Chapter 2: Rite of Passage
Chapter 2 began with the cubs isolated at the Sept of the Twin Waters. Shortly they were interrupted by Lord Stark and two of the sept elders, where they were chastised for a lack of preparation for their Rite of Passage. Stung by the Sept Alpha's dismissal and its injustice, the cubs decided to go before the Sept and demand their Rite.
The cubs travelled by Moon Bridge to the Sept of the Winter Wolf, where they were hosted by the Wendigo as part of an exchange between the septs. Accomodation was hard in the harsh early spring night, the cubs managed half a night's sleep before they were woken by a howl of grief that rang throughout the Sept. Within minutes, the cubs were called out of their shelter to face the entire Wendigo Sept, where they learned the awful truth -- the Wendigo cubs, who had been sent to Twin Waters in exchange, were dead. Spirits had carried word of their deaths to the Wendigo, who cast the cubs out, Rite uncompleted.
Shaken by the stress, Mirrorshy slipped sideways, as she did sometimes without intention, and experienced a vision: an egg, with a tiny Crinos werewolf dancing around it, claws tipped in tiny green sparks. The egg hatched and a black ooze spilled out. Mirroshy returned as soon as possible, and the cubs wisely chose to leave without further incident.
Without direct guidance, the cubs turned to the Umbra and their vision to find their path. In the Umbra, Mirrorshy spoke to a spirit of the North Wind, while Butterfly channeled her ancestor-spirit, Wind-Dream. Neither provided much assistance, beyond suggesting that they might placate the Wendigo by findout what happened to their cubs. Hoping to continue learning from the North Wind, the cubs decided to head north, then west following their survival instincts and a Gift of Speed Bump.
Following the trail led by Speed Bump's nose, the cubs soon came upon a bane-ridden bear: their first combat. While it went less than stellarly, they did survive the encounter while the bear did not. Mirrorshy slipped across the Gauntlet just in time to spot the bane discorporating, but to where she could not tell.
Determining to follow the bear's backtrail in the hopes of finding the bane, the cubs began to move again. They had not gone far when a blizzard, entirely out of character for this time of year, descended with a supernatural fury. The cubs barely managed to cobble together a shelter of sorts, and huddled out the worst of the storm before moving on.
In Seattle, Troy Opal woke from a recurring nightmare in time to go for a morning run with his mother before they both joined his father for breakfast. The gentle family life was soon interrupted though, by the telephone. His mother had to go to Canada on business for the embassy, and the earlier the better. His father wanted to stay home to get some back-up disks to the archive centre, but Troy managed to convince him to come along.
Trouble followed the Opals, however. Well into the flight, the blizzard struck again, forcing the pilot to attempt an emergency landing. The plane crashed, and the pilot died instantly. Troy's father had been thrown clear of the plan on impact, and ended up impaled on a broken tree branch some feet off the ground. Frantically, Troy and his mother worked to rescue his father, and while Samantha satyed with her husband, Troy began to follow a road in search of a town where they could call of help.
The blizzard had wiped out the bear's backtrail, so the Twin Water cubs decided to hear for the nearest town, following the reasoning that banes were attracted to populated areas. But while the cubs had waited out the blizzard, a Wendigo pack had overtaken them and set up an ambush. Faced with an older, more experienced pack of Garou, the cubs put up a good fight, but looked like a lost cuase until Butterfly called for help with every ounce of her being. Strangely enough, a manifested bear-spirit answered. Taken by surprise, the Wendigo pack fell back after receiving a few grievous wounds, and Mirrorshy took the opportunity to learn the Bear's gift of healing - for a price. Healing their wounded, the Twin Water cubs continued to move.
Troy caught a lucky break and caught a lift into town with Ivan, a hunter who'd bagged a couple of wolves, one of them the unChanged Storm Shrouded Moon. Troy got off in the town called Salt's Pass, and organised the local doctor to go in search of his father. While he waited, Troy befriended a waitress at the local watering hole, and discovered a woman with a very sick son. Exhausted form his own ordeals, Troy inadvertently slipped across the umbra to discover a wasting bane feeding on the boy.
Storm Shrouded Moon was bundled into a chain-link fence enclosure, while Ivan went inside. When he reemerged, he had the skin of Storm Shrouded Moon's man draped over a shoulder, and the sight and smell were enough to trigger the werewolf's First Change. Storm Shrouded Moon savaged Ivan horribly and left him for dead before taking off on his own. Just outside of town, he encounter Teresa in lupus form, who immediately began keeping him close by.
The rest of the Twin Waters cub had ventured south, where they discovered Troy's parents huddled over a fire, and Ghost, a Silent Strider from the Sept of the Twin Waters who had been sent to find them. Mirrorshy healed most of the injuries Troy's father had sustained, just before the town doctor arrived to take both people back into town. Ghost and the cubs would follow, and meet up with Teresa and Storm Shrouded Moon just outside town.
Faced with something clearly outside this world, Troy changed himself to match as the bane attacked. The bane, not expecting to face a werewolf, was soon torn to shreds. Troy would encounter the other cubs while exploring his new surroundings.
That night, Troy and Storm Shrouded Moon received their first lessons in what it was to be a Garou, while the others discussed what to do next. Acting on the advice of Ghost, the cubs decided to finish their own Rite of Passage rather than go back. They tracked a tranker truck around which a host of banes had gathered, and discovered it led to a mine. While attempting to sneak in closer, Teresa was spotted and all hell broke loose.
The guards were armed with a few silver rounds each, and a Dancer pack had set up within the dormitories on site. The cubs struggled until a pack of Red Talons came to the rescue. In the midst of the fighting, the Talon alpha grabbed Mirrorshy and told her that the Wings of Glory must not fall into the hands of the Dancers. Then he summoned a mammoth herd.
With their enemies' attention on the mammoths, the subs made their way to the mine's entrance, and started tracking a Dancer through the tunnels. A false wall revealed another set of tunnels, but a new danger as well: an amorphous blob with acidic touch. The cubs found themselves to be both hunter and hunted.
Through luck and perserverance, the cubs found the Dancer in an underground cavern, digging. Stealth failed again, and the Dancer summoned bane allies to deal with the cubs. The battle was swift and brutal. While the Dancer escaped, the furmlings were all but destroyed, and the cubs retained possession of the fetish: the Wings of Glory.
Deciding that the fetish was too important to risk in a hunt for the Dancer, the cubs regrouped and set out to find Ghost and their way back home. They had their Rite, and they had a hell of a story to tell in the process.
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