Currently the moon is in the waxing Full Moon phase (84% full).

Around six o' clock pizza was ordered in - Scratch made some joke about "the condemned's last meal" and Nat glared lasers at him. After that Saul was given his new Dedicated clothes and the trio piled into the old Ahroun's convertible for the drive. Out into the woods for a shift into lupus and a dash through the forest to the half-moon pool, then through the Gauntlet and into Crinos for the trip back to Kent Crossing. By the time the trio reaches the end of the tiny suburb it's well and truly dark Realm-side, and the bright face of Luna shines brightly in the Umbra.

A road leads west into the gloom, and a small, barely visible path leads eastward into the Umbral forest. The web-and-ooze-covered road leads southward out of the town.

~About two blocks that way is the bane you are to kill,~ Holds-the-Line informs the cub, pointing through a mass of webs. ~Scratch and I will guard your back, but we will not help you. If you ask for help, you have failed. If you fall unconscious, you have failed. We may not be able to get to you in time. Do you have any questions?~

Hunts-The-Web looks down the road, eye narrowing and a low growl starting in his throat, ~What kind of a bane is it? Any information pertinent to the bane would be helpful.~ He looks back over to Holds-the-Line, ~Or would that be helping me too much?~

Holds-the-Line's ears swivel as she focuses on the sounds around them; Scratch is already in a three-point stance and is watching their rear. ~It is a Kalus, not that that will help you. It is small and winged. Hooves like a goat. That will be enough for you to identify it.~

Light can be dark, and as Luna looks down on the city her face grows wan and pale. Things seem to hide behind the shafts of light which turn the pavement into marble, wormed through with the shadows of the town. The sky above is a foggy grey haze. The wind is wicked, the spirits that carry it howl above, screaming out of the forest and into and past the town, into the city which hunches over the river beyond. The chill of winter runs through everything, even the Crinos' thick fur. The town stretches out and away, into Umbral fog, streets cutting sharp black lines into the grass. The houses sit along them like toads, ugly and squat, staring out at each other with eyes that flicker free of life.

~Small means it's probably fast. And wings. I cannot fly. I will have to improvise then.~ He starts off down the street walking at a brisk pace but carefully surveying the houses and the street which they border, ~Small. Wings. Hooves. It might seem cute if it was not a bane.~

A half a block down the street down which Holds-the-Line had pointed, the webs start. The asphalt is covered with fine strands of grey like grimy lace, tended to tirelessly by the spiders, creatures with bodies the size of dinner plates, legs thick as a man's arm, dull-matte grey and pockmarked throughout. Their heads are like cracked sewing machines with gashes at the sides for eyes, they run their single giant pincers along the ground and weave their thread. The web stretches from sidewalk to sidewalk, covering the street as thick and even as fine snow, and the spiders go about their work with the heedlessness of machines, numb to the wind and deaf to all sound except their own, incessant chittering, like the sound of a thousand armchairs all rocking at once, monotonously overpowering. The streets to the side fill dark and empty and foreboding despite the light everywhere, their webs are frayed at the ends and crumbling, black moss drapes itself down from their telephone wires.

Hunts-The-Web occasionally watches the spiders in his trek, making sure to keep out of their way as best as garou-ly possible. Probably wouldn't do to disrupt them. He continues on ahead looking for the little bane. He growls to himself every now and again, seeming to like the comfort of his own voice.

As soon as paw is touched to web, the closest spider lifts its cracked head, it stills its movement, and one by one, like an electrical spark traveling a circuit, the movement moves across the gathering. Within three seconds there are a dozen small spiders, all watching the Ahroun, before he can even take his second step. The web underfoot is sticky and fibrous, like rope made of intertwined stripes of flypaper, like rope soaked in thickest tar. The wind continues to scream high above.

Hunts-The-Web mentally curses himself and hangs his head for a second and continues to watch the spiders, carefully watching them as they watch him. He doesn't move a muscle for a couple second before he speaks calmly and in a quiet a manner as to still be heard by the spiders, ~Not here to hurt anything of yours. I have come to destroy a bane that is possibly hurting the city.~ He doesn't even know if they understand him, but it is worth a try.

The spiders look down, they begin again their passionless task, set at ease by Hunts-the-Web or perhaps simply deciding that, so long as he doesn't move, he isn't worth their attention. The sound of their work, which had lulled in their observation, roars back up, nibbling away at the eardrums until it blocks off even the wind. Their movements, though, perfectly choreographed though they are, seems to draw the spirits closer.

Holds-the-Line and Scratch follow a distance behind the dark cub, dark Ahroun and light Galliard forming a silent band of support. Once Hunts-the-Web stops they stop, drawing closer together and facing in opposite directions, ears pricked to catch any sound of approaching danger.

Hunts-The-Web pauses for a minute more before he takes another step forward and looks over at the spiders to check their reactions to that step. And why not? He takes two steps into the web.

At each step a tremor seems to shake through the web, unseen except for its effects, the spiders looking up, one by one, in an expanding circle away from the cub, and then just as quickly dropping their heads and going back about their task of spinning and knitting, rubbing in the sticky stuff that clings to the Crinos' paws. Each successive step is more difficult, it takes concerted effort to rip the leg away from the ground, drawing with it gobs of sticky grey semi-solid which stick to the cub's lower legs like phlegm to a tissue. The sound of the creatures is everywhere, it digs in under the skin, the strange work song of the Weaver, invading the ears and brain and driving away thoughts, crystallizing the mind to its rhythm.

Hunts-The-Web shakes his head, trying to block out the sound and trudges onward through the mesh that clings to his feet. He looks down at his feet, and thinks about trying to rip the stuff off but shakes his head and continues onward. He looks back at Natalie and Scratch to see if they're still there and how they are doing with the webs.

The two cliath are still there, still watching. Scratch notices the boy moving on and nudges the Galliard; she looks over sharply, then nods and murmurs something to the old Ahroun. After a few more seconds the pair rise and move off on all fours at an angle to the cub's path.

The Ahroun gets twenty metres into the web, passing spiders which do not see him except with each step when they look up automatically with their sunken empty eyes, passing gaping doorways and jagged telephone poles which jut out of cracked concrete like canine teeth out of bare bloody gums. Suddenly with an unerring and frightening synchronization a half dozen of the spiders move as one, converging on an area a couple metres in front of the cub.

Hunts-The-Web sees this and gives a quick step forward and attempts to jump clean over the six spiders as they come toward him and as he lands continues to run before giving a look back to the weaver spirits.

The jump lands shorter than intended, though still far enough, the thick goo of the web trailing past the cub's feet as he hurls himself through the air, tugging at his step, dragging at his great strength. He lands heavy in the web behind, sinking in it deep, stuck hard, only just managing to keep his balance. The spiders move with speed un-hinted at before, they're already behind him, the closest already with its pincerlike legs clinging to the fur on the back of his legs, digging its single metal needlelike fang into his flesh, sending pain like lightning up the cub's spine. The other spiders, all around, look up from their work; after a half second some begin scurrying towards him, and most go back about their tedious work.

Hunts-The-Web roars out his pain and frustration and claws at his back, seeking the spider that is digging into him and attempts to wrench it free while crushing it in his grasp, ~You will not be calcifying me today!~

The Ahroun yanks the spider from his skin, leaving its needle half-buried in the cub's flesh like a bee's stinger, and he crushes the thing as easily as a soda can in his great paw, its legs twitch and squirm, and its juices, dark and thick as motor oil, spill down his fur. The other spiders swarm against him in the brief distraction the one's death brings, two more drill their pincer-fangs into the skin of his leg, while the three others nearby, buoyed rather than fettered by their own web, jump up against his lower back, clinging to his fur with their fierce little legs. The ones in the distance, only recently alerted, scurry faster, forming a small foot-high wall that sweeps towards him as inexorable as low tide. The sound has changed, above and ringing through the drudging work song is a shrill high whine like the whirr of a dentist's drill.

Hunts-The-Web mentally curses again as he shifts down into lupus and attempts to rage forward and leap out of the web he's being held in, trying to surge forward and somehow leap over the wall, for the time being not caring about the things clinging to him.

The three on his back bury their fangs in his flesh all at once, right by the shoulders, scraping muscle from bone. The web grabs at the cub's four paws now, like a hundred little snagging hands, and he finds the going even more difficult in this form, as he finds the resistance of the web twice as heavy to his smaller frame, and four legs. As seconds tick by, rage and sound robbing thought, the wave of spiders crashing in on him thicken and scatter, until they're spread out like soldiers in long rows and columns. They're within five metres, now.

Hunts-The-Web shifts again to crinos and tries once more to rage out of the way of the oncoming spiders while trying to loose the ones digging into his back, ~Weaver box! I can give Weaver things I have made with my Weaver box! Friend! Not trying to intentionally hurt!~ He yells, though he doubts they even understand him, or care.

He rips the spiders from his back, throws them to the ground where they curl up like fists, and he runs on, red spots staining his coat and the spider's ichor covering his hands. He tries to out pace the spiders like a linebacker, but the strands of the webbing, turned to muck beneath the great wolf-beast's bruising tread, cling to his paws. The thread has ridden up to the second joint of his digigrade legs, tangling him up. On both sides the spiders advance, a dozen in active pursuit beyond, a half-dozen behind, and so many more paying him no attention, continuing their mundane task, chittering away, webbing and weaving. Directly in front of him yawns the dark entrance of a building's husk, grey and hollow, promising immediate but temporary solace, but no visible way back out.

Hunts-The-Web makes for the building as quick as he can trying to rip his feet loose with every step, but even then it's slow going. He goes for the entrance with all the speed he is allowed: hardly any.

The spiders come serging up behind like dozens of tiny, vicious dogs, crawling up his legs and leaping onto his back, driving in their little pincers, just as he goes smashing through the doorway. It's a tight squeeze, his shoulder smashes a grey brick loose from the frame, a spider gets crushed against the wall, black blood sprays across Hunts-the-Web's fur. Spiders spill in through the door after him, though his paws here smack smoothly against the ground, the webbing clings to his feet and slows him but not anywhere near so dramatically as it had. The house is as much cave as a home, it stretches cavernously all the way up to the roof, no walls define it, no spirits inhabit it, no furniture clutters it, it is empty and hollow, and it echoes the drilling battle cry of the spiders back down at them.

Hunts-The-Web runs through the house, tearing at the remaining spiders as he goes and tries to gain some ground in running away from the warrior spiders, ~Cockroach, a little advise would be really wonderful right about now, friend!~

No answer comes except for the keel of the spider. They continue pouring in through the door until they carpet the entranceway, they clamber over each other to get to him, crawling up the walls. The pair he rips from his fur fall but not all die, they find their feet on hitting the ground and without thought or pause move right back at him, while those he fails to rip away dig deeper into his flesh, rooting past fur and muscle towards bone and organ. The song of the spiders increases until it's like a the beat of a thousand tiny drums.

Cavernous as the room is, it feels close, like an alley or a tomb, all corners and walls, no doors or air.

Hunts-The-Web has apparently gone beyond his limit as he roars out in pain yet again and reaches for the spiders on his back while wading into the oncoming spiders his free fist grabbing, crushing, rending, and his teeth gnashing. Wild. Out of control.

Back outside, the two Cliath lope back to where they last saw Hunts-the-Web. There's a few patches of skin missing between the two, and some bleeding, but the pair is relatively unharmed. Scratch rears up to his hind feet to try and peer through the webs to find the cub, while Holds-the-Line stays on all fours, ears cocked and nose working furiously. ~Kid went that way,~ the Ahroun says, pointing, and the two work cautiously through the webs, disturbing the spiders and their webs as little as possible.

Spiders go flat against the floor, spilling out over the concrete, crushed like watermelons dropped from the roof. Their fragile limbs snap under the pressure of the Ahroun's paws, their heads shatter like porcelain. But they jump at his arms, his back, crawl up his legs, they move faster than he has time to deal with them, puncturing his skin with their sharp little pincers until he leaks like a barrel full of holes, though his rage never abates, his pace never slackens. The blood loss is growing heady, though, and vision becomes muddy, the world is soon just a red smear.

The spiders on the web outside react to the two Cliaths' intrusion just as they had to the cub's: each step brings an automatic glance up from the machine-headed spiders, however cautiously it's taken, however slowly it's put down. Eventually they too reach a point where the spiders gather, and again they send out a small group of half a dozen spiders towards them, congregating just in front. The sound of the spiders' war cry as they clamber over Hunts-the-Web's body, rend his flesh, echoes against the building's cavernous walls like a horn, and it makes it out across to the two Cliath clear as day.

Holds-the-Line and Scratch, neither of them inexperienced, freeze as soon as the spiders' attention grows too great. Eventually the spiders will become disinterested with them - at least, that's how it usually works.

Hunts-The-Web goes down fighting to the last, every muscle pushed to exertion, every tendon pulling for strength, every beat of the heart trying to futilely give much needed blood to the body. Snapping, biting, clawing and every one that come near until his movements slow, shudder, falter and stops. So lies Saul "Hunts-The-Web" Spades. The little warrior that never gave up.

The floor is a sticky mess of blood and whatever it was that ran through the spiders' twisted bodies. Well over half of those that went through the door after the Ahroun lay crumpled and scattered about, he still clutches one which still twitches in his now-Homid hand, when Holds-the-Line and Scratch find him.

The remaining spiders see to the task of reclaiming the dead, dragging the bodies of the killed Weaver creatures back out to the web, to be bound back into it.

"Damn," Holds-the-Line says, breaking into English for the sheer vehemence of the expletive. Scratch is more pragmatic, roaring at the spiders and leaping to rip the weavers off the cub's body. The Galliard's a few steps behind him, smashing spiders that get too interested in her and helping tear Saul's body from the webbing.

Those few spiders that remain pose little challenge to the two older Garou, and they successfully pull Saul's body from the webs of the Weaver, though the threads still cling to him. It isn't long before they're again out in the woods, where Luna shines bright again, if slightly more wan than before.

[End of log]