Roach Hotel
| Roach Hotel | |
|---|---|
I shoulda brought more fucking taquitos... | |
| Players |
Ethan and Colt follow Solomon's bug friend back to an old hotel, infested with Roach spirits -- and Claimed. They decide to call in backup -- brains and muscle. Together they face the challenges that await them within, putting a stop to a ritual in progress -- but raising more questions than when they went in. |
The hotel that Ethan and Colt found was probably built sometime in the 40s, as an upscale but generic chain hotel - what's left of the sign suggests it was a Hilton. It's surrounded by ten foot tall chain fence, and the decorative bricks are faded and peeling - but for some reason, it appears they were originally painted a rather _vibrant_ purple color. The hotel itself is four stories tall, and the first floor windows are all boarded over, as is the front door. It's enthusiastically condemned, with big signs everywhere. It SMELLS: there's a persistent, strange odor of mildew and rot, even from across the street. It's not a stench, but a persistent, lingering undertaste that lives in the back of the throat. That might be coming from the pool area; what was once a large and decadent swimming pool is now a cracked hole in the ground. A thick scum of...mold? Fungus of some sort? is growing on top of the black water captured in the last rain, and if one looks close, one can seen thousands of tiny, wriggling worms in that water, suggesting that falling in (or god forbid drinking) it would be a poor life decision. The easiest way in is through a hole in the fence, past the pool area and its overgrown landscaping; decorative bushes appear to be struck with some sort of disease - their leaves are mottled with yellow and white, and strange, bulbous growths distort many of the leaves. In the underbrush, things rustle and scurry, going still whenever someone approaches. The back door to the hotel was once boarded over as well, but someone has long since pried free the bars and torn the door off the hinges. The pieces of the door lie discarded to one side, decaying and thick with rot, and a hole gapes into the darkness of the first floor. Colt is outside, leaning against his parked bike. He wrinkles his nose as a strong breeze once again brings in all that fine aroma of what-the-fuck-even-is-that. He grimaces, a low growl rising up in his throat as the smells of the homeless mix in with that, some of them slipping through the fence again. "Be a werewolf, they said," he mutters. "It'll be *awesome*, they said. Super smell, super strength, super hearing... forgot to mention that everything smells *bad* and sounds *loud*." He takes a drag off the cigarette he's been holding, passing it over to Ethan. "And they forget to mention that it's always so fucking -- gross." Ethan takes that drag, frowning at the hotel with concern. He gives a grimace and a nod in response to Colt's commentary that says he thoroughly agrees; a wrinkle of his nose and a tightness about his eyes the closest he'll come to voicing similar thoughts. He's parked Baby next to the motorcycle of course, and he's leaning against Baby, the big Ford F-150 with the purple heart sticker on the driver's side door providing a place he actually feels okay about resting any part of his body. He offers the cigarette back, takes a deep breath, and decides to peek spirit-side again, just to see what's changed since the last time they came here, his eyes taking on that unfocused look.
"You bring me to the nicest places," he smirks, by way of greeting. "This is the..." He gestures with one open hand at the hotel -- it is what it is, and no mistaking it. His nose wrinkles, and he adds, "Somehow I wasn't expecting the smell." Spirit-side, the site seethes with activity. All those tiny little roach mote spirits crawl _everywhere_. Some of them have hybridized, and spread glowing trails of corruption wherever they go - blame the toxic waste humans have dumped in this neighborhood over the years. The hotel itself bulges with rot and bugs in the Shadow, with oozing pustiles that birth more roach spirits periodically. There's a feeling of gathering, of rising potence. There are _no_ larger spirits that Ethan can see. Not outside, anyway. "Yeah, well," Colt answers back, leaning over to bump John's shoulder with his. "Next time, you get to plan date night." He gives the Rahu a quick once-over, grin spreading a bit at the getup, but turns back to Ethan. "Think our other boy got stuck in traffic?" he asks. "We going in without him, or waiting for him a little longer?" He looks back at the hotel, extending his spirit senses. The pustules, and oozing, crawling, bloated look of the thing. "Not... in a hurry, really," he sighs, crossing his arms over his chest petulantly. "Gonna need to shower for a week later." But that feeling of gathering is already creating a sense of urgency that the Uratha is finding hard to resist. Ethan's smile is quick, apologetic. "Hey, John." And then he grimaces one more time at the hotel before he decides, apparently, that ripping the bandaid off is the only real course of action here. "Longer we stand out here longer we have to smell the smell *and* dread walking inside," he reasons. He grimaces at what he sees spirit side and returns his attention to the physical world, stepping up to one of the holes in the fences. He pulls out his multitool so he can sort of peel the chain link back a little more, as gently and as quietly as possible, making a bigger hole for all of them while giving a more careful look around. He glances at Colt, though; the man usually likes to take point and Ethan won't go much farther ahead of him than this unless he decides the plan is different today. John leans into the nudge from Colt, snorting half a laugh at the shower forecast. While Ethan works at the fence, he stands a few steps back and to one side, scanning the area for any new threats that might emerge while he works. "This places is..." He searches for the word, but only for a second before he gives up and settles: "...wrong." The pool, in particular, seems to keep drawing his attention back to it. From the curl of his lip, it disgusts him more than fascinates him. Alex arrives on the scene a bit on the late side and looks like he's been through a lot. Still dressed from the previous evens in a thin black leather jacket with no shirt to show off his tattooed chest, jeans, and combat boots he's splattered with blood and ash. Offering a wave to the gathered wolves he motions behind him, "I parked a few blocks away, sorry I'm late but things have been busy, in a good way." Catching up with the group he takes in their surroundings and adds, "What've we got?" Colt leans back into that shoulder a moment, then turns to follow Ethan, giving Alex a little upnod of greeting. "Busy is good," he says, nodding to the building. "Roach Hotel. Big, gross bugs that spit acid and bite hard. Homeless go in, but they don't go out." A nod back to John's comment about the place feeling 'wrong'. But Ethan is pulling back that fence, and Colt, being Colt, takes the opportunity to go slip on ahead, looking to see what can be seen. The back of his arm goes to his mouth, covering his nose as best he can manage, but that smell is *pervasive*. It's just distracting enough that for a moment, he looks actually started, jumping back on his feet and looking into the direction of the shadows, like he's expecting something to pounce. But when nothing comes, he gives a slow shake of his head. "Thought I saw something, but... I don't know. Movement, but not clear. Might have just been a cat." He steers *very* clear of the pool area. Because -- well. Gross. Ethan decides to pull his axe out of his belt, and adds to Alex: "At first, when I looked other side, I saw a bunch of smaller roach spirits eating a bunch of larger ones, and everything shot through with corruption. And we followed these giant mutant roaches here, like Colt said. But now it's full of hybrids, and it feels like…stuff gathering. So I mean you know." He gives a weak grin to the Ithaeur. "Glad you're here." But he's soon slipping in himself, sort of moving behind and a little to the left of Colt, stepping carefully. He squares his shoulders and takes the deepest breath that he can force himself to take. The sooner he just acclimates to the smell, the sooner he can let it stop distracting him. Or at least. That's the theory. Alex takes a moment after the greetings to let his sight shift over to the other side, taking in the rot, ooze and bugs. Letting his gaze move over the sight he asks softly of the group. "Was our plan to cleanse this place? Or find the source of the spirit rot?" Growling softly he lets his sight return to the material to look to the others. "If we take a moment I can try to reach out and commune with all the spirits in the area but it might be better to get to the center of the infestation first. Inside the hotel so I can reach out all over the inside of the structure to see if I can find the source or more info." John passes through the fence behind Ethan, offering Alex a commiserative look as he ducks through the hole. Once he's on the other side, he spreads out to the opposite side of Colt, picking up the pace just a bit until he has caught up. "Doesn't seem like somewhere a cat would survive long," he mutters, eyes narrowing as he looks ahead at the dark gap of the doorway. "I can't wait to see what's waiting for us in there." The doorway leads into the lobby area. Once upon a time, this was probably an elegant, upscale place - even if the wallpaper suggests it was in a desperately sixties sort of way. But time has taken its toll. Much of the wallpaper has come free, curling away from the walls in great, papery spirals. Under the wallpaper, the walls are dark and sopping with black mold; that smell is stronger her, the scent of wet fungus and decay. And underneath it? The sickly sweet odor of rotten flesh. Some of that comes from what's heaped in the corners; rotting wood is mingled with dead animals - rats, pigeons, and heaps of regular sized roaches that all appear to have just crawled into piles to die on top of each other. Around these roach-piles someone's carved strange sigils into the carpet with some sort of knife. Or claws. It could be claws. To the left, the lobby becomes a dining room; most of the tables and chairs have long since been stolen, except for the ones that some enterprising squatters broke apart and burned for heat in the center of the floor, possibly years ago from the scorch marks. A broken door shows a glimpse of a kitchen beyond. Directly in front of them is the main hall of the hotel; half the doors appear broken and gaping, but from this angle, it's difficult to see what might be waiting in the rooms. Colt moves in, kneeling down to study the glyphs on the floor, rubbing at his chin curiously. Brow furrows a bit as his eyes trace the ruinous lines and swirls, examining the little piles, careful not to touch anything. When working with the occult, one never knows when moving something might have Seriously Detrimental Effects. "Summoning ritual?" he asks, looking up to the Bone Shadow for confirmation. "Big one, too. Someone got up real damn early in the morning for a whole lot of mornings to set this shit up." There's a look straight *downward*, as if looking through the floor, and a slight groan escapes from the man. A glance to ALex for confirmation again, though at least this time he looks very hopeful he's wrong. Ethan didn't bother to examine the sigils; he knows enough to know that he shouldn't touch them and he should let the experts look and that's about it. Instead he just decides that it's about time to be ready for anything. He grimaces, his head tilting right and then back again as he shifts up into the dalu form, gripping that axe and narrowing his eyes, listening for the confirmation and the information. What glyphs tell *him* is that this didn't just happen as a spiritual fluke; someone or something *made* this happen and that doesn't make him a very happy camper in the least. He lets out a soft growl at the back of his throat, but his posture says he's paying close attention to those who have a better grounding in Weird Shit. John's thinking runs similar to Ethan's -- in almost the same moment he grimaces in pain, and his body pops and distends until he has gained a foot in height. He steps past Colt, careful of the runes and corpse piles, to move into place at the end of the long hallway, hopefully interposing himself between the danger and the investigation. "Summoning ritual sounds bad," he says, without looking over his shoulder. "That's bad?" The Rahu grimaces, shaking his head slowly from side to side. Alex nods in agreement with Colt as they study the glyphs. Shaking his head, he lets his fingers slide over the closest specimen, adding, "Working to open a Shadow Gateway. This isn't ideal. We could take a moment to start destroying these now and those we come across. Make sure we weaken anything that is still active." "Watch my back, I'm going to start trying to commune with the spirits, see what they see. Figure out what we're heading into, and do some large-scale recon. It might take a bit but," pausing, he looks to Ethan as he has seen Alex do it before. "It could help us be prepared but it might cause some trouble while I get going..." With a wink to the group he settles in and starts meditating, humming as he rocks in place to open up his spiritual font of essence, reaching out to the spirits nearby. As one looks long into the abyss, the abyss looks into you. When Alex sinks into his meditation, things begin to stir in the fetid air of the hotel. There's the scritchy-scrabble of feet across wallpaper; a dozen dog-sized roaches scrabble out of the abandoned kitchen and make their way across the floor towards the group, their antennae waving. Colt and Ethan won't be surprised at the acidic drips from their oversized mouths, but it's definitely not Standard Roach Equipment. The lead roach is even larger than its buddies, and its eyes fix on Alex. The roaches surge forward to try and...cuddle...with Alex. Sure. Let's call it cuddling. "There they are," John growls, starting toward the roaches as soon as they reveal themselves. His mass in Dalu form is tremendous, and as he builds speed he reaches ahead of himself with wickedly clawed hands. At the last second he leaps, bringing his considerable weight down on top of the roach's hard carapace, driving those claws through its shell until he is able to rip outward with both hands, splattering himself with the thing's acidic goo. You know what Ethan didn't wanna do? Touch the bugs with his hands. Unfortunately he's not doing a very good job of touching the roaches either. "God da…" The roaches are doing a good job of touching HIM though, and he is soon just dropping the axe in favor of roaring cuss words and flailing. "I shoulda brought more FUCKING TAQUITOS!" he roars. Its not a wail. It's a big manly werewolf tough guy Storm Lord WAR ROAR. "God damn it!" See? War. Colt watches the things swarm over Ethan, not even stopping to think about it. Reflexively, he shifts into the Great Wolf form, bounding over and joining in the, uh -- dog -- roach -- pile. Thing. One by one, the things crunch between his jaws, the little antennae and legs wriggling between his teeth. The remaining roaches scatter away from Ethan, Colt-wolf gagging and attempting to spit out what parts it can, the thing making throat-noises in First Tongue similar to "So. Gross." Moving to Ethan, Colt rears up, paws on the other man's shoulders, giving a long, wet, bug-goo lick to the side of Ethan's face, leaving a trail of slime and bug parts before plopping back down and turning to see where the rest are. A true and loyal companion to the totally-war-howling Storm Lord. Aziha Zuu pivots to follow the dire wolf into the fray, and as the roaches scatter from Colt's fury John is able to catch most, rending them with his claws or smashing them under the weight of the urban hunter's form. When it's done, the acid has eaten at his sleeves and the hems of his jeans, and his skin is raw and red beneath. He offers Colt a nod -- clearly impressed -- then turns almost immediately to resume his position at the end of the hallway. "Are you ok?" The question is for Ethan, only asked once the Rahu is certain the danger has passed. "Augh! Dude! *Dude!*" Ethan groans, his arms windmilling like a comic book character's as the Irraka leaves that slime trail behind. "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!" More flailing and some hopping around as he sort of pops into human form without meaning to. "Augh! God!" It does for everything; for roaches, for slime trails. And then John's asking after him and he growls, "I'm fine. Great. Wonderful. Fanfreakingtasticwhydoyouask?" One more jump up and down in augh fashion, then a whole *HUFF* that says he knows he's not cool, he knows he's not impressive, he knows he's not great at being a werewolf, and he knows that he's making a scene, and hates it all and is *trying to stop* but just needs to have a moment. Skolis-Ur probably just facepalmed. Alex is out of it in terms of the fight. All of it is being ignored as the tattooed man stays in his seated position, cross-legged while rocking gently back and forth speaking softly to himself in the first tongue. It's gibberish for the most part but when words are spoken it's clear to the other wolfs he's focusing his mind and speaking words to help in that. Colt shifts back to his human form, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand while he tries to not make little gagging sounds. He gives John a look, and hten one over to Alex -- who's just humming on the floor there. A glance to Ethan, and then back to John. "Do we, uh." A nod to Alex. "Know how long he's gonna be like that?" A look around the rest of the room. "Kind of doubt that's all of them." Or even a small faction of 'them'. "I have no idea," John admits, shaking his head. "I guess we could be here a while." The Rahu is on edge now, watching the hallway, occasionally glancing over toward the kitchen -- it's hard to know what's left there. If he notices Ethan's discomfort, he doesn't acknowledge it, his eyes avoiding the Storm Lord in their occasional sweep of the room. As the time draws out, he begins to pace, but remains in the same rough part of the room. After the tactical combat bug group has been messily dispatched, there is a pause. The wolves can still hear the sounds of skittering; it sounds like it's coming from beneath them. But nothing bursts out from the floor, and in the distance, they can hear a metallic _bang_ of some sort - upon reflection, it sounds like a metal door, perhaps a stairway door, being closed and locked. Possibly barricaded, if the muffled thumps that accompany it are any judge. A half-hour passes, and whatever is in the hotel seems to be choosing not to attack again. Ethan appreciates it, and soon gets his shit together. He exhales, sweeps up his axe, wipes his face, and resumes the Dalu form right around the time that they hear a metallic bang. "Did someone just lock themselves up in a…evil roach mystic panic room?" He asks, frowning. Back to business for the time being. He's perfectly *content* with nothing happening. Fifteen minutes lets all those bug bites seal over, leaving only the small rips they made in his in his t-shirt behind. Alex stops his soft mumbling and humming as his meditation ends. Slowly opening his eyes they are changed now, clouded over and gray with a light glow of spirit essence that the other wolves can easily see. Growling softly as his eyes shift around, looking through the perceptions of the spirits he connects with he can't help but shake his head. "There are more downstairs. Scurrying around a boiler room or something like that..." Trailing off he shifts his focus between spirits. "Tethered to human hosts or... Human-sized hosts. A shadow gate is being made, three human bodies in a triangle, stomachs sliced open and something growing, incubating within their innards. It bulges, swells, bubbled with corruption." Growling again, his eyes shift, and his head turns as he moves his perception between spirits, searching and looking. "There is a more considerable spirit presiding over it all, but I can't get into its consciousness. It's a higher rank than the others, greater than I pushed to connect with." Frowning he adds, "It's a seething, human-sized roach swarm of roaches, all mottled and diseased, chanting to complete the gate before we can stop it ... Fuck." Looking around him he adds, "There are more of the roaches, giant ones, crawling over everything down there." If the Uratha chase down spirit-prey that knows the symbols of a rite or can carve the secret of a Gift, any Uratha hunter present can expend the necessary Experiences to be marked with the Gift or learn the rite from the spirit. If this is done, the hunters do not get any Essence if they then bring the spirit down, and doing so is a breaking point toward Spirit. Alex quickly gets to his feet while his eyes are still glazed over, showing he's attached to the spirits about them. Shifting to dalu, he grows larger, stronger, his clothes growing tighter against the larger bulk of his tattooed flesh as he growls out to the group. "Let's hunt... Come." Reaching into the pockets of the small satchel he always has for rituals he pulls out containers of blood, ash, and more to paint his face in a likeness of a roach. Marking the others as they shift to dalu, he starts the rite, speaking in the first tongue as he calls out their prey, the roach spirits, and corruption within. Acting the part of the prey, he tries to break free of the group of dalu that surround him in the ritualized hunt. Colt puts up the relevant struggle while the energy for the rite builds, digging in his heels and holding the Ithaeur back. Once it becomes clear that the spirits have accepted their desires, though, he breaks the circle, freeing Alex and turning to follow the other man as the hunt continue, the power of the Hunt flowing down around him and his temporary packmates as he lets out a snarl of joy, running after. The hunt leads down the hallway; doorways flick past, heaped with trash of years of squatters, abandoned mattresses squirming with mold. It leads all the way to that metal door that has a long dead STAIRS light hanging, half detached, from the ceiling below it. The door is, to perhaps no one's surprised, locked. And more, when pressure is put against it, it feels like something heavy has been leaned against the other side. John strips himself to the waist and joins in the mock-melee, walking through the pantomimed grapple with Alex, struggling until the Ithaeur breaks free. He throws back his head to loose a howl, then charges off down the hallway. When they arrive at the locked door, he throws his shoulder agaisnt it, only stumble backward a step. "Locked," he observes, " "...and likely barricaded on the other side." Ethan at first is a little more tentative about the rite, as he always is; his innate reserve always makes him a little more awkward until he gets into it enough for his instincts to take over. But eventually he's moving with as much eager joy as the rest of them. He waits for Colt to get the doors open, eyes narrowed in thought. Alex howls with John as the rite ends and grins at his fellow hunters. Still in dalu, he follows them down the hall and uses his claws to smash and slash any of the glyphs they cross as they move towards the targets of their hunt. Growling as they move he's working himself up, pumping himself up for the fight to come, part of his senses still locked on the spirits they're heading towards and providing his hunting party with updates relevant to the hunt. Colt doesn't let a little thing like 'locks' stop him. Doors can't stop a predator on the Hunt. With a stare, he lets out a snarl of command, and the latch on the door unfastens, revealing the blockages on the other side. "Another door," he says ponderously, closing his eyes. "One level down. Not barricaded." A glance to Ethan and Alex, and then a glance at the floor. He steps out of the way, just in case they decide to take the most direct route. John looks to Ethan, nods, and after taking a couple of steps back he hurls himself into the door again. Now that it's unlocked, the two working together are able to throw it open. There is a terrible clamor as ancient, rusted filing cabinets tumble down the stairs to rupture on the landing, scattering paper and feces in amounts that are too nearly equal. The Blood Talon takes one look at the mess and shakes his head. Placing his left hand on the railing, he vaults over it, attempting to skip past that mess and land safely below. The stairway is getting closer to the heart of the corruption; the walls are bedecked in a carpet of crawling mold, and the handrails are almost entirely rusted through. Everything here looks hundreds of years old, not the mere decades that have seen the hotel abandoned. John sails over the mess, landing on the bottom of the stairwell. Yep, there's another door. Behind it, he can hear insectile buzzing in First Tongue, alternatively panicked cursing and bravado insults. From above, a _wave_ of giant roaches flows down the stairs, trying to attack the wolves from behind as they head down. Ethan stares down at John's leap, but, hey, there's a job to do here. He tries to imitate the vault, and while he does that Cahalith instinct to just be loud and proud asserts itself. "Knock knock! ORKIN MAN! Keepin' pests in their place!" And then he lets out a wild howl. When the reserve breaks, it *really* breaks, and then he acts like a dorky frat boy. What can be done? Nothing, man, positively nothing. It's probably not a surprise that he probably fails to leave most of the prey feeling particularly resigned. Especially as he lands with a wobble and then recovers like someone who would really like the world to believe he meant to do that. Colt lets out a longsuffering sigh as the others just -- go straight over the rail. "Fuck my life," he grumbles, taking a few steps back and running forward. He vaults over the rail, and looks like he's going to land smoothly -- Until he manages to land on one of those shit-covered pieces of paper that the file cabinets left scattered all over the floor. It's like something from a cartoon. His foot slips out from underneath him, gaining about a foot of air as his arms sprawl. His head bangs against the floor, hard, knocking the wind out of the Irraka as he struggles to regain his focus, spots clouding his vision. No. Not spots. Roaches. Roaches coming down the walls, off the stairs, from the crackes around him. He struggles to get to his feet, but it's already too hate, the air knocked out of him and leaving only a pained grunt of rage as the mandibles sink into flesh, already starting to dissolve skin. The door to the boiler room bangs open as it's pulled from within, the ancient rust and corrosion letting it just fall away, nearly detaching from its hinges. It reveals the ritual space, which smells like sweetly rotting meat and mold. Two Ridden with the bodies of hobos stand ready, with a roach hoard clustered around their feet. The one who opened the door jumps back to hiss at Ethan about various things he plans to do with the wolf's entrails. It mostly involves using them for certain very personal processes. In the back, a hulking, humanoid shape made entirely of roaches is less courageous. Or maybe it's just had to deal with werewolves before; it shakes its collective head shape, and tries to finish the chanting that it's doing, hissing in First Tongue from another set of mouths, "Keep them away. The Gate is almost open!" Alex bounds along with the group with a vicious smile as they head toward their prey. When the door is burst open, and the hunters jump down the stairwell he follows, quickly clearing the obstacles to land while his bones pop and muscles and ligaments shift and change as he turns into his gauru form. Standing as a powerfully black and gray furred wolf hybrid death machine, he growls low in his throat as he takes in the scene before them. It's all been mirrored in his perceptions linked with those of the spirits down here but using his wolf senses to take it all in adds a new dimension to it all. Shaking his head he spreads his arms wide and shows off his deadly claws, powerful muscled form, and vicious teeth before letting out an ear-splitting roar of a howl of challenge and warning to the spirits. The roach-formed thing flinches in a wave from the roar of the werewolf. "Hold them, hold them," it chants from its knees and feet, while the rest of it focuses on the corpses and the spell. As it chants in First Tongue, exhorting the Gauntlet to be corrupted and allow its brethren through, the bulbous growths on the corpses begin to glow with a sickly green light, and foul steam drifts upwards from them, starting to swirl in the air. First into the fray, Aziha Zuu bounds past his fellows to engage the first of the Claimed that crosses interposes itself between him and the enormous spirit host. As he surges forward, his body twists and pops, his grunt of pain turning quickly into a savage howl as he takes the shape of an enormous, pale dire wolf. He barrels into his target, using his weight and momentum to shove the thing back even as he sinks dagger-long teeth into its torso, just below the left arm. As the two wolves are blocked by the Claimed homeless, the roach hordes at their feet take the opportunity to swarm up their legs, biting and SKITTERING and crawling under whatever clothing they can fit under. It's awful. Alex roars and rushes into combat behind John, attacking the large roach but getting blocked by a swarm of the smaller spirits. Getting pushed back the bone shadow swipes and bites at the attackers as they swarm over his powerful form and draw blood and more angry sounds from the gauru. Biting into the mass of spirits he starts to tear through their spirit forms while fighting the off. The axe gets flung to the side as Ethan runs forward, seeming to shift mid run. The massive grey and winter-white dire wolf flings itself at the roaches swarming Colt, biting and snapping, snarling as his hackles rise and as his ears flatten to his skull. He ignores the vile taste on his tongue and the burn in his mouth as he destroys them or gives them good reason to be chased away. He makes a few gagging sounds as he pivots to face the rest of the battle once more (and does not repay Colt for the sliming of earlier). The roach claimed mortals struggle with the werewolves. They open their mouths and gouts of foul acid spill out, but both John and Alex are able to keep any of the caustic liquid from splashing on them too badly, despite the roaches crawling all over them. The roach-formed thing is no longer looking all that humanoid; as it throws itself into the chanting, it begins to expand, and there's a hum of vibrating wings that's becoming more than a physical thing; the gate is strengthening; the Uratha can feel shivers through the material world, smell the bleedthrough beginning. The bone shadow's form shivers as he heals the damage from the attacking swarm of roaches even as they keep on biting and tearing into his muscled form. Roaring again he pounces on the host humanoid form and tears it apart with powerful rending bites that spill blood and spirit stuff about the area. Alex pushes into the bloated body with his claws and tears until nothing is left but a bloody pile of flesh and bone. This time Ethan ignores the roach horde swarming him. Either he's getting used to it or it's just less upsetting when it's fur instead of roaches under clothes. Or…he's caught on to the desperate situation they're in, perhaps clued in by a dream that makes sense at last. Letting out a ferocious roar, he gathers his powerful hind legs beneath him and leaps, sailing across the room to barrel into the summoner, charging, growling, snapping, trying to knock him down, basically harrying him with everything he has. Aziha Zuu growls at the Claimed in its jaws, lifting it from its feet as he shakes it bodily once, then slams it back to the ground with a sickening crunch. Roaches continue to swarm over the pale dire wolf, their bites marking its skin, their acidic venom leaving him surrounded by the stench of burnt hair. He pays them no mind, though, as his attention snaps to the foe that Ethan has faced off against. Colt gets to his feet as Ethan manages to get most of the damnable things off of him. There's a small grimace he remembers exactly how bad those things taste. "Beers're on me buddy," he tells his companion while he tries to deal with - all of that. Focusing on the creature at the end of the hall, Colt starts off at a trot, sticking to the shadows, drawing on whatever spiritual power fuels the quiet, deadly darkness that surrounds him, attempting to distract the beast. It doesn't quite work -- But what *does* work is the fact that Colt, out of nowhere, seems to materialize right behind the damnable thing, bypassing everything in between as the very space around him seems to *bend*. He moves past anything that might have wanted to intervene in the blink of an eye, as if it were never there. And, in the next heartbeat, the deadly, black-and-red Gauru lumbers over the thing, all thin lean muscle and sinew, snarling down in cold, murderous fury as it lets out a howl, teeth and claws sinking into the insectoid monstrosity and shredding it apart with all the ease that a chef pulls pork. When the tattered, exhausted Spirit fades away into the spirit world once more, disappearing in a shower of acid and bug parts, the giant roaches immediately scatter, no longer having any desire to attack the wolves. Instead, they act like the creatures Ethan and Colt have seen before...basically, like any other roach, just in a very large size. They run for their roachy little lives. The basement is still lit with that eldritch, poisonous green light, the almost completed Gateway hovering in the air above the corpses. In time, this will fade, but it could be hurried along by the careful destruction of the ritual. Even so, the Gauntlet here will be sensitive and vulnerable for a while. It takes a bit of time, but the trio work out a plan to dispose of the evidence. Colt, it seems, has ample experience in cleaning up traces of criminal activity and supernatural horror. Drain cleaner, a little bit of elbow work, and pretty soon nobody but a trained team of forensic investigators would ever be able to tell something even happened here. | |