blurs forward in a lunge.

Joshua Halfhand, back in his element, blurs to meet the attack. Or rather, to attempt to dodge it and come behind the spirit's guard, his curved claws eager to see what color is the blood of his foe.

Thunder's Claws hangs back, watching, not much use on the narrow bridge in any event.

Maroth's blood, as it turns out, is dark red, and smells even more strongly of rust then its blade. Halfhand's talons tear deeply into the being's chest as the garou smashes forward past its guard, but the angel does not give ground--it's like running into a brick wall. With its free hand, Maroth reaches up and seizes the back of Halfhand's neck with a steel grip far stronger then that body should rightly generate, twists in a sharp half-circle, and literally hurls the garou away from him down the bridge. Halfhand hits, ominously close to falling over the edge for a split second before stopping, thrown some distance back the way Maroth had come; the latter winds up facing away from Alexander, and is now turning back.

Thunder's Claws steps forward, trying to get in on Maroth before the latter's attention can focus on him. Both claws slash out, one trying to tear through the winged man's shoulder, the other aimed for the base of the spine.

Joshua Halfhand rolls around on one elbow, shaking his head from the impact. Hatred flares in his eyes and his lips curl back from his teeth in a snarl, primal and rumbling in its fury.

Maroth, as it turns back to proceed, pauses at the Get's snarl, and turns back towards him. "You..." he begins, voice growing darker, as TC tears deeply into shoulder and lower back (again unmoving, the attack's only apparent effect the heavy flow of rusting blood), "...*dare* growl at me, cur?" Distractedly, it lashes backward with its blade, an awkward maneuver given the positioning, one that would only connect if the garou worrying his back refuses to move. "I was old when Creation was unmanifest."

Thunder's Claws does indeed dodge to the side, attempting to tear off as much of the spirit's upper arm as he can with the motion. Once the blade swings clear his hand lashes out, claws seeking to grab the wrist holding the sword. Joshua Halfhand smirks at the fallen angel, ~We dare, shithead.~ Already on the ground, he shifts to hispo with blurring speed, lunging forward to snap at the lower legs of the thing in an attempt to hamstring it. Joshua Halfhand contorts and blurs as he is transformed.

Maroth loses thick strips of flesh from his arm, and drops the blade as his wrist is grabbed. The bridge shudders underneath again as the blade falls onto it, piercing and cutting through like a warm knife through butter, caught from falling completely through the hilt's cross-piece. Maroth reaches over, seizing the wrist of the offending hand, takes a single step towards the edge of the darkening bridge, and jerks the Shadow Lord's off, leaving him, for the moment, dangling from his grip--Maroth releases his own to reach down to retrieve his blade, as Halfhand begins chewing his legs to bloody tatters that nonetheless remain supporting his weight.

Sword-Eater turns from his opponent with a snarl of disgust, moving toward what he perceives to be more directly harming the bridge. Not wasting the time in a shift, the Get reaches his head to close his jaws around the handle of the rusty sword, to pull it out of the injured Phoebe trail.

The bridge's edge is sickeningly yielding under TC's grip. Maroth's other hand reaches the hilt of his precariously-hanging blade a split second before Halfhand's jaws close around both hand and hilt. The angels grey robes are dark with his own blood, and the air is thick with rust, and for the first time, pain crosses its expression. "Our contract is done," it speaks with finality, and its quiet wings suddenly hammer the air, lifting the entire trio up and off the bridge in a breathtaking blur of motion. Below, the warped bridge flares with light, reforms into a proper shape...and fades away. Little is visible beneath but clouds.

Thunder's Claws looks down as the bridge disappears, never releasing his hold on the precious wrist. Muttering a curse in Garou he tries to get a view of what Halfhand's doing.

Sword-Eater, feeling his jaws slip from the sword hilt, blurs into his previous form. His hands reach for Maroth even as his slightly-weaker jaws continue the slide, preferably grabbing the angel around his neck and upper torso. Sword-Eater contorts and blurs as he is transformed. You shift into Crinos form.

The air itself shrieks as the grey, blood-soaked wings hammer at it, and Maroth's ascent is stopped as wings are hampered by Halfhand's shift and grab, the Get ending up pinning a wing entirely, hanging mostly from the being's back after a brief confusion of scrabbling through blood and tearing cloth and flesh for a grip. The weakening angel shifts its now-freed sword arm a bit, and brings the blade in a savage, blurring arc, directed not at Thunder's Claw's massive crinos arms, but at his own. The rusted edge bites into its forearm, just behind the Shadow Lord's grip, and through, liquid rust spurting from the stump, the garou tumbling down and away with the sacrificed hand. The blade pauses at the end of the carry-through, and then lashes back, biting deep into the arm around its throat, grinding to a halt partially through bone and into the angel's own face. Maroth is uttering a dark, whispered string of curses in unfamiliar tongue, and wrenches the blade free, preparing for another strike.

Thunder's Claws drops away from the pair, watching them recede above him in what at first seems to be slow-motion and suddenly begins picking up speed quickly. He flails out with both arms and then does the only thing he can think of: he changes to a form with less mass and more area in a desperate attempt to slow himself down before he hits... what?

Thunder's Claws contorts and blurs as he is transformed. Thunder's Claws shifts into Lupus form.

Joshua Halfhand's only response to the pain is to tighten his stranglehold on the spirit, his arm's muscles bulging and slicked with blood. His jaws, however, are free to rip into the back of the angel's neck; he seems to be seeking to behead the creature with his ferocity. Maroth twists violently, slamming the blade into the offending arm again, the blade this time coming entirely through, severing it just past the elbow and carrying a fair distance into its own neck. The being twists violently, and, leaving chunks of flesh in Halfhand's remaining hand and jaws, its head raggedly attached at best and form half-translucent, surrounded by a mist of blood. It spins clumsily in the air, wings straightening and gripping the air again as Halfhand begins to fall. "Impudent *welp*!" it snarl, moving freely in the air, graceful through the grievous wounds. Wings blurring like a hummingbird, it floats in at the tumbling, falling Get, blade blurring and biting into the elbow of the remaining arm, darting away and in again, striking twice more until the joint parts and that limb separates as well. Dull golden light blazes from its furious eyes, as it darts around the plummeting garou, blade lashing out again and again, removing legs at knees. "Know we come for your power, cur, called or no!" The furious hummingbird-pace of its wingbeats slows into more powerful strokes, and the angel, streaming blood, rises away. The Get, tumbling and trailing streamers of blood from stumps, continues on his long, helpless fall.

Joshua Halfhand contorts and blurs as he is transformed. You shift into Homid form.

Thunder's Claws lands with a bone-jarring thump, only to find himself unharmed by the fall. He checks himself over twice to be certain that he isn't dead yet, then he lifts his muzzle to look skyward.

Joshua Halfhand's unconscious body falls half a minute after the crinos's, his slighter human form breaking into a thick bush as he tumbles from the sky. His four stumps still bleed, pumping bright-red heartsblood on the dark ground. The liquid looks almost black in the darkness, dripping off branches to pool below him.

Thunder's Claws gives a sharp cry of surprise and darts toward Halfhand, dropping to his knees and shifting upward as soon as he's by the Get's side. "Jesus Christ," he mutters, placing his hands over the bleeding stumps that were Halfhand's arms.

Thunder's Claws contorts and blurs as he is transformed. Thunder's Claws shifts into Homid form.

At closer inspection, it's obvious that Halfhand's feet are gone as well. Blood pours from all four sites; even his scar seems pale from the blood loss. His eyelashes lie against his cheekbones, unfluttering.

Alexander closes his eyes and quickly murmurs something, trying to calm himself down enough to stop the bleeding.

Joshua Halfhand does not regain consciousness, but the wounds scab over. The Get remains a unmoving hulk in the tangle of branches.

Alexander leans back, suddenly feeling dizzy and swaying slightly. He wipes his bloodied hands on his pants then shifts into a form strong enough to pick up the Garou. Looking around the crescent-dark landscape, he decides to try and find some kind of shelter rather than attempt to find his way back to the Caern tonight.

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