The Shadow Curtain part 2: Trek to Siberia

With things in St. Petersburg as well in hand as they can be, the pack heads eastward to find that Siberian caern where they hope they can fix the First Klaive: a ten-day journey by train.

Seven days in, Ambrose is entertaining himself by working on his laptop, when he notes his readings dipping. The Shadow Curtain seems to be weaker in deeper Russia. Wondering if there might be some phenomenon in the area that's causing this, a quick search turns up news articles on several recent murders in the region. He points this out to the Garou.

Aila wants to get off at the next stop and take a look, but Sonya reminds them that they have more important things to do. Aila sadly agrees, but she's still curious, rattling off some theory about blood sacrifices to weaken the Curtain. In fact, Ambrose says, he agrees with her. The Shadow Curtain was built on blood magic, so it only makes sense to use the same thing to weaken it. It'd have to be a hell of a blood magician to play in the Hag's back yard, though...

On that ominous statement, the train shudders and begins to slow down. They're stopping because there's a dead man on the tracks. In fact, when the werewolves get off to take a peek, they realize it's a dead Garou. The train has to report to the local police, so they're halted for the night anyway, so the Garou follow Aila as she tracks the fight that killed the Garou back toward the nearby town. Looks like he was fighting a Verbena or something, because the woods have been torn up as though someone was controlling the trees.

The town is unusually--one might say bizarrely, for Siberia--high-tech. This place is completely wired with the latest in connectivity...and it exists within a bubble in the Shadow Curtain. Here, the Curtain does not exist, and Ambrose notes that this bubble centers on the cell phone tower. His guess is Yusupov. It makes sense that a man like that would want to hedge his bets. The tower, interestingly, is built by the Shinjuku Corporation, out of Japan. "Must get great reception here," Aila comments. "Well, Ambrose," Sonya says, "use that great reception to log on and learn more about Shinjuku Corporation." Only, he when he tries, he finds the signal is locked down with a...let's say an exceptional level of security. Ambrose cracks it, but it takes work. Whomever's behind this is definitely not normal.

The pack splits up. Some of them head toward the Shinjuku Corp. local offices to see what they can find, while Ambrose, Ray, Mark, and RF check out that tower.

The closer they get to it, the thinner the Gauntlet gets. In fact, before they know it, they're walking right into the spirit world. A low moaning in the background grows as the landscape begins to change to a city street, with skyscrapers towering nearby. People flicker into focus, going about their business; all are Asian. But the city is...wrong. "Non-euclidean geometry," as Ambrose puts it. About the time they realize that there seems to be no end to the cityscape, Ambrose looks behind to realize that however they got in, they're got getting out the same way. "We're not in Tokyo. Or Kansas." No, Ambrose, as the Garou can tell you, you're somewhere very deep in the spirit world. Or etherspace or whatever you like to call it. But no Etherite would allow that little detail to daunt them. When the others look to him for suggestions, he says, "I suppose we might as well figure out where we are before we try to get back."

As they walk through the city, looking around, he notices that almost everyone they pass has some kind of cybernetic implant. He pausing at a city square, to check his laptop, when he becomes aware of a big, angry living metal statue standing behind him (a Demon of Iron and Violence, which they've seen before, though they aren't quite sure what they are yet). He gently clicks the laptop closed. "Sorry?"

It nods approvingly, then says, "You should get back to work."

They back away slowly into an office building, where Ambrose asks a receptionist for a transit schedule. She digs one out, then asks, "Do you work here?" "I'm on an errand," he excuses himself, not wanting a repeat of the previous event. He hands it back after scanning a copy into his PDA, then they vacate quick before they draw attention and hie themselves to the nearest subway.

Which is crowded with people and banes and other strange critters. One fomori bumps into Ambrose, dislodging his packages. Ambrose unthinkingly helps him/it pick them up, till he realizes that what he's holding in his hand is cyborg/Matriarch porn, at which point he wipes his hands vigorously on his pants and goes to hide behind the Garou. Thankfully, considering how the banes are eying them, their line comes in not long after, and they board to head toward the edge of the city.

Meanwhile, Sonya and the others break into the office building. They head around back since the lights at the front of the building indicate somebody's still in. The building smells awful, the sewage stink of cosmic corruption, but the office is beautifully appointed. In the desk and filing cabinets, they find grovelingly-toned memos to Mikaboshi, 'Lord of the Wicked City,' and a report on a phone tower on 'the other side of their territory.' The implication seems to be that Baba Yaga violated some ancient boundary, so now whoever this is sees no reason to respect it either. There are a lot of references to 'the Courts.' Beast Courts? It's the Garou's best guess.

While the others rummage, Aila peers through the office window. The view seems a lot higher than it should be, and it's looking down over a seething metropolis that is definitely not a small Siberian town. She spots Ambrose and company heading down into the subway. After Aila draws their attention to it, Sonya checks outside the office door. Sure enough, it doesn't lead back into the office building they broke into. They're trapped in the spirit world too.

Well, in that case, there's not much to do but catch up to the others. They arrive after RF's group departs, but a quick call takes care of rendezvous. On the subway, Ambrose sees a poster showing people locked up in MECHA's slave collars. He points it out to Mark, who reads that it's a bounty ad for mages who're brought to the 'Five Metal Dragons.'

After everybody catches up, they head topside at the edge of the city. There's a shimmering boundary marking it, flickering through various potential destinations, mostly in Asia. Running some calculations, Ambrose pinpoints an exit in Kazakhstan. Stepping out into an opium den, Sonya looks around, pulls out a notebook and writes a memo to herself. The guy at the door smirks a bit and says, "Come again," as they leave. "Oh certainly," she placidly replies. Ambrose notices the guy is a cyborg.

They take another train to Siberia--this trip is much less adventurous--and then a cross-country hike to the caern from the pitifully small and scuzzy outpost where the train drops them off. After they're welcomed into the caern, they warn the sept about Baba Yaga looking for the Soul Egg ("Well, it's safe enough," they reply; "She'll never find it."), and their Shinjuku Corporation adventure before they get on to the meat of their visit.

The Garou are dumbfounded when the pack hauls out two First Klaives, not to mention deeply concerned. "The pact of the First Klaive is the seed of all klaive pacts.," the Ritemaster explains. "If we can't coax the spirit back, then all klaives will fail." They keep blaming it on poor Ambrose, who's a little annoyed about it, seeing as he saved the thing, but he's not about to argue with that many furry killing machines.

The Garou are at a bit of a loss, though. They have a ritual for it, but with the Little Grandmoter on the rampage, they don't dare enact it. "Maybe we can ask Turtle," Aila suggests cheerfully. The Elders look at her a bit funny, so she scoops Turtle up and holds him for them to see. "Turtle!" she repeats. They look startled to see Turtle up and around, but in the face of current events, they let it slide. After some thought, the Ritemaster tells them, "It's possible your answer may lie in Minnesota." "Minnesota?" Aila repeats. "There's something in Minnesota?" Ambrose can't resist quipping. "Quiet, Klaivebreaker!" the Garou barks at him, then explains that some members of the sept left to settle in Minnesota. They know the appropriate rituals, and can probably help more easily since they don't have to worry about attracting the Hag's attention.

To save them a fairly enormous trip, the Garou haul out some powerful, if somewhat random, hoodoo which drops them in London. From there, Jared gets them back to Chicago through the trods.