Out of Character (OOC):
Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum
The Wolf
Must Hunt
BY CLAIRE REDFIELD
As seen in The Idigam Chronicle Anthology (here), for Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Edition.
In our current MtA2.0 chronicle (The Dethroned Queen) we are in the middle of a Story called Stranger Tides, in which the Mouth of the Deeps is ravaging the California coastline and our Cabal is desperately looking for solutions. They encounter a pack called Apollo Ascendant which was created using this short story as the seed. Now they are teaming up with the pack to finish the hunt they started as shaky allies. We adapted the story and facts a little for our purposes but here is the story reprinted in its original form.
In our current MtA2.0 chronicle (The Dethroned Queen) we are in the middle of a Story called Stranger Tides, in which the Mouth of the Deeps is ravaging the California coastline and our Cabal is desperately looking for solutions. They encounter a pack called Apollo Ascendant which was created using this short story as the seed. Now they are teaming up with the pack to finish the hunt they started as shaky allies. We adapted the story and facts a little for our purposes but here is the story reprinted in its original form.Brent threw the empty bottle in the sand and stumbled away from the fire.
Raucous laughter followed him. His class always threw a hell of a beach party, but now he just had to take a wicked piss. He reached the rocky outcropping and used one hand to steady himself, the other to pull down his pants. Behind him and just over a sandy hill, out of sight, the party raged on.
A strange sound like a person gargling impossibly loud came from the other side of the rock. It startled Brent so badly he let go and came away with a hand dripping warm fluid. “Goddamn it.” Shaking his wet hand, Brent moved to look.
“Hello?”
A person stood there, back turned to him. She was naked, but her skin was covered in growths, like warty bumps. Even in the moonlight he could see her sickly pallor. “Hey, you okay?” She responded with the sound again, a gargling moan.
Brent reached out to touch her with his dry hand. “Hey, you sound kinda —”
She whirled on him with a wet shriek. Brent fell away in disbelief as her one huge, yellow eye fixed on him. Tentacles dominated her face, spreading wide to reveal a quivering, toothy maw. Thick flecks of slimy drool spattered him as she pounced, tentacles wrapping about his face and stifling the scream in his throat. When his friends finally found his remains, they didn’t stop screaming until the police arrived
• • • • • • • • •
A red sun sank beyond the horizon, staining sea and sky the color of blood. Waves lapped lazily at the sand. The beach was eerily quiet and empty. Yellow police tape surrounded a large section of beach, fluttering in the breeze.
As the last rays receded from encroaching dusk, a group of swiftly-moving animals loped along the beach. Onlookers would have mistaken them for stray dogs, the kind that comb the beaches in packs, looking for carcasses washed ashore or trash left by visitors. These were most certainly not dogs — a closer look would reveal the spine-chilling sight of a wolf pack on the hunt.
The wolves spread out, searching with uncanny deliberation. They called to one another with small yips and barks. The five of them moved together with instinctive, unspoken purpose. At their head ran a lean wolf with golden-brown fur, followed by a larger gray-furred wolf, a slender one with black fur save for her white paws, a light-colored wolf, and at the rear a massive wolf nearly the size of a lion. They were no mere wolves; they were Uratha, the deadliest hunters to walk the earth.
Amari Calls-the-Sun was the closest thing the pack had to an alpha. She had Changed under the crescent moon on the eve of her fourteenth birthday, fleeing into the spirit wilds. The local Uratha found her at the break of dawn as she sang her lament to the heavens, and so she earned her name. Her wisdom, patience, and cunning often saw the pack through difficult hunts and aided them against their spirit prey. She was the second youngest behind White-Paw, yet without her guidance they felt lost.
Peter Mathis followed her. He had nearly twenty years on Amari, not that it showed. A man in his prime, covered in scars that revealed years of deadly hunts, Peter was tougher than anyone Amari knew. The Rahu never fought so fiercely as when he protected his family.
White-Paw, the youngest, looked up to Peter like an older brother. She learned from him and he protected her, but she kept his anger in check. She was as soft-mannered as an Uratha could be, but Amari never doubted her courage or ferocity. She was Cahalith, and every bit the hunters as were her packmates. Of all five, she was the one closest in touch with human life, and helped keep the others grounded.
Erik Red-Shadows stole across the beach, sticking to patches of deep shadow, barely visible against the sand. He hunted unseen along the paths others could not walk, an Irraka of tremendous skill. Next to Peter he had the most experience, and Amari treasured his perspective. Their territory encompassed a large stretch of beach, and the ability to sneak and scout the borders between flesh and spirit as well as land and sea proved invaluable.
Alex Harper was their Elodoth, a strong presence when the pack needed one.
He fully embraced the savage duality of Uratha life, at once a man of culture but also a pragmatic warrior. His was the hulking Urshul form, which he preferred for the hunt. Its size and fierce strength matched his own passionate spirit.
Brent reached out to touch her with his dry hand. “Hey, you sound kinda —”
She whirled on him with a wet shriek. Brent fell away in disbelief as her one huge, yellow eye fixed on him. Tentacles dominated her face, spreading wide to reveal a quivering, toothy maw. Thick flecks of slimy drool spattered him as she pounced, tentacles wrapping about his face and stifling the scream in his throat. When his friends finally found his remains, they didn’t stop screaming until the police arrived • • • • • • • • •
A red sun sank beyond the horizon, staining sea and sky the color of blood. Waves lapped lazily at the sand. The beach was eerily quiet and empty. Yellow police tape surrounded a large section of beach, fluttering in the breeze.
As the last rays receded from encroaching dusk, a group of swiftly-moving animals loped along the beach. Onlookers would have mistaken them for stray dogs, the kind that comb the beaches in packs, looking for carcasses washed ashore or trash left by visitors. These were most certainly not dogs — a closer look would reveal the spine-chilling sight of a wolf pack on the hunt.
The wolves spread out, searching with uncanny deliberation. They called to one another with small yips and barks. The five of them moved together with instinctive, unspoken purpose. At their head ran a lean wolf with golden-brown fur, followed by a larger gray-furred wolf, a slender one with black fur save for her white paws, a light-colored wolf, and at the rear a massive wolf nearly the size of a lion. They were no mere wolves; they were Uratha, the deadliest hunters to walk the earth.
Amari Calls-the-Sun was the closest thing the pack had to an alpha. She had Changed under the crescent moon on the eve of her fourteenth birthday, fleeing into the spirit wilds. The local Uratha found her at the break of dawn as she sang her lament to the heavens, and so she earned her name. Her wisdom, patience, and cunning often saw the pack through difficult hunts and aided them against their spirit prey. She was the second youngest behind White-Paw, yet without her guidance they felt lost.
Peter Mathis followed her. He had nearly twenty years on Amari, not that it showed. A man in his prime, covered in scars that revealed years of deadly hunts, Peter was tougher than anyone Amari knew. The Rahu never fought so fiercely as when he protected his family.
White-Paw, the youngest, looked up to Peter like an older brother. She learned from him and he protected her, but she kept his anger in check. She was as soft-mannered as an Uratha could be, but Amari never doubted her courage or ferocity. She was Cahalith, and every bit the hunters as were her packmates. Of all five, she was the one closest in touch with human life, and helped keep the others grounded.
Erik Red-Shadows stole across the beach, sticking to patches of deep shadow, barely visible against the sand. He hunted unseen along the paths others could not walk, an Irraka of tremendous skill. Next to Peter he had the most experience, and Amari treasured his perspective. Their territory encompassed a large stretch of beach, and the ability to sneak and scout the borders between flesh and spirit as well as land and sea proved invaluable.
Alex Harper was their Elodoth, a strong presence when the pack needed one.
He fully embraced the savage duality of Uratha life, at once a man of culture but also a pragmatic warrior. His was the hulking Urshul form, which he preferred for the hunt. Its size and fierce strength matched his own passionate spirit.
Amari slipped past the yellow police tape and shifted back to Hishu form. Lupine features melted away as she rose up into the form of a slender young woman, dark fur giving way to long black hair and olive skin. Her feet sank into wet sand.
She surveyed the beach and frowned. Not good. This place is wrecked.
Peter knelt down, nose inches from the sand. “Whatever that thing was, it’s been here again recently.” His Dalu features wrinkled in disgust. “Smells fucking horrific. Like wet dog and rotting seaweed.” None of the pack needed his observation — the monster’s trail was plain for anyone to see, even by moonlight. Whole sections of the beach had vanished. Huge divots like giant bite marks pockmarked the beach.
It can’t be, Amari thought. The damn thing would have to be the size of a whale.
The rest of the pack combed the beach nearby. Though waves had erased the monster’s tracks, the stench of its spoor remained. Two of their wolf-blooded packmates, Jason and Harley, had vanished down that thing’s gullet two weeks ago in a similar attack. Now the pack hunted it in turn, following an unmistakable trail.
Amari walked along the beach. A pale object wriggled on the ruined shore. She stooped to get a closer look, then blanched. It looked like a cuttlefish with clammy skin, human eyes and fingers where its tentacles should be. The police already carted off some remains. This must be new. The police had cordoned off the area with warnings of a shark attack. Bullshit. Say “shark” and people will believe any weirdness with the ocean. Sharks didn’t devastate beaches like artillery shells, or devour whole groups of party-goers. Not a single soul from that night remained to tell the story of what happened, but to Amari the story was clear. This is no damn shark.
“What the fuck are we dealing with, Amari?” Peter joined her, thick hair bristling all over his muscular body. The Rahu could barely contain his anger — Harley was his cousin, and they’d been close. He wanted to find whatever had done this and carve it into pieces.
Amari shook her head. “I don’t know, Pete. This isn’t like any spirit I’ve ever seen. They don’t just… I mean, look at that thing.” She pointed out the little cuttlefish.
She surveyed the beach and frowned. Not good. This place is wrecked.
Peter knelt down, nose inches from the sand. “Whatever that thing was, it’s been here again recently.” His Dalu features wrinkled in disgust. “Smells fucking horrific. Like wet dog and rotting seaweed.” None of the pack needed his observation — the monster’s trail was plain for anyone to see, even by moonlight. Whole sections of the beach had vanished. Huge divots like giant bite marks pockmarked the beach.
It can’t be, Amari thought. The damn thing would have to be the size of a whale.
The rest of the pack combed the beach nearby. Though waves had erased the monster’s tracks, the stench of its spoor remained. Two of their wolf-blooded packmates, Jason and Harley, had vanished down that thing’s gullet two weeks ago in a similar attack. Now the pack hunted it in turn, following an unmistakable trail.
Amari walked along the beach. A pale object wriggled on the ruined shore. She stooped to get a closer look, then blanched. It looked like a cuttlefish with clammy skin, human eyes and fingers where its tentacles should be. The police already carted off some remains. This must be new. The police had cordoned off the area with warnings of a shark attack. Bullshit. Say “shark” and people will believe any weirdness with the ocean. Sharks didn’t devastate beaches like artillery shells, or devour whole groups of party-goers. Not a single soul from that night remained to tell the story of what happened, but to Amari the story was clear. This is no damn shark.
“What the fuck are we dealing with, Amari?” Peter joined her, thick hair bristling all over his muscular body. The Rahu could barely contain his anger — Harley was his cousin, and they’d been close. He wanted to find whatever had done this and carve it into pieces.
Amari shook her head. “I don’t know, Pete. This isn’t like any spirit I’ve ever seen. They don’t just… I mean, look at that thing.” She pointed out the little cuttlefish.
Peter took one look and then stomped it into an oily stain. “Duguthim?” Amari shook her head. He swore and spittle flew from his snarling lips. “So, what? It’s just making these things from the pieces of what it eats?” Silent realization settled heavily on Peter: their packmates might have suffered similar fates.
Amari looked grim. “If it’s a spirit, it comes from the deeps, Peter. It’s not like anything I’m used to. And I don’t know why it’s up here now, but I want to find some answers. Let’s go.”
Amari looked grim. “If it’s a spirit, it comes from the deeps, Peter. It’s not like anything I’m used to. And I don’t know why it’s up here now, but I want to find some answers. Let’s go.”
A howl rose up from somewhere ahead and abruptly ended with a yelp. As one, the pack rushed toward the sound, around a bend in the beach. Near a rocky outcropping, White-Paw’s Urhan form lay motionless in the sand. A sharp pang of guilt and fear stabbed through Amari’s chest — White-Paw was as close as a younger sister. Peter felt the same, snarling as he rushed to her defense.
A hunchbacked creature stood over her. It had a vaguely lupine head, a slick, inky body, and a second, fleshy mouth nearly bisected its chest. They surrounded it, and its mouth opened and belched out a gurgling, malodorous roar. The smell was like a heap of dead fish, and even Peter nearly retched. White-Paw shuddered.
A hunchbacked creature stood over her. It had a vaguely lupine head, a slick, inky body, and a second, fleshy mouth nearly bisected its chest. They surrounded it, and its mouth opened and belched out a gurgling, malodorous roar. The smell was like a heap of dead fish, and even Peter nearly retched. White-Paw shuddered.
Seeing that she was still alive drove the pack to swift action.
Peter struck first, seizing it in growing Gauru claws. It uttered a liquid shriek, and he fell back. He was so shocked that he reflexively returned to Hishu form, staggering away from the creature. “Eyes! It has Jason’s eyes!”
Amari shifted to Dalu form, her night vision sharpening. She saw the creature’s eyes more clearly: human, pained, sunken deep behind a hairless snout. The others cried out in alarm as they recognized the eyes of their former packmate. She could have sworn its wet cry sounded like a plea for help. A sick feeling churned her gut.
There was only one way to help this creature now — whatever of Jason was still in there.
Alex lunged, biting deep into the Jason-thing’s leg and shaking his huge head.
It stumbled, fell onto its webbed hands. Erik dashed in and brought his knife down on its back. Peter struck the killing blow, leaping on the fallen creature in Gauru form. He clamped his jaws on its neck and tore its head free in a spray of black blood. Peter fell ripping and snarling upon its spasming body. Oily ichor spattered onto the sand. His packmates all felt the growing fury bristling along their backs as Kuruth threatened.
Amari shouted at him, but he barely heard her. “Peter! Peter! It’s dead, let it go!”
The Rahu stood, gore dripping from his claws. He whirled on his packmates with wild-eyed rage. For a moment, understanding crept into his gaze. Peter couldn’t bear the thought of threatening his pack, his family, with Kuruth. With a savage howl he turned and charged into the waves. Peter wanted to get away before it was too late.
“No, come back! Peter, damn it!” Amari ran into knee-deep water after him but he was too fast, giant muscles carrying him away with broad strokes. “Peter!”
Peter turned to her. Amari briefly hoped he’d come to his senses. As his Gauru bulk began to shrink, he called out to her. She never heard it. The waves swelled, and a yawning darkness opened around him. A tremulous bellow drowned out the screams of his packmates as something massive rose from the water, easily the size of a tugboat. White foam cascaded from its round, quivering sides. Peter howled as a mouth large enough to swallow several Gauru whole slammed shut around him. The leviathan dove back into thrashing waves, and its long body took several moments to vanish.
Then it was gone, and so was Peter.
• • • • • • • • •
“You ready?” Amari ignited the zippo lighter with a flick. Her packmates nodded, their faces lined with grief. Down to four now, they’d lost their best fighter to something they didn’t understand. A monster, but unlike any sea creature or spirit Amari had ever encountered. They needed answers. The uncertainty only deepened their anguish.
The pack had scraped together everything they could to buy an old fishing trawler. The search took days because Amari needed one old and well-used enough to cast a spirit reflection. Now they sat in the Hisil upon a small boat that seemed pitifully fragile, not far from where Peter had been swallowed alive. Overcast skies smothered cold gray waves in depressing gloom. The spirit world was often quieter than the physical realm, but Amari felt a tension in the air despite the silence.
The usual spirits of the sea were gone — no greedy gull-spirits, no serpentine water-spirits. Even the weather-spirits, often clashing and cavorting in the skies, seemed to avoid this place.
What could do this? This is madness. She felt as though they sat in the calmness heralding an oncoming storm.
Peter struck first, seizing it in growing Gauru claws. It uttered a liquid shriek, and he fell back. He was so shocked that he reflexively returned to Hishu form, staggering away from the creature. “Eyes! It has Jason’s eyes!”
Amari shifted to Dalu form, her night vision sharpening. She saw the creature’s eyes more clearly: human, pained, sunken deep behind a hairless snout. The others cried out in alarm as they recognized the eyes of their former packmate. She could have sworn its wet cry sounded like a plea for help. A sick feeling churned her gut.
There was only one way to help this creature now — whatever of Jason was still in there.
Alex lunged, biting deep into the Jason-thing’s leg and shaking his huge head.
It stumbled, fell onto its webbed hands. Erik dashed in and brought his knife down on its back. Peter struck the killing blow, leaping on the fallen creature in Gauru form. He clamped his jaws on its neck and tore its head free in a spray of black blood. Peter fell ripping and snarling upon its spasming body. Oily ichor spattered onto the sand. His packmates all felt the growing fury bristling along their backs as Kuruth threatened.
Amari shouted at him, but he barely heard her. “Peter! Peter! It’s dead, let it go!”
The Rahu stood, gore dripping from his claws. He whirled on his packmates with wild-eyed rage. For a moment, understanding crept into his gaze. Peter couldn’t bear the thought of threatening his pack, his family, with Kuruth. With a savage howl he turned and charged into the waves. Peter wanted to get away before it was too late.
“No, come back! Peter, damn it!” Amari ran into knee-deep water after him but he was too fast, giant muscles carrying him away with broad strokes. “Peter!”
Peter turned to her. Amari briefly hoped he’d come to his senses. As his Gauru bulk began to shrink, he called out to her. She never heard it. The waves swelled, and a yawning darkness opened around him. A tremulous bellow drowned out the screams of his packmates as something massive rose from the water, easily the size of a tugboat. White foam cascaded from its round, quivering sides. Peter howled as a mouth large enough to swallow several Gauru whole slammed shut around him. The leviathan dove back into thrashing waves, and its long body took several moments to vanish. Then it was gone, and so was Peter.
• • • • • • • • •
“You ready?” Amari ignited the zippo lighter with a flick. Her packmates nodded, their faces lined with grief. Down to four now, they’d lost their best fighter to something they didn’t understand. A monster, but unlike any sea creature or spirit Amari had ever encountered. They needed answers. The uncertainty only deepened their anguish.
The pack had scraped together everything they could to buy an old fishing trawler. The search took days because Amari needed one old and well-used enough to cast a spirit reflection. Now they sat in the Hisil upon a small boat that seemed pitifully fragile, not far from where Peter had been swallowed alive. Overcast skies smothered cold gray waves in depressing gloom. The spirit world was often quieter than the physical realm, but Amari felt a tension in the air despite the silence.
The usual spirits of the sea were gone — no greedy gull-spirits, no serpentine water-spirits. Even the weather-spirits, often clashing and cavorting in the skies, seemed to avoid this place.
What could do this? This is madness. She felt as though they sat in the calmness heralding an oncoming storm.
Amari nodded at her packmates and then tossed the lighter. They’d filled the physical boat and its spirit manifestation with fuel and homemade explosives Alex had crafted. The lighter landed and immediately filled the air with the smell of burning gasoline. They didn’t have long to get to a safe distance, so Erik and White-Paw, both in Dalu form, started rowing. Amari took Urhan form and began to sing a low song of ancient spirits in the lightless deeps. She offered them the sacrifice of Man’s tool for oceanic hunting. “Let this vessel feed your endlessly hungry belly! We offer it as chiminage. Rise and devour it, as the sea has claimed so many!”
A loud explosion, and the boat’s reflection cracked apart. Amari’s eyes clouded over as she stared through the barrier between worlds, and watched both halves of the trawler plunge into the waves, leaving only twisting tongues of smoke in their wake.
Nothing happened for many minutes. The pack remained silent, while Amari leaned out far enough to look down into the water. Suddenly her hackles rose and she stiffened. “Something comes.”
A stone’s throw from their rowboat, the water hissed and bubbled. It surged as something large surfaced, but only part of it: two glistening bumps, each dominated by a round yellow eye. Amari caught the hint of tentacles writhing in the water below, reaching far enough to pass under their boat.
The spirit spoke with a voice like the dull roar of silence. “I am Abyss-of-Ink.
A loud explosion, and the boat’s reflection cracked apart. Amari’s eyes clouded over as she stared through the barrier between worlds, and watched both halves of the trawler plunge into the waves, leaving only twisting tongues of smoke in their wake.
Nothing happened for many minutes. The pack remained silent, while Amari leaned out far enough to look down into the water. Suddenly her hackles rose and she stiffened. “Something comes.”
A stone’s throw from their rowboat, the water hissed and bubbled. It surged as something large surfaced, but only part of it: two glistening bumps, each dominated by a round yellow eye. Amari caught the hint of tentacles writhing in the water below, reaching far enough to pass under their boat.
The spirit spoke with a voice like the dull roar of silence. “I am Abyss-of-Ink.
I accept your offering.” A loud crunch rolled through the water below. “Why do you risk your life so, little Uratha? This is not your territory. Here you are… prey.”
Several tentacles arced up from the water, dripping slime. Amari saw that they were lined with hooks, but she didn’t flinch. “I am Amari Calls-the-Sun, and I seek answers.”
The spirit laughed, a wet, barking sound. “What answers would you ask of me? I hunt the abyss. I care nothing for your world, wolf.”
“Maybe so, but the thing we hunt invades your realm, great spirit. It births abominations. It devours land and sea like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Do you not know of this?”
Abyss-of-Ink let out a gargling trumpet. Its tentacles slapped down into the water again. “Yes, wolfling, I know it. This creature you hunt is the Tidal Maw. It swallows all in its wake. My prey is long since vanished into its monstrous gullet.
"It is Gagh-Azur.”
“What manner of spirit is it? Where did it come from?”
“Spirit? It is no spirit! This thing defies flesh and Essence. Its appetite is endless.
It sought even to swallow me up, wolfling! Me, the greatest of the deep-dwellers in this place!”
Several tentacles arced up from the water, dripping slime. Amari saw that they were lined with hooks, but she didn’t flinch. “I am Amari Calls-the-Sun, and I seek answers.”
The spirit laughed, a wet, barking sound. “What answers would you ask of me? I hunt the abyss. I care nothing for your world, wolf.”
“Maybe so, but the thing we hunt invades your realm, great spirit. It births abominations. It devours land and sea like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Do you not know of this?”
Abyss-of-Ink let out a gargling trumpet. Its tentacles slapped down into the water again. “Yes, wolfling, I know it. This creature you hunt is the Tidal Maw. It swallows all in its wake. My prey is long since vanished into its monstrous gullet.
"It is Gagh-Azur.”
“What manner of spirit is it? Where did it come from?”
“Spirit? It is no spirit! This thing defies flesh and Essence. Its appetite is endless.
It sought even to swallow me up, wolfling! Me, the greatest of the deep-dwellers in this place!”
“But you escaped? How?”
“I fled, little Uratha, and so should you! Your prey is something that should not be. It comes from the time before, when the great wolf-god lived. Gagh-Azur will eat you, too! I warn you: not everything it devours dies within its belly. “
With that cryptic warning the ancient spirit sank below the waves. Amari watched its tentacles disappear into the inky black.
With that cryptic warning the ancient spirit sank below the waves. Amari watched its tentacles disappear into the inky black.
• • • • • • • • •
Amari stood outside Occult Addiction, a little oddities shop downtown. The store had all the trappings of typical New Age nonsense: trinkets, “spooky” statues, shelves lined with dusty old tomes and the latest UFO abduction autobiographies, and artifacts with no mystical significance whatsoever. Most of it was junk, but Amari knew that quite a few of the books contained good information. Many of the authors only had a small sliver of the truth, but a dedicated researcher could find some references to actual spirits and other entities. She hoped to put together some puzzle pieces.
The store owner, Jessica, greeted her. “Hey, ‘Mari. Looking for anything specific today?” Jessica’s faux-Gothy appearance was just as much a façade as her store’s. She was also part of their pack, and the only human who knew their secrets.
“I don’t know. You ever hear of something called the Tidal Maw or the Mouth of the Depths?”
Jessica shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Doesn’t really surprise me, though.
There are so many superstitions and myths about the ocean that you could spend your whole life studying it and not come close to learning it all.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. I’m going to take a look around anyway, okay?”
“Sure thing. Let me know if you need any help.”
Several hours later, Amari pushed away the books she’d been reading and pinched the bridge of her nose. A hundred different images and twice as many names filled her mind. Living whirlpools. Whale-like beasts that swallow everything in their path. There must be a thousand of them. Some shared enough traits between descriptions that they could describe the same thing: an ugly, slimy thing with a maw that seemed big enough to swallow the whole ocean. Most seemed to describe something prehistoric, and many dated back to the seventies and eighties, right at the height of the New Age movement.
No references to a “Gagh-Azur,” but that’s not surprising. It was a First Tongue name, although words of that primordial language occasionally cropped up in human texts. Still, a few of the common references matched what she knew: the thing appeared during the full moon, when the tides were at their highest. Always at night.
Strange creatures never before seen from the depths, people with fish-like faces straight out of an old horror story, all said to appear during those times. Even seemingly unrelated stories shared those details. That thing with Jason’s eyes, and the strange looking cuttlefish. It’s no coincidence. Not duguthim, but something different.
Amari took a couple of books, a journal and some newspaper clippings up to the counter and Jessica bagged them for her. “Find what you needed, ‘Mari?”
“Maybe. I’m just not sure that it’s something I want to find.”
Jessica’s eyes widened and she whistled. “That bad, huh?”
“Yeah. Just do me a favor.”
The store owner, Jessica, greeted her. “Hey, ‘Mari. Looking for anything specific today?” Jessica’s faux-Gothy appearance was just as much a façade as her store’s. She was also part of their pack, and the only human who knew their secrets.
“I don’t know. You ever hear of something called the Tidal Maw or the Mouth of the Depths?”
Jessica shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Doesn’t really surprise me, though.
There are so many superstitions and myths about the ocean that you could spend your whole life studying it and not come close to learning it all.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. I’m going to take a look around anyway, okay?”
“Sure thing. Let me know if you need any help.”
Several hours later, Amari pushed away the books she’d been reading and pinched the bridge of her nose. A hundred different images and twice as many names filled her mind. Living whirlpools. Whale-like beasts that swallow everything in their path. There must be a thousand of them. Some shared enough traits between descriptions that they could describe the same thing: an ugly, slimy thing with a maw that seemed big enough to swallow the whole ocean. Most seemed to describe something prehistoric, and many dated back to the seventies and eighties, right at the height of the New Age movement.
No references to a “Gagh-Azur,” but that’s not surprising. It was a First Tongue name, although words of that primordial language occasionally cropped up in human texts. Still, a few of the common references matched what she knew: the thing appeared during the full moon, when the tides were at their highest. Always at night.
Strange creatures never before seen from the depths, people with fish-like faces straight out of an old horror story, all said to appear during those times. Even seemingly unrelated stories shared those details. That thing with Jason’s eyes, and the strange looking cuttlefish. It’s no coincidence. Not duguthim, but something different.
Amari took a couple of books, a journal and some newspaper clippings up to the counter and Jessica bagged them for her. “Find what you needed, ‘Mari?”
“Maybe. I’m just not sure that it’s something I want to find.” Jessica’s eyes widened and she whistled. “That bad, huh?”
“Yeah. Just do me a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Stay out of the water for a while, okay?”
• • • • • • • • •
The pack met up the following night at the boat rental place that Alex owned.
After hours the lot was empty and quiet. The gentle slapping of nearby waves filled the night air. The full moon had given way to its waning crescent. They sat around a fire, but it wasn’t an occasion for mirth.
Near their fire pit sat a huge, rusted anchor, dating back to World War II. It served as their locus, a symbol of crossing realms between land and sea. The ship to which it belonged had sunk in 1941, killing everyone aboard, and the anchor spent decades buried in silt until modern treasure hunters salvaged the wreck.
Alex was first to speak. The normally level-headed Elodoth was uncharacteristically bitter. “Okay, Amari. What did you find out?”
Red-Shadows, paced impatiently. “More importantly, how do we find it and kill it? This fucker’s taken out three of us now. I wanna make a fucking castle out of its bones.
Amari sighed. “I don’t have good news.”
“Gee, that’s a switch,” snapped Erik.
“Let’s just hear her out,” said White-Paw, who sat on the sand, hugging her knees. The Cahalith hadn’t been her jovial self since Peter died. Her long black hair couldn’t hide the sorrow in her eyes.
“I’ve been looking through news reports,” Amari said. “It’s tougher than you might think. Every shark attack draws a lot of press, but most of them are sensationalized garbage. There are a few with similar details, though. Most from the ‘70s and ‘80s.” She handed some newspaper clippings around the group. Then she held up a leather-bound journal. Its pages were yellowed and warped from water damage. “And this. This is the interesting one. A captain who claims his fishing boat was sunk by a whale. No one believed him at the time; he went to jail for insurance fraud and the disappearances of his crew. He claims one of them came to him in a dream, only it had the crewman’s face on a squid’s body. They found him dead in his cell of drowning, but no one could explain why. It went on record as a suicide.”
Her packmates perused the articles: dozens of shark attacks reports, mostly dealing with multiple fatalities and disappearances. In many cases, local authorities caught a large shark in the area, but none ever held human remains. Not that zealous shark-hunters ever cared. Some scientific studies detailed unexplained dieoffs in large sea life.
“That’s another commonality,” Amari continued. “Whenever these so-called ‘shark attacks’ occur, they’re always accompanied by a big hit in aquatic populations.
Doesn’t exactly make sense that sharks attack people when they’re all vanishing, does it? This thing is eating anything it can catch.”
“Yeah, that’s great, Amari, but how do we find it?” said Alex.
“Look at the locations. All up and down the coast, east and west. This thing travels a lot. It approaches the shore during high tides on the full moon. But I think it spends the rest of its time down deep. It’s why we’ve never seen it. It’s huge and old, and when it feeds, it’s probably sated for months at a time. After it’s exhausted its prey in an area, it moves on.”
Alex nodded impatiently. “Okay. Great. But what is it?”
Amari shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know, Al. It’s not a spirit like we understand it. Even spirits fear it. And those creatures it creates, I suspect it creates them from… from the things it eats.”
White-Paw looked up sharply. “You mean… Peter?”
“I don’t know for sure. But between what we killed on the beach, the other stuff we found, and what the stories say, it seems like this monster digests its prey. Then it creates something new from the parts. Or it somehow mutates them, merges them, from the animals around it. Either way, these freaks of nature aren’t duguthim or magath. Which means this thing’s using some magic I’ve never seen before. That spirit hinted at it, too.”
Erik swore and crouched down beside White-Paw. She looked stricken as she spoke. “Amari, if Peter… I mean, if he’s out there, we can’t leave him like that.”
Amari’s eyes glinted in the firelight. “I know. And we can’t let this bastard get away with it. I want revenge just as much as you guys.”
Erik picked up a stick and poked at the fire. “Amari, can we kill it? You said it’s been around since at least the seventies. That spirit said it lived before that, back in the old world. How can that be?”
The Ithaeur stared into the fire, as though she sought answers amid the swirling flames. “I don’t know. I mean, if the stories are true, wouldn’t Urfarah have killed it? And if he couldn’t, how are we supposed to?”
Alex spat angrily into the fire. “Bombs, depth charges. Ram it with a fucking nuclear sub. I don’t care! We’ll find a way.”
“I don’t have all the answers,” said Amari, “but I know someone who might help us.”
As one, most of the pack shifted to Urhan form, clothes and gear vanishing into the fur that spread over their wolf bodies. Alex shifted instead into Urshul, his favored form for. They gathered around Amari. The young Ithaeur felt the weight of responsibility on her shoulders, especially now. Where they were going, she was the pack’s best chance for survival.
Amari willed herself past the Gauntlet, with a sensation like sticking her snout through a warm, wet curtain. The rest of her body followed, and she felt a rush as the unseen barrier between worlds closed behind her pack.
The shadows deepened around them. Clouds blotted out the moon. The beach resembled the one they had left behind, and the anchor stood upright in the sand.
The nearby shacks were gone, giving way to a vast expanse of beach that extended well beyond the borders of its material reflection. The myriad buildings encroaching on the beach cast no shadow in the spirit world — it was the beach itself that held significance. Dunes became hills of shifting sands, sibilant with the whisper of tumbling grains.
The pack ran, paws sinking deep into cold sand that immediately swallowed their trails. It didn’t matter; they had their noses to guide them, and Amari’s knowledge of the area. Their wolf eyes saw clearly even in the dim light. They followed her closely, climbing the steadily rising hills of sand. She sought one in particular, a reflection of the one most used by beachgoers. During the day, spirits of warmth, joy, and desire dominated the area, but at night they gave way to spirits of the sand and sea. Amari found the hill she sought and the pack climbed, struggling against crumbling waves. Above their heads circled Winged Dawn, their totem, a sun-spirit.
Atop that hill, the whole beach stretched away beneath them like a desert.
The ocean horizon melted into the night sky, making it seem like they stood upon a plateau overlooking a blue abyss. There the crescent moon shone its brightest, breaking through the clouds. Silvery rays illuminated the hill. Amari basked in their pale glow. She threw her head back and howled a call of beckoning. Motes of silvery-white light danced amid the moon’s rays above their heads. Amari howled again and the motes coalesced into a shimmering figure, its shape barely visible amid the luminous haze.
“Stay out of the water for a while, okay?”
• • • • • • • • •
The pack met up the following night at the boat rental place that Alex owned.
After hours the lot was empty and quiet. The gentle slapping of nearby waves filled the night air. The full moon had given way to its waning crescent. They sat around a fire, but it wasn’t an occasion for mirth.
Near their fire pit sat a huge, rusted anchor, dating back to World War II. It served as their locus, a symbol of crossing realms between land and sea. The ship to which it belonged had sunk in 1941, killing everyone aboard, and the anchor spent decades buried in silt until modern treasure hunters salvaged the wreck.
Alex was first to speak. The normally level-headed Elodoth was uncharacteristically bitter. “Okay, Amari. What did you find out?”
Red-Shadows, paced impatiently. “More importantly, how do we find it and kill it? This fucker’s taken out three of us now. I wanna make a fucking castle out of its bones.
Amari sighed. “I don’t have good news.”
“Gee, that’s a switch,” snapped Erik.
“Let’s just hear her out,” said White-Paw, who sat on the sand, hugging her knees. The Cahalith hadn’t been her jovial self since Peter died. Her long black hair couldn’t hide the sorrow in her eyes.
“I’ve been looking through news reports,” Amari said. “It’s tougher than you might think. Every shark attack draws a lot of press, but most of them are sensationalized garbage. There are a few with similar details, though. Most from the ‘70s and ‘80s.” She handed some newspaper clippings around the group. Then she held up a leather-bound journal. Its pages were yellowed and warped from water damage. “And this. This is the interesting one. A captain who claims his fishing boat was sunk by a whale. No one believed him at the time; he went to jail for insurance fraud and the disappearances of his crew. He claims one of them came to him in a dream, only it had the crewman’s face on a squid’s body. They found him dead in his cell of drowning, but no one could explain why. It went on record as a suicide.”
Her packmates perused the articles: dozens of shark attacks reports, mostly dealing with multiple fatalities and disappearances. In many cases, local authorities caught a large shark in the area, but none ever held human remains. Not that zealous shark-hunters ever cared. Some scientific studies detailed unexplained dieoffs in large sea life.
“That’s another commonality,” Amari continued. “Whenever these so-called ‘shark attacks’ occur, they’re always accompanied by a big hit in aquatic populations.
Doesn’t exactly make sense that sharks attack people when they’re all vanishing, does it? This thing is eating anything it can catch.”
“Yeah, that’s great, Amari, but how do we find it?” said Alex.
“Look at the locations. All up and down the coast, east and west. This thing travels a lot. It approaches the shore during high tides on the full moon. But I think it spends the rest of its time down deep. It’s why we’ve never seen it. It’s huge and old, and when it feeds, it’s probably sated for months at a time. After it’s exhausted its prey in an area, it moves on.”
Alex nodded impatiently. “Okay. Great. But what is it?”
Amari shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know, Al. It’s not a spirit like we understand it. Even spirits fear it. And those creatures it creates, I suspect it creates them from… from the things it eats.”
White-Paw looked up sharply. “You mean… Peter?”
“I don’t know for sure. But between what we killed on the beach, the other stuff we found, and what the stories say, it seems like this monster digests its prey. Then it creates something new from the parts. Or it somehow mutates them, merges them, from the animals around it. Either way, these freaks of nature aren’t duguthim or magath. Which means this thing’s using some magic I’ve never seen before. That spirit hinted at it, too.”
Erik swore and crouched down beside White-Paw. She looked stricken as she spoke. “Amari, if Peter… I mean, if he’s out there, we can’t leave him like that.”
Amari’s eyes glinted in the firelight. “I know. And we can’t let this bastard get away with it. I want revenge just as much as you guys.”
Erik picked up a stick and poked at the fire. “Amari, can we kill it? You said it’s been around since at least the seventies. That spirit said it lived before that, back in the old world. How can that be?”
The Ithaeur stared into the fire, as though she sought answers amid the swirling flames. “I don’t know. I mean, if the stories are true, wouldn’t Urfarah have killed it? And if he couldn’t, how are we supposed to?”
Alex spat angrily into the fire. “Bombs, depth charges. Ram it with a fucking nuclear sub. I don’t care! We’ll find a way.”
“I don’t have all the answers,” said Amari, “but I know someone who might help us.”
As one, most of the pack shifted to Urhan form, clothes and gear vanishing into the fur that spread over their wolf bodies. Alex shifted instead into Urshul, his favored form for. They gathered around Amari. The young Ithaeur felt the weight of responsibility on her shoulders, especially now. Where they were going, she was the pack’s best chance for survival.
Amari willed herself past the Gauntlet, with a sensation like sticking her snout through a warm, wet curtain. The rest of her body followed, and she felt a rush as the unseen barrier between worlds closed behind her pack.
The shadows deepened around them. Clouds blotted out the moon. The beach resembled the one they had left behind, and the anchor stood upright in the sand.
The nearby shacks were gone, giving way to a vast expanse of beach that extended well beyond the borders of its material reflection. The myriad buildings encroaching on the beach cast no shadow in the spirit world — it was the beach itself that held significance. Dunes became hills of shifting sands, sibilant with the whisper of tumbling grains.
The pack ran, paws sinking deep into cold sand that immediately swallowed their trails. It didn’t matter; they had their noses to guide them, and Amari’s knowledge of the area. Their wolf eyes saw clearly even in the dim light. They followed her closely, climbing the steadily rising hills of sand. She sought one in particular, a reflection of the one most used by beachgoers. During the day, spirits of warmth, joy, and desire dominated the area, but at night they gave way to spirits of the sand and sea. Amari found the hill she sought and the pack climbed, struggling against crumbling waves. Above their heads circled Winged Dawn, their totem, a sun-spirit.
Atop that hill, the whole beach stretched away beneath them like a desert.
The ocean horizon melted into the night sky, making it seem like they stood upon a plateau overlooking a blue abyss. There the crescent moon shone its brightest, breaking through the clouds. Silvery rays illuminated the hill. Amari basked in their pale glow. She threw her head back and howled a call of beckoning. Motes of silvery-white light danced amid the moon’s rays above their heads. Amari howled again and the motes coalesced into a shimmering figure, its shape barely visible amid the luminous haze.
“I come to answer your call,” said the spirit, “but why do you now seek the Ithalunim, Amari Calls-the-Sun?”
Amari bowed her wolf head low in a gesture of respect. “Night’s-Eye-Veil, I have need of your guidance.”
“What would you ask of me?”
“A new foe has hurt us. It’s like nothing we’ve seen before. Its name is Gagh-Azur. All I’ve learned has told me it’s ancient, but only reappeared in the past few decades. It consumes flesh and Essence alike. Do you know of this creature?”
The spirit was silent for a long time. Finally it hissed an answer. “Idigam.” The word lingered in the air, and Amari sensed the spirit’s disgust.
“What is idigam? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Long ago banished, but its appetite never dwindled.”
“Banished to where? How did it come back? Did Urfarah hunt this thing?”
“Endless hunger for life’s secrets.”
“Secrets? What secrets? How do we kill it?”
The spirit floated higher, its voice fading. “Gagh-Azur consumes, kills, creates, and consumes again. Its cycle is that of the seas.”
Amari shifted to Hishu form reflexively, reaching up for the spirit. “Please, wait! I need more answers. I still don’t know how to kill it, or what it is!”
“Its spawn die but do not live. Bones into nothingness. Gagh-Azur seeks permanence, but finds only fleeting mockery.”
“Permanence? It’s trying to create life?”
The spirit said no more and vanished into the sky.
Amari turned to her packmates. “That was surprisingly helpful for a crescent moon spirit.”
“Great,” sighed Alex. “We still don’t know how to kill it, or really what it is.”
“No,” Amari replied, “but we have a name: idigam. And now we know what it wants. It’s trying to create life. That makes sense. It swallows its prey, and somehow digests them, mixes them together, and… vomits out those things. So it wants to create something lasting. Permanence. Bones.” Her gaze went distant in deep thought as she slid down the hill.
“So this thing is tied to the seas somehow. It wants to create something permanent but can’t. Bones of the sea. Coral reefs? They’re permanent, they’re made of coral skeletons. Maybe it’s related somehow?”
Alex laughed sardonically. “What, we going to scuba dive and ask some coral- spirits to help us out?”
Amari’s eyes lit up. “That’s not real far from my idea, actually. But we have some more work to do. Even if it’s not a spirit, this idigam follows a pattern. Seems like it might be driven to keep this cycle — it did it back in Father Wolf’s time, and after its imprisonment picked right up where it left off. I think it can’t help but to try. Just like we can’t help but to hunt it. And that’s our chance.”
• • • • • • • • •
“You sure this is the right place?” Erik shifted uncomfortably on his feet, twitching as he fought the urge to change forms. He was Meninna, like Amari; he felt distinctly uneasy outside of his own territory, and more so in human form with its weak senses. They hadn’t encountered any signs of another pack, but ten miles south of their own territory, all bets were off.
Amari pointed ahead. “Yeah, I’m sure. Look.” Ahead on the beach stood a hastily-planted sign that read Beach closed due to shark attack until further notice.
Two swimmers had gone missing overnight, and, more telling, several schools of fish had washed up dead on the beach a few nights before. Amari was sure she was on the right track, now that she knew what to look for. Given time, she was sure the local marine biologists would report an unexplained dip in aquatic populations.
“Alright,” she called, gathering everyone around her. “Listen. There’s a chance we might find him here. Whatever he’s become, he’s not Peter anymore. There’s nothing we can do to help him but put him out of his misery.” She looked intently at White-Paw. “I want everyone to stay out of Gauru for this. We’re all too strung out over it, and I don’t want what happened before to happen again. Got it?”
Her packmates nodded, and they all took on Urhan form, save for Alex in Urshul. They spread out to comb the beach, keeping their noses low. The going was difficult, as mingling scents of fish and seaweed and salty waves were hard to separate. In the fading sunlight, Amari caught a glimpse of what looked to be a sandbar not far off-shore, and fervently hoped that Gagh-Azur couldn’t or wouldn’t come on land.
White-Paw let out a short, high-pitched yelp of alarm. She’d found something.
As one, the pack loped up the beach to join her near a dingy old bait shop. The smell was atrocious, like wet dog wrapped in rotten fish-meat and briny seaweed. Amari growled. If it was Peter, his scent no longer remotely resembled a werewolf’s. The pack kept together now, circling the shop and finding indiscriminate tracks in the sand. A scent-trail led behind it, toward the old wharf and its rotting piers.
Several dark shapes littered the sand in their path. The pack surrounded the nearest; it was a crab, its shell split by the sun. More lay near it, perhaps two dozen of them. Amari whined. Something must have driven them from the water to certain death in hot sand. She hated the thought of being right.
Erik growled menacingly. He drew back as something approached from the pier, cleaving through the sand like a blade — or a shark’s fin. Sand and dirt flew as a shape exploded from the earth. Amari caught only glimpses of it before it seized
Alex, cracking bone and slicing away flesh. It hurled Alex from its jaws and he landed in a red-stained puff of sand.
The creature stood eight or nine feet high, on two digitigrade legs, with a long, barbed tail for balance. Rough shagreen covered its body, and its arms terminated in razor-sharp fins. Its head resembled a wolf’s, but with rows of shark’s teeth lining fleshy lips. And then there were the all-too-human eyes. They recognized those eyes.
Amari bowed her wolf head low in a gesture of respect. “Night’s-Eye-Veil, I have need of your guidance.”
“What would you ask of me?”
“A new foe has hurt us. It’s like nothing we’ve seen before. Its name is Gagh-Azur. All I’ve learned has told me it’s ancient, but only reappeared in the past few decades. It consumes flesh and Essence alike. Do you know of this creature?”
The spirit was silent for a long time. Finally it hissed an answer. “Idigam.” The word lingered in the air, and Amari sensed the spirit’s disgust.
“What is idigam? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Long ago banished, but its appetite never dwindled.”
“Banished to where? How did it come back? Did Urfarah hunt this thing?”
“Endless hunger for life’s secrets.”
“Secrets? What secrets? How do we kill it?”
The spirit floated higher, its voice fading. “Gagh-Azur consumes, kills, creates, and consumes again. Its cycle is that of the seas.”
Amari shifted to Hishu form reflexively, reaching up for the spirit. “Please, wait! I need more answers. I still don’t know how to kill it, or what it is!”
“Its spawn die but do not live. Bones into nothingness. Gagh-Azur seeks permanence, but finds only fleeting mockery.”
“Permanence? It’s trying to create life?”
The spirit said no more and vanished into the sky.
Amari turned to her packmates. “That was surprisingly helpful for a crescent moon spirit.”
“Great,” sighed Alex. “We still don’t know how to kill it, or really what it is.”
“No,” Amari replied, “but we have a name: idigam. And now we know what it wants. It’s trying to create life. That makes sense. It swallows its prey, and somehow digests them, mixes them together, and… vomits out those things. So it wants to create something lasting. Permanence. Bones.” Her gaze went distant in deep thought as she slid down the hill.
“So this thing is tied to the seas somehow. It wants to create something permanent but can’t. Bones of the sea. Coral reefs? They’re permanent, they’re made of coral skeletons. Maybe it’s related somehow?”
Alex laughed sardonically. “What, we going to scuba dive and ask some coral- spirits to help us out?”
Amari’s eyes lit up. “That’s not real far from my idea, actually. But we have some more work to do. Even if it’s not a spirit, this idigam follows a pattern. Seems like it might be driven to keep this cycle — it did it back in Father Wolf’s time, and after its imprisonment picked right up where it left off. I think it can’t help but to try. Just like we can’t help but to hunt it. And that’s our chance.”
• • • • • • • • •
“You sure this is the right place?” Erik shifted uncomfortably on his feet, twitching as he fought the urge to change forms. He was Meninna, like Amari; he felt distinctly uneasy outside of his own territory, and more so in human form with its weak senses. They hadn’t encountered any signs of another pack, but ten miles south of their own territory, all bets were off. Amari pointed ahead. “Yeah, I’m sure. Look.” Ahead on the beach stood a hastily-planted sign that read Beach closed due to shark attack until further notice.
Two swimmers had gone missing overnight, and, more telling, several schools of fish had washed up dead on the beach a few nights before. Amari was sure she was on the right track, now that she knew what to look for. Given time, she was sure the local marine biologists would report an unexplained dip in aquatic populations.
“Alright,” she called, gathering everyone around her. “Listen. There’s a chance we might find him here. Whatever he’s become, he’s not Peter anymore. There’s nothing we can do to help him but put him out of his misery.” She looked intently at White-Paw. “I want everyone to stay out of Gauru for this. We’re all too strung out over it, and I don’t want what happened before to happen again. Got it?”
Her packmates nodded, and they all took on Urhan form, save for Alex in Urshul. They spread out to comb the beach, keeping their noses low. The going was difficult, as mingling scents of fish and seaweed and salty waves were hard to separate. In the fading sunlight, Amari caught a glimpse of what looked to be a sandbar not far off-shore, and fervently hoped that Gagh-Azur couldn’t or wouldn’t come on land.
White-Paw let out a short, high-pitched yelp of alarm. She’d found something.
As one, the pack loped up the beach to join her near a dingy old bait shop. The smell was atrocious, like wet dog wrapped in rotten fish-meat and briny seaweed. Amari growled. If it was Peter, his scent no longer remotely resembled a werewolf’s. The pack kept together now, circling the shop and finding indiscriminate tracks in the sand. A scent-trail led behind it, toward the old wharf and its rotting piers.
Several dark shapes littered the sand in their path. The pack surrounded the nearest; it was a crab, its shell split by the sun. More lay near it, perhaps two dozen of them. Amari whined. Something must have driven them from the water to certain death in hot sand. She hated the thought of being right.
Erik growled menacingly. He drew back as something approached from the pier, cleaving through the sand like a blade — or a shark’s fin. Sand and dirt flew as a shape exploded from the earth. Amari caught only glimpses of it before it seized
Alex, cracking bone and slicing away flesh. It hurled Alex from its jaws and he landed in a red-stained puff of sand.
The creature stood eight or nine feet high, on two digitigrade legs, with a long, barbed tail for balance. Rough shagreen covered its body, and its arms terminated in razor-sharp fins. Its head resembled a wolf’s, but with rows of shark’s teeth lining fleshy lips. And then there were the all-too-human eyes. They recognized those eyes.
Peter.
The wolf-shark-thing roared and leaped upon Alex. Before it had a chance to deliver the killing blow, White-Paw struck it in Gauru form. Amari cried out angrily as both monsters tumbled, clawing and biting one another.
Alex willed Essence into his ruined leg. Splintered bone and frayed muscle realigned with a wet pop. He scrambled to his feet, limp vanishing as he sprang after White-Paw. Erik circled around to stand between them and the water’s edge.
White-Paw came away from the grapple torn and crippled. The beast that had once been Peter still possessed his strength and rage. Alex leaped through the air and slammed bodily into Peter, knocking it away. His skin tore on the monster’s shagreen, strewing big tufts of bloody fur across the beach.
A bird of fiery golden feathers dove upon Peter, searing his crazed eyes with sudden brilliance — the totem that once guided him. As Peter staggered, swiping blindly at the air, White-Paw leaped again. Her wounds closed in the span of a few heartbeats. She tackled him to the ground and sank her fangs into his throat. His malformed jaws tore into her neck. Blood and sand splattered over them.
White-Paw fell still and shrank to her Hishu form. Peter screamed, thrashing like a fish out of the water. Alex pounced upon him and seized his neck in terrible Urshul jaws. The snap of bone and cartilage ended Peter’s struggle. Nearly as soon as he died, Peter’s body began rapidly decomposing into sizzling gelatinous goo.
White-Paw lay choking on the blood in her ruined throat. Her gurgling breaths came rapidly, then began to slow. Torn flesh mended itself within seconds and she spit up mouthfuls of blood — some of it Peter’s. She struggled to her feet, supported by Alex and Erik. Amari studied the decaying remains of their former packmate.
After a minute, she sang a mournful howl. The others joined her, except for White-
Paw, who trembled with a mixture of rage and grief. Their voices mingled into a guilt-laden dirge. Amari looked out over the waves as the song ended. She knew their hunt had only just begun. Gagh-Azur had done them grievous harm and still lurked out there somewhere. They wouldn’t rest until they had repaid it in kind.
Whatever its nature and its goals, Gagh-Azur was now their prey. The four of them swore vengeance on Peter’s behalf. Amari knew its name and its purpose. I understand at least that much now. You have your cycle. We have ours. She let out another howl, this one a declaration of Siskur-Dah. The wolf must hunt.
The wolf-shark-thing roared and leaped upon Alex. Before it had a chance to deliver the killing blow, White-Paw struck it in Gauru form. Amari cried out angrily as both monsters tumbled, clawing and biting one another.
Alex willed Essence into his ruined leg. Splintered bone and frayed muscle realigned with a wet pop. He scrambled to his feet, limp vanishing as he sprang after White-Paw. Erik circled around to stand between them and the water’s edge.
White-Paw came away from the grapple torn and crippled. The beast that had once been Peter still possessed his strength and rage. Alex leaped through the air and slammed bodily into Peter, knocking it away. His skin tore on the monster’s shagreen, strewing big tufts of bloody fur across the beach.
A bird of fiery golden feathers dove upon Peter, searing his crazed eyes with sudden brilliance — the totem that once guided him. As Peter staggered, swiping blindly at the air, White-Paw leaped again. Her wounds closed in the span of a few heartbeats. She tackled him to the ground and sank her fangs into his throat. His malformed jaws tore into her neck. Blood and sand splattered over them.
White-Paw fell still and shrank to her Hishu form. Peter screamed, thrashing like a fish out of the water. Alex pounced upon him and seized his neck in terrible Urshul jaws. The snap of bone and cartilage ended Peter’s struggle. Nearly as soon as he died, Peter’s body began rapidly decomposing into sizzling gelatinous goo.
White-Paw lay choking on the blood in her ruined throat. Her gurgling breaths came rapidly, then began to slow. Torn flesh mended itself within seconds and she spit up mouthfuls of blood — some of it Peter’s. She struggled to her feet, supported by Alex and Erik. Amari studied the decaying remains of their former packmate.
After a minute, she sang a mournful howl. The others joined her, except for White-
Paw, who trembled with a mixture of rage and grief. Their voices mingled into a guilt-laden dirge. Amari looked out over the waves as the song ended. She knew their hunt had only just begun. Gagh-Azur had done them grievous harm and still lurked out there somewhere. They wouldn’t rest until they had repaid it in kind.
Whatever its nature and its goals, Gagh-Azur was now their prey. The four of them swore vengeance on Peter’s behalf. Amari knew its name and its purpose. I understand at least that much now. You have your cycle. We have ours. She let out another howl, this one a declaration of Siskur-Dah. The wolf must hunt.
Forsaken Pack Dossier: Apollo Ascendant
Goals:
Seek vengeance against the Tidal Maw for Peter (dead
packmate). They recently declared Siskur-Dah:
“Whatever its nature and its goals, Gagh-Azur was now their prey. The four of them swore vengeance on Peter’s behalf. Amari knew its name and its purpose. I understand at least that much now. You have your cycle. We have ours. She let out another howl, this one a declaration of Siskur-Dah. The wolf must hunt”
White-Paw: “White-Paw,
the youngest, looked up to Peter like an older brother. She learned from him
and he protected her, but she kept his anger in check. She was as soft-mannered
as an Uratha could be, but Amari never doubted her courage or ferocity. She was
Cahalith, and every bit the hunters
as were her packmates. Of all five, she was the one closest in touch with human
life, and helped keep the others grounded.”
Appearance: A pale young woman with long black hair, soft facial features, and doeish blue eyes. Looks the part of an Ingénue in a Hollywood film. Age 17.
“Whatever its nature and its goals, Gagh-Azur was now their prey. The four of them swore vengeance on Peter’s behalf. Amari knew its name and its purpose. I understand at least that much now. You have your cycle. We have ours. She let out another howl, this one a declaration of Siskur-Dah. The wolf must hunt”
Amari-Calls-the-Sun:
“Amari Calls-the-Sun was the closest thing the pack had to an alpha. She had Changed under the crescent moon on the eve of her fourteenth birthday, fleeing into the spirit wilds. The local Uratha found her at the break of dawn as she sang her lament to the heavens, and so she earned her name. Her wisdom, patience, and cunning often saw the pack through difficult hunts and aided them against their spirit prey. She was the second youngest behind White-Paw, yet without her guidance they felt lost.” Itheaur.
“Amari Calls-the-Sun was the closest thing the pack had to an alpha. She had Changed under the crescent moon on the eve of her fourteenth birthday, fleeing into the spirit wilds. The local Uratha found her at the break of dawn as she sang her lament to the heavens, and so she earned her name. Her wisdom, patience, and cunning often saw the pack through difficult hunts and aided them against their spirit prey. She was the second youngest behind White-Paw, yet without her guidance they felt lost.” Itheaur.
Appearance: A
young Japanese woman with long brown bangs that fall across her face. Her eyes
are always focused, studying every detail of the places and people the back
comes across. Wears silver bangles around her wrists that store Essence. Age
19.
Tribe: Bone Shadows
Alex
Harper:
Alex Harper was their Elodoth, a strong presence when the pack needed one. He fully embraced the savage duality of Uratha life, at once a man of culture but also a pragmatic warrior. His was the hulking Urshul form, which he preferred for the hunt. Its size and fierce strength matched his own passionate spirit.
Alex Harper was their Elodoth, a strong presence when the pack needed one. He fully embraced the savage duality of Uratha life, at once a man of culture but also a pragmatic warrior. His was the hulking Urshul form, which he preferred for the hunt. Its size and fierce strength matched his own passionate spirit.
Appearance: A
tall, burly man with a thick but well-trimmed beard and close cut muddy blonde
hair. Both smiles and glowers often, and his eyes have a frightening intensity
to them. Age 29.
Tribe: Blood
Talons
Appearance: A pale young woman with long black hair, soft facial features, and doeish blue eyes. Looks the part of an Ingénue in a Hollywood film. Age 17.
Tribe: Iron
Masters
Erik
Red-Shadows:
He hunted unseen along the paths others could not walk, an Irraka of tremendous skill. Next to Peter he had the most experience, and Amari treasured his perspective.
He hunted unseen along the paths others could not walk, an Irraka of tremendous skill. Next to Peter he had the most experience, and Amari treasured his perspective.
Appearance: A
dark-skinned man with shaggy black hair, stark facial features, and hard,
flinty eyes. Age 30.
Tribe:
Hunters in Darkness
Peter Mathis (DEAD): Peter Mathis followed her. He had nearly twenty years on Amari, not
that it showed. A man in his prime, covered in scars that revealed years of
deadly hunts, Peter was tougher than anyone Amari knew. The Rahu never fought
so fiercely as when he protected his family.
Wolf-Blooded (DEAD): Jason, Harley. They may be others not mentioned in story.
Totem Spirit: Helios
spirit - Winged Dawn
Location: South
Beach
Totem Spirit: Helios
spirit
Location: South
Beach
Monster's stats to be posted after plot resolution...
