The Darkest Path

[Shehrazad]

Kasiya walks the Umbral streets of Berlin.
The city stretches before him like a giant web, intricately patterned and fitting together perfectly. At this time, from this view, it was dark and grey and drab, but there was still something distinctly beautiful about it.

And something about it made him uneasy. It made him uncomfortable beyond the usual discomfort of a wolf in a city. It was as the feeling had followed him here from the land of the dead.
Maybe he had been right. Maybe the city had too many bad memories...

A bright and warm light seems to somehow make its way through to Kasiya, however. It sits on the window and watches him intently. Upon closer inspection he can tell it is the spirit of a bird. It watches him curiously for a while, and then it cocks his head to one side as if to inquire what he was doing.[/color]

[Kasiya]

This place of men is like all the others, the Weaver gone mad and the Wyrm taken root, but something here is different. Not better, not worse. Different.

The Black Wolf feels out with his sixth sense, for his companion. With the tenuous presence located (it was always harder for him in the Umbra) he murmurs:

"Fred. Check our trail back. Something may have followed us."

The presence departs, leaving the traveller alone, save for the bird spirit.
Kasiya sits in the way of wolves and watches the bird watching him, his manner impassive, his eyes bright. As the bird cocks it's head, Kasiya decides a suitable response is waranted. He speaks out, and it is not the language of Wolves that issues from his jaws, but a far older tongue, syllables which echo back upon themselves and repeat with subtly different nuances long after, and even before they are uttered. A fleshly observer would feel chills run down their spine, as if a thousand spiders were crawling over their grave:

"How is it with you, little sister?"

The fires of men are warm and bright. They dry your fur when storm and river have soaked you through.
They will burn you if you get too close. That old man used to give sweets to the little boys.

[Shehrazad]

The bird didn't answer, but straightened its head and fluttered over to a side street. It came to rest on a lamppost and stared pointedly at the black wolf. Kasiya can't help but feel that it looks very out of place, standing there, shining brightly against the dim grey light of the lamppost. In fact, this area seems suspiciously devoid of any other spirits... except one.

Kasiya's gaze draws him over to the side alley, where the bird on the lamppost has stopped looking at him, but now looks down on the pale figure of a small boy, wearing the remains of tattered clothes, with a yellow star attached to his chest.

[Kasiya]

Wolves do not cry, but the Black Wolf feels his heart lurch in sympathy for the thing before him.

Bad Memories

Regretfully, he pulls on his mans skin, checking himself over, he approaches the pair of spirits, making sure to stop a few yards away to give the boy space.

They're often scared and lash out blindly

He crouches and addresses the boy in HochDeutsch, making sure to keep the mysterious bird in his peripheral vision:

"Are you lost, little one? Do you need any help?"

[Shehrazad]

The boy takes a few steps back as Kasiya approaches, not letting the man get too close.
He nods and raises an arm to point down the street.
Just like the bird he says nothing at all.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kasiya almost thinks he sees the bird flicker.[/color]

[Kasiya]

Nothing is as it seems. Nothing ever is. Bird and Boy, they're wrong, and where are the other Spirits, Spiders and urban scavengers?

Kasiya opens his senses to the boy, frustrated by the dull scent and hearing of the man-shape, but glad of colour vision and acuity. Is this boy Spirit or Wraith?

If Spirit, there is nothing to be done, if a Wraith, the boy needed to be shepherded on from this place.

"Walk with me, little one, and we shall find what you need."

Still crouched, he extends a hand to the boy, the simple comfort of contact that even wolves know.

[Shehrazad]

The boy nods. A sad smile creeps up his face, and his hand beckons Kasiya to follow him. He seems to know the way, because he treads confidently down the side street and stops to look back, making sure Kasiya is following.

But as soon as he takes a step after the boy, the sound of screaming fills the thick Umbral air. The voices of a hundred little children, boys and girls, cry out a warning to Kasiya.
"Don't..."

The boy stops and waits. He doesn't seem to have heard them at all. Only then does Kasiya notice that the bird has disappeared.
[/color]

[Kasiya]

Once again a surge of emotion wracks Kasiya, that the ones he guides and protects will even
yet reach out to protect him in turn. Wolves were not meant to feel as humans do.

One spirit, a lure, it is whatever it needs to be. I cannot walk away or I am responsible for all those who follow.

Obligation dictates his actions now, above his own wishes but not beyond self preservation.

I must see this through

Kasiya crouches again, as if concentrating or in pain, bringing his hands up so as his fingertips rest on the bridge of his nose and his palms cover his mouth.
He whispers, the faintest of sounds, meant only for those who watch over him.

"I thank you for your warning, my friends, but I must find out where this leads. I ask that you watch over me and warn me again closer to the time."

With that, Kasiya wills his form back into the black wolf and trots on after the Lure, all his senses straining for signs of danger.

[Shehrazad]

Don't go...
Trap...
None of the others came back...
Don't leave us...

They were so excited now he could hardly make out what they were saying. He closed his eyes and he could almost see their sad dead faces. When he opened them again, they were gone.
He follows the boy, and as he approaches, this is what he notices:
The buildings in this alley become increasingly twisted the further he walks. A thick dense smoke rises, obscuring his vision, and a foul, rotten stench overwhelms him, almost making him sick. His paws slip on a slick black oil.

Suddenly the boy flickers and disappears, as if he had been nothing but an illusion. A low rumbling sound can be heard and then--

RUN! they screamed.

And even before he could react, he felt the ground crumble.[/color]

[Kasiya]

I can't fight this alone.

Where another would fight with his muscles, Kasiya reacts with his spirit. With a mental focus he channels Gaia's raw life force to twist and tear through the Gauntlet. As he begins to fall toward... something, he disappears from view, away from the things that would prey upon the unwary.

As he passes through the weavers webs he makes a silent thanks to his companions on the dark road.

[[1 Gnosis spent for Warp Speed intra-Gauntlet travel]]

[Shehrazad]

The stench of death, the sickening heat, the oily ground and the screaming children... they all faded out of perception as Kasiya pushed through the gauntlet and into the streets of East Berlin.[/color]

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