Liam's awakening was not a leisurely one. By now, the Cardinal's ghouls had delivered her to the city's edge. She would be waiting for him, and even on the wing it was a long and difficult voyage. A fresh blood dolls was at his door when he awoke, and he quickly drank his fill before meeting Augusto in his "Office".

One of the explosives was out for inspection. The others were already packed in dry bags. Five of these, including the one in front of Liam, were large gray tubes. They bore no labels or marks, and at one end a pair of protruding wires had been taped flush against the endcap. These, as Augusto explained, contained the real explosives. Five dummies had been spray-painted orange, and contained primarily flash powder. They'd create a powerful bang and a bright flash for anyone unfortunate enough to be standing nearby when they went off.

With the cargo secured, he said his farewells and took to the skies.

[Giving you an Auto on STR+ATH DC6. Also -1 BP for Shape of the Beast]

Augusto's directions led him to a boat launch at a rural access road about half a kilometre from the coastal highway. Liam spotted the large SUV's four-ways flashing from a fair distance. It was parked by the launch with its hood popped. As he grew closer, he saw a woman he didn't recognize leaning against the back, her head buried in a cell phone. There was no sign of traffic on the access road, nor the highway. The access road was far enough from the highway - and its streetlights - that the truck and its surroundings were bathed in darkness.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:29, Mon 05 June 2023.

Liam alighted a short ways up the road and regained his usual guise before approaching. "Engine troubles?" he asked politely, adjusting the dry bags so that they sat more evenly across his shoulders.


12:32, Today: Liam O'Farrell rolled 100 using 1d100 with rolls of 100.  Fate.

Reposting this here for posterity, because I still can't believe it.

"Yeah," the woman said flippantly. "One of the spark plugs decided to fire a couple hours late." She was short, much shorter than Liam. Five foot two, tops. Her dark hair was cropped and unkempt, and the wild look in her eyes told Liam that she was most likely a Gangrel.

She looked over his shoulder. "This the guy?"

"Yes," Chianna's voice came from behind. Though it sounded... off.

The creature that stood behind him had nothing of its humanity intact. If he'd not heard the voice, he wouldn't have recognized the creature that towered over him. She stood on six spindly limbs covered in thick black chitin. Greenish membranes covered the points of flexure. Her arms were equally spindly, and sat up high on her featureless, cylindrical torso. Each limb bore a large triangular fin, and they were arranged around her hips and shoulders in perfect radial symmetry. Her head - such as it was - was a hexagonal prism with a shallow pointed top. A single green eye sat fixed in the centre of each face.

The form folded its multi-jointed legs - much like a compact umbrella - and three of her eyes fixed upon him as she lowered her faces to his level. The motion was horrifyingly soundless. Her voice seemed to come from within the head, vented out through tiny spiracles in her exoskeleton.

"Good evening, Liam," she said. "I hope your flight here was uneventful."

Liam did his best not to let his surprise show in his expression. Rick had been right, Liam knew. He’d known it at the time. It was easy to look past the monster within when Chianna resembled nothing so much as a marble Venus and the two were exchanging pleasantries over vitae bottled before he himself had been born. The hints were always there, certainly. The arboretum. The Vozhd - this one was hardly subtle. But always it had been possible to find a veneer of humanity, if only because Liam had allowed himself to see it - had needed to see it because dealing with the Sabbat Cardinal was an inevitable fact of life, or unlife as the case may be.

But now, faced with the creature before him, it was more apparent than ever that this was and had always been nothing more than a veneer. There was nothing human in the monster before him. Nothing natural. Liam, unabashedly the most gifted shapeshifter of which he knew, could never hope to contort his form into something similar because there was no template for it in the natural order - no analog he realized, except for one…

A virus. Specifically a prolate capsid virus, though Liam being uneducated in microbiology could not put a name to it. It was an unflattering comparison to say the least, but Liam couldn’t help but wonder if the symmetry had been intentional. Chianna knew, he was certain. Perhaps she was making a statement.

“Long but happily uneventful,” he replied, picking one eye on which to focus. “Augusto relayed your instructions faithfully.”

To the gangrel standing beside the car he tipped his head. “Liam O’Farrell. Pleased to meet you.”

As Liam addressed the Cardinal, the woman had opened the back of the SUV and set about retrieving her supplies. Through the open hatch, Liam could see the dark form of an unidentified driver.

"June Roy," the woman responded. She shouldered a large leather fannypack under one arm, and hoisted Liam's backpack with the other. She stumbled a little, vastly overestimating the bag's weight. She jiggled it a little, listening to the telltale crinkling. "Did... did you pack this full of chips or what?"

“And peanut butter cups,” Liam confirmed. “I have a wizard with a snack habit who’s been cut off from convenience stores for months,” he added by way of explanation.

“Always keep your wizard happy. That’s rule number one of surviving the lockdown.”

"I wouldn't know," June said with a smirk. "I'm only here 'cause I can turn into a fish. That, and the Boss doesn't want to carry your wizard chow." Then, she added quietly: "Personally, I think a fanny pack would ruin her whole aesthetic."

"I heard that," Chianna said as she scuttled silently toward the river. "And I do not disagree."

"So, anything we need to know about this trip?" June added.

Liam had taken this route a couple times by now. He knew exactly where the storm system emptied out, and he had memorized the route up to the Iron Graveyard. With the protests distracting the military, he didn't anticipate any resistance.

"The mortals are using thermal cameras to enforce their cordon. Anything that should be warm-blooded and isn't gets shot. Fortunately fish aren't warm blooded, and even if they were I don't think the cameras can image through the water to any real depth. So far they haven't thought to add sonar."

"While we're crossing the cordon stay low through the middle of the channel. After that, stick close to me. I can get us to the Iron Graveyard without ever coming up for air."

"We thought about sonar," said June. "It won't matter either way, because we'll look like native fish and the boss won't even show up."

Indeed, even with Liam's enhanced vision, the Cardinal's inky carapace disappeared entirely against the blackness of the moonlit river. She slipped in up to her waist, and turned her eyes on the pair.

"I have tried to make this as straightforward as possible," said Chianna. "But I do not know how long the extraction will take. We should make haste."

"You heard the lady," June said, heading towards the river. "The sooner we get there, the more time we have to do this right."

Liam nodded and took a breath more out of habit than any biological need. It would be his last for hours. Slipping into the dark waters of the St. Lawrence, Liam shifted form once more and took off along with the moving current.

It was a less-than-leisurely swim through the waters, but they made excellent time.

It appeared as though the military had considered the marine route, and several nets had been set up along the length of the river at the blockade. However, the nets were unconnected and the cordon was incomplete, and it looked as though work had stopped with the approach of nightfall. They all slipped by easily and without issue.

As they moved past the cordon, Liam's head pounded. They were bombarding the waters with some sort of ultrasonic signal. He wasn't sure this would deter actual wildlife from being caught in the net, but he wasn't entirely convinced the military was sure either.

Once they were nearer to the city, Liam quickened his pace. The storm sewers weren't as choked with water as last time, and they needed to revert back to human form before they'd made it halfway to the facility. From there, they set a brisk pace, and came to the surface at an underpass nearby to the rusted-out mine.

[Auto on perception check]

The facility showed more signs of activity than his last visit. Two Redwatch SUVs were parked inside the barn-like structure that was once the workshop. One was empty, and the other had its doors wide open. The radio was playing music, and Liam could hear the sounds of conversation within the structure. If Liam wanted to take the stairs or slide down the elevator shaft, he'd need to go through them.

The only other apparent ingress was the decaying flat roof that covered the open pit. A decade of neglect had caused several of the corrugated steel panels to rust out, and in some cases, drop off entirely. It would be a simple matter to fly through. Liam could hear the faint sounds of muted conversation coming from somewhere below. The facility acted as a giant amphitheatre, and he had no doubt that signs of a struggle would carry.

Liam also knew of a bolthole from the old days. It came to the surface a good kilometre away, just before the switchback up the ridge into the northern forest. It would be a fair hike, but it would lead them straight to the lowest stratum, near the Cardinal's alabaster haven. However, this would leave the Redwatch with the uncontested high ground. It was certainly a more enticing option as a means of escape.

"So how do you want to do this?" June asked.

"I would prefer to drop straight through the roof and down to my child," said Chianna. "And start the extraction immediately, or on your signal. The process will be... noisy, but the cause of its distress will not be readily apparent. Once I begin, it will require my full concentration, and I will be unable to assist you. If you require my assistance in crushing these vermin, say so now."

"I'm no slouch in a fight," said June, flexing her hands as Protean claws began to form. "But I'm not the tactician here. O'Farrell, it's your call."