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Bawn: Southern Forest(#3017RAJh)
Evergreen trees spread their overhead branches wide across the forest
floor. Each tree limb interlinks with its neighbor, forming a thick
overhead canopy of pine needles that leaves the forest floor dim even
at noon. An apparent tenseness seems to permeate the air here, and
there is a somewhat less than subtle feeling that perhaps something is
watching. The behavior of the wildlife in the area betrays a certain
wariness that suggests the presence of predators nearby.
The southern edge of the bawn is marked here by the railroad tracks
which run from St. Claire and Kent's Crossing to the west, towards the
mountains to the east.
Cassandra walks out of the forest and then looks down at you, grinning
widely. "Y'know, you might wanna shift."
Quiet snorts. I suppose. The city stinks, anyway. Twitching her right
ear in a lupus sign of amusement, she shifts.
Quiet contorts and blurs as she is transformed.
Cassandra snorts. "Yeah, but you'd draw a hell of a crowd going to SCCU
in fur." She grins. "Let's blow."
SCCU: The Quad(#3990RIJ$)
Like most colleges, St. Claire City University has an area known only as
'the Quad'. This is it. Sidewalks criss-cross the perfectly
rectangular grassy area in a web to connect one dull concrete and
darkened glass block-shaped building to another. Still, the grass is
green most of the year, and well-trimmed brightly-shaded flowers and
manicured shrubs manage to soften the harsh grey of the architecture.
Small groves of trees dot the landscape of the lawn randomly to
provide shade and to break up the monotony.
The dome of the student union building can be seen off in the distances
behind several buildings and some trees. A sign post points out that
the suitcase-like buildings you spy to the north are dormitories. A
'sign' in front of Curtiss advertises on-campus activities.
You traverse the lawn of the mall and avoid several classroom buildings
before you successfully make your way into the dorms.
SCCU Dormitories: Hallway
Much like the rest of the campus's buildings, the dormitories are
concrete and glass structures that could be termed 'utilitarian'.
Built during the late 60's to house the baby boomers' run through
college, many of the floors are now actually empty and closed off.
This particular floor is not. Ridges and recesses sculpt the cement
walls into scallops of texture; nap-less orange and red carpeting
barely cushions the hard floor. Two elevator shafts pierce the center
of the building while a stairwell on each end provides the
law-requiring fire escape. Actually, as often as the elevators are
down for repairs, it's the major mode of transport.
To one side is a list of room 'assignments' of those who live here.
Doors on the main floor of the building allow access back to the main
part of campus. Next to them, multi-colored 'flyer's create a garish
mosaic.
Dorm Room(#2022RJ)
Built in the cookie cutter manner of most of the dorm rooms in these
halls, Dana's done only a little to make it distinct from its fellows.
One bed is lofted, the other tucked under it sofa-like, both made in
unmatching patterend bedspreads, taking up a good deal of the 8'x12'
floor space. The only furniture that didn't come with the room is a
1.2 cubic foot dorm fridge. Desks mirror each other in the two far
corners of the room, facing each other; the two movable closets and
the one dresser line the wall to the right.
Small touches mark this as a woman's room: the quilts on the beds, the
vase of dried wildflowers on the unused desk, and the other
minimalistic decorations.
Cassandra comes into the room.
Andrea raps on the door, after getting directions to the right room from
the downstairs directory.
A pause, and the door is opened to reveal a surprised Dana dressed
casually in a pair of grey sweat pants and a loose t-shirt, blonde
hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail, and taking a pencil out from
between her teeth. "Andrea." Then spying the Fury, "Cassandra. What're
you doing here?" she blurts out without thinking.
Andrea smiles in turn. "Can we come in, Dana, or are you too busy?"
Dana starts, and walks backward the pace to open the door fully.
"Please, yes, I'm sorry. Come in. I was just trying to get ahead some.
All I got is water, but you're welcome to some, if you'd like." She
waits for the two women to come in, closing the door quietly behind
them.
Cassandra shrugs a shoulder and gestures Andrea to go first, but shoots
a grin at Dana. "Nah, thanks."
Andrea says warmly, "Water will be fine for me, thanks. We'll try not to
interupt too long." She pauses to let her smile grow a little, then
says, "I remember classes and what you have to do."
Dana goes to the refrigerator where she pulls out one of two
personal-sized spring water bottles, and hands it to Andrea, with the
nervous awkwardness of someone not used to entertaining visitors. She
takes up a partial, larger bottle of water sitting on her desk,
although she just holds it. She smiles weakly, and says, "Thanks. I
got behind a little, again, with what's been going on, especially last
week--" she breaks off, and glances between the two women quickly.
"Nothing's happened, has it?"
Andrea shakes her head. "We're being very cautious. That's why we're
here, in fact. To see if you know anything more that you didn't get
the chance to tell us."
Cassandra walks across the room and sits down on the floor, stretching
out on one side and propping herself up on one elbow to listen.
Dana settles in her desk chair sideways, hanging her right arm over the
back of it and pulling her left leg up to tuck the foot under her
right knee. "Uhm." She tilts her head. "I'm not sure how much I told
you, so I might repeat stuff."
"Good, 'cuz I ain't heard none of it," Cassandra puts in wryly.
Andrea motions for the kin to go ahead. She sits near Cassandra and
opens her water.
Dana looks at Cassandra briefly, frowning, but the expression melts into
a slight grin. "You're looking much better than the last time I saw
you," she says before taking a drink of her water, then launches,
quietly and slowly, into what she knows.
Cassandra shrugs. "Feel a lot better, too," she says, letting it trail
off as Dana begins her story.
Dana says, "I was having dreams. Nightmares, really. I don't usually
remember my dreams, but I did these. Very vivid. I dreamt about home a
lot, with themes of corruption, and feeling threatened. Especially by
a...dark man." The young woman pauses, her brow furrowed in
concentration as she decides on that descriptor. "The last one was
about David," she says, giving Andrea a glance. "The guy who came down
here from home? I woke up feeling...irrational," she admits with
embarrrssment, coloring under her tan. "I called up there. To make a
long story short, I wound up going up there, and found that they'd
found the book, and between it and some other...demon, for lack of a
better word, had managed to decimate the retreat I used to volunteer
at. They're Garou," she says, more towards Cassandra this time. "We
managed to put the spirit in the book asleep, and brought it back with
us, after all the Garou were released from whatever spell was on
them."
Dana goes on with, "Since then, we've done some research on it." She
digs under a set of books to the side, and pulls out a notebook,
flipping through it to find what she wants. "First off, Aunt
Hettie--she's the one who runs the retreat," she supplies, "said that
one of them found it in a temple on an island in the South Pacific.
But, there aren't supposed to /be/ any temples in at area of the
world. And, they didn't have books as long ago as this one seems to be
from. Also," she flips through a few more pages, then stops. "There
are fragments of legends associated with the area. A demon, or
something, that the natives called Darkness. The kind that mother's
used to scared their kids about. A boogie man who came into the night
and snatched people, who were never seen again. /If/ Chloe was telling
the truth last weekend, then the thought is that that demon might be
the one she called Jerran. Merin seemed to know the name," she says,
glancing between the two Garou for confirmation.
Andrea nods. "I've heard the name, and people call him a demon. If he's
still alive, he certainly isn't human."
Dana puts her hand out palm up, a trifle helplessly, then says, "Lastly,
just more our instincts on things, and some things Chloe said which I
don't know can be trusted or not. That we're not sure the spirit
should be tampered with in anyway, for fear it would escape and be an
even worse threat loose. That there's some greater power than Jerran
out there, that we think she may be being influenced by. The power
affecting her grew in proportion to the magick we used against it,
overwhelming us, like it was sucking the very life out of us in
retaliation, somehow." She shivers deeply at the memory. "Burning the
book a little is what helped to put the spirit in the book asleep in
the first place, but it healed itself, somehow. And we weren't sure if
burning it entirely wouldn't just free the spirit."
Andrea nods. She takes another pull on her water and exchanges a glance
with her packmate. She then says, "The spirit in the book can be
killed. But eventually it will return, if not destroyed utterly. We've
started looking for a ritual that can kill demons utterly. Or at
least, this demon utterly, the one in the book, which might be
connected to Jerran in some way or might not. You say that there are
legends about it in the South Seas?"
Dana nods hesitantly. "The book, yes. The conclusion that the boogie man
might be Jerran is based only on the fact that they refer to it as
Darkness, a proper noun, and Chloe did when she brought up Jerran.
But, Jerran also supposedly wanted the book, and was trying to get
Chloe to get it for him."
Andrea says thoughtfully, "It could be Jerran only wants to free what is
in the book, as an ally."
Dana nods a little, then shrugs her shoulders equally as fractionally.
"Possibly. I don't really know what he /wants/ with it...just that he
does. And, he may have been the demon that was associated with it back
on the island, for many years now."
Andrea nods. "Do you know which island?"
Dana shakes her head. "No," she admits ruefully and with apology. "My
sources weren't very specific."
