I don't think your companion wants anyone following her, and I doubt she can save herself or Eyes-of-Clay. If you want to help him, you'll have to do it yourself.
I see you've only dealt with lesser spirits. Now, to your credit, you dealt quite handsomely with that Bane, but you must learn to accept a certain free flow of thought and intention if you are to deal with beings of greater majesty, such as myself. And the one for whom I am only an emissary.
Don't worry, though. My powers are quite constrained after everything that has happened.
After curing Clay, you and Elton trav
With Black Tarn returned to lucidity and Beaver starting to awaken, the gr
Ah, it fails. Do you see? The book of the world defies me.
The storm-colored cat hops off the brick wall and starts cutting through the woods. You shake off the snow covering you and stamp your feet.
The spirit turns and beckons for you to hurry. She looks tired and thin, with patches of missing fur and blood on her paw pads. No, I…do I really look like that? Great Gaia, you're right. Once, I shamed the sphinxes, haunted the dreams of tigers.
And you don't have many chances left. You've failed twice tonight: first when you failed to kill the rider, then when you let that camera record Clay in the moment of his great indignity. What will they do if you fail a third time tonight? If you can't learn something to help your wounded packmate?
But they are not your pack, you know. Or think. Or maybe I think it for you. This body isn't slowing down, you'll notice; please keep pace. And I should remind you that you're just a cub—a werewolf, but not "Garou." You're less a member of the pack than the Beaver spirit, or the van. But let's actually think about how to fix this problem. I sprint through the woods on delicate feet, leaving sad red tracks, widely spaced, then stop on a fallen pine and turn as you hurry to catch up. I look quite elegant, neck long and sleek, eyes shining. Great Gaia, I am magnificent! Not a ragged skin-puppet at all! So let's review what we know. We are at least reasonably confident that Clay ate tainted flesh. The flesh, you recall, was quite tempting. Can we learn something from that? What about the accouterments of the horse and rider? You checked them already, but couldn't activate the tablet. Is there anything here that can tell us about what happened to Eyes-of-Clay?
And you see that I've led you through the woods back to the site of your battle. The horse is still there, its remaining guts strewn all over the snow, already frozen. A faint howl drifts through the air. Black Tarn? You can't be sure. And if I know, I'm not saying.
You examine the horse-thing. Dead and by now partly frozen. Blood is everywhere. Its entrails have been eaten and blood stains the snow. But that saddle looks like an ordinary leather saddle. You don't see any Garou glyphs or anything explicitly supernatural.
Maybe you could grab the whole saddle and look for identifying marks. Your thoughts? No, mine. I'm talking again. Just talking, though. Just making conversation—nothing more. And if you find something to identify the marks, then you can do some old-fashioned detective work in town. Ask around, see who knows anything.
You can start a serious investigation after sunrise. Assuming "investigation" is a real thing? Like, can you actually hit the pavement and ask people questions, which leads to more people you can ask more questions to? Or is that just what happens on detective shows?
The first thing you do is remove the saddle, so the first thing you learn is that saddles are surprisingly heavy. There's also the problem of the gore: the saddle peels away with a Velcro noise, leaving ropey strands of half-frozen blood like pink mozzarella.
You should take a picture. That's me again, offering advice. Spider told me all about smartphones. I'm pretty high-tech for a cat.
"I don't have a—"
The cat is gone. There's a little sizzle in your brain as your thoughts settle back into their accustomed shape. But don't worry; I'll be keeping my eye on you, cub.
The saddle has a little oval that says J.L. HEANEY, MAKER. You think there's a town and state below, but it's been abraded away. You don't have a phone, so you pull out a notebook and do your best to sketch the maker's mark, and then you draw the saddle itself from several angles. Maybe the saddle's shape is important, so you try to capture that.
Your hands are freezing by the time you're done, so you stomp over to the dead horseman. The tablet is completely destroyed, every port filled with frozen blood, but you find a wallet in his camo jacket. No ID, but your numb hands fumble over $140 in bills—you stuff them into your empty zipper-wallet.
You and Scarper don't always see eye to eye, but he taught you how to survive. This is how. But now you need to start asking questions.
No, wait: now you need to get out of the cold before you die.
Next
Buses aren't running yet, but walking into town warms you up. First stop: Rite Aid. You buy a loofah with soap already in it, a pack of new white t-shirts, and thick wool socks. Then you lock the store's bathroom and clean yourself up in the sink. There's a lot of dried blood, but you scrape it off and dump everything in the trash can. The fleece and parka go, too—they're beyond saving. That means you have to hurry down the street, arms crossed, to the cheap consignment shop.
It's cold in here, too, a cold not helped by the ugly glare of the woman behind the counter. She looks like she's biding her time, picking out a really good slur to call you. But you have money now to buy clean clothes. Good ones, not so expensive that you can't afford to explode out of them in a burst of Rage, but not the dirty, sweat-smelling cast-offs Clay used to toss your way. You look for something that will help you in your investigations. After searching the racks and making sure you have enough money for necessary cold-weather clothing, you pick out—
A little morbid, and perhaps old-fashioned, but it's important to know what you are. Gaia's death angel, enemy of the Wyrm and bringer of carnage and ruin.
A brief search in the back turns up some black jeans, a few old t-shirts from local Obama-era punk and metal bands, a spidery black sweater, and Doc Martens. But you can't dress like a California health goth in a Buffalo winter, so you also grab thermal undergarments, cold-weather police gloves, and a puffy black coat that makes you look like either a space vampire or an ambulatory plastic trash bag, you can't decide. It's warm, though.
The clerk glares at you the whole time. The People of the Map will never trust you. Ignoring those hard, cold eyes, you also buy a lighter, some maps, a roll of toilet paper, and some plastic baggies in case the snow turns to rain. Then you pay and get dressed.
But as you spot your black-on-black reflection in a mirror trimmed with flaking gold leaf and sort through your remaining money, you realize that one of your folded bills contains a receipt. Banicki Gunworks in some place called Northampton.
Oh damn, a "clue." You've never actually "found a clue" before. That's pretty cool. You can't call the place since you don't have a phone, but it's time to hit the streets and learn about that saddle.
Next
You pass most of the morning walking up and down Broadway, the main street in town, poking your head into every tack and feed store, leather goods shop, and army surplus store. You also check the library for Heaney. Nothing—at least nothing relevant.
But, standing in the vestibule of the little library, you remember that receipt. A quick search on a library computer reveals that Banicki Gunworks closed down last year, and you can't get more information about it. But that very silence is interesting. Maybe that's something.
You're outside of the library, wondering if you should have bought that pentagram necklace for a dollar, when a familiar yellow van screams to a halt in the brick turnaround. Scarper bounces off a curb and shouts, "Where the fuck have you been? Why didn't you call?" out the half-open window. A few people turn and stare.
"I—" you start to explain.
"'I, I, I!'" Scarper mocks, perfectly mimicking your tone of voice and yet adding a tone of absurdity to it. "I'm so sick of your voice. 'We're not done yet, people might be in danger!'" You scowl at your words coming from Scarper's mouth.