LogMotW:Quoth the Raven-Jason-2

Game log for the 2022/02/06 session of MotW:Quoth the Raven, as taken by Jason

A couple weeks after the winter gift incursion, the weather has returned to Texas normal. Chet's on the highway, going to meet some lady he met online. He tops a rise, rounds a bend, and finds black lumps all over the road, with a pickup truck off the side. The lumps squish when he drives over them. They look to be dead crows. The pickup truck's windows are all fogged up, and there's a little girl with her face pressed up against it.

He passes the lumps, pulls over, and goes to investigate. It's too quiet, but he doesn't see any threats. He calls up Sougand and sends him a picture. Unfortunately it's 7:30 in the morning and all Sougand has to say is, "fuck you". Chet hears the doors of the truck unlock, and the little girl gets out. She says her Daddy got scared and left, and hasn't come back yet. He tells her to get back in the truck, then asks Sougand to call the THP and send help. Sougand does that thing, then calls an Uber out to the scene. Sammy takes the call and comes to give him a ride. Sougand gets in, takes off his shades, puts a sleeping mask on, puts his sunglasses back on on top of the mask, and catches an extra eight minutes of sleep.

When they arrive, the girl is still in the truck, Chet hanging out and trying to keep her calm. The girl turns out to be Julie Williams. Sougand gets out and starts using magic to enable him to see even though he's got sunglasses over his sleeping mask. Sammy investigates the crime scene (contaminating the hell out of it) but doesn't find anything. Behind the roadside bushes, there's a terrible stench of shit and blood. Another step later and he finds a human body, hung in a tree, completely skinned. It's male.

Sougand reads the girls' thoughts. The crows massed their forces and went full The Birds on the truck, forcing their way in. Her Dad went to investigate something he saw off the side of the road. She thought she saw something but can't prciesly articulate what it was.

A few minutes later, the law shows up. Sougand deigns to open his eyes at last. Chet explains what he found, and Sammy points the cop to the body. The law enforcement official vomits profusely and calls for backup and body removal services. The cop doesn't really believe what Chet's selling (possibly because he's hanging around a scared little girl and waving a bat around), and cuffs him in the back seat. He hands his business cards to Sammy and Sougand and asks them to visit the station. One deputy takes Julie away, Sougand drives Chet's El Dorado to the cop shop, and Sammy drives there in his Kia to that very same cop shop. The coroner shows up as everyone's getting ready to go. The coroner introduces himself as Dr William Billyups, and goes to work. From the jail, Chet calls Jacob, figuring he's the best shot he has at bail.

In town, some kids are putting flyers on cars, advertising a rally against something called Green Mark.

Chet goes full-on sovereign citizen on the cops. The booking sergeant is a large black woman who has no time for this and no inclination to make any such time. They keep him in the holding calls while they figure out what to do with their new pet idiot.

Sougand greets Julie in the cop shop, and waits his turn. Sammy writes up his statement and leaves. Julie says, "That's my dad!" and go running out the door and into the hardware store. She tells Damien she saw her dad come in and needs to find him. Damien walks her around the hardware store to find Dad. There is, of course, no sign of Dad in the store. Damien asks Julie to stay with Sougand and then checks for Dad in back. When he goes in back, just before the back door, it's Melba Williams, owner of the hardware store, skinned. Damien vomits profusely.

When he recovers, he looks around for clues. Someone cut her throat, skinned her, and ran out the back door, presumably carrying the skin with them. There's a trail of blood going out the back door. He pulls his knife, opens the back door, and looks around.

Sougand, meanwhile, tries to understand Julie's story. There's not much more to it. She really did think she saw her dad walk in the front door.

Damian, having made a mess of the crime scene, calls the law.

The cops arrive and go into full crime scene mode. Damien's got to go make his statement, so he starts locking the store up. As he gets his stuff out of the break room, he finds a small leather purse on the floor. He picks it up and puts it in his pocket.

Sougand gives his statement at last and leaves. Damien discovers Julie gone when he's done, and leaves. Jacob shows up in response to Chet's call and tells the clerk he's there to bail Chet out. They give Chet the "don't leave town" speech and release him to Jacob, briefing him in on events as he knows them. They encounter Damien, who tells them about the body at the hardware store. They bump into Damien, who can't get back into the hardware store. As they compare notes, Chet remembers he was driving to meet Ashley, who probably wonders where the hell he is. She's blocked his number.

Jacob decides to investigate the blood trail, with Chet acting as lookout. Chet's so conspicuous that he's a useless lookout, but behind one of the dumpsters, he sees a bloody set of men's clothing crumpled up and stuffed back there. The coroner sees Chet there and comes over to talk to him. Chet insists that he's said all he has to say but lies and tells the coroner that Sougand found the body earlier. Once the coroner leaves, Jacob explains that there's a skinwalker out there. The clothing roughly tracks with what Julie's dad was wearing. There's a symbol on the pouch, which Jacob photographs for reference. There was a hang tag in the truck with the Green Mark logo on it, and Melba was once photographed welcoming the Green Mark president to town. Green Mark is a lumber company. The plot thickens! Chet opines that the skin walker's behavior is probably justified, and we should let it go. Jacob realizes that whatever's skinning people is protecting the wilderness, which may or may not mean he agrees with Chet.

They go to Sougand's, not waking him up, and do some research on his computer. He wakes up just as Jacob finds out there the Texas Clean organization operates. Sougand attunes himself to the skinwalker and realizes it's at Folley Peak, looking for prey, and it's stalking the most vulnerable prey, which might be protestors, loggers, or surveyors - it hasn't made up its mind yet. He tells the rest of the Scooby gang about it and dumps a tray of ice on Chet's head. Sougand really wants to go right after the skinwalker, but Chet and Jacob think they should find out who summoned it. Sougand does some research and discovers that someone had to conduct a ritual and accept the skinwalker into themselves.

The gang decides that Chet and Jacob will retrieve Chet's car, then go meet with Texas Clean. Sammy will take Sougand and Damien up into the woods. Chet takes a minute and tries to fake up some documents about Green Mark' plans to make things even worse.

Sammy drives everyone to Damien's house, where they switch to Damien's truck. Damien swings past the hardware store to see if the cops need anything there. The cops will npot allow him to take anything. The three of them get into the truck and head into the woods.

When Chet open his car, there's a dead bird on the seat, with its head removed sand then sewn on backward. He refuses to be warned off, and the two of them take Chet's El Dorado to the Texas Clean meeting. There are a few people there. One of them, a brunette female, comes over and asks if they're the people who contacted the organization. She introduces herself as Melanie Richards and she's super happy to see them, even though they both start tearing her a new asshole about how terrible she is at running a clandestine organization. As they're reading her the riot act, Chad Rathers comes up, grabs her by the pony tail, and pulls her away from them, wrapping an arm around her midsection. Chad's an asshole, but Chet establishes himself as the alpha here, and he and Jacob maneuver him away so they can talk to him alone. Turns out Chad is really serious about this, and will do just about anything to help push the movement forward. He's the face of the operation, but not the brains, not the fist. When Chet starts explaining that they have information which might get Chad killed, and that they need to talk to a decision maker, Chad seems worried, but he refuses to admit that he's not in charge. He insists that he made the decision to send the protesters into the woods, and he's not backing down. Melanie tries to drift back into the conversation, but all three of them want her to stay out of it. It does turn out that some protesters will be chaining themselves to a special tree to keep Texas Green from logging it. They have cameras placed so that they can livestream their defeat of the protesters. Young Chad is aghast to hear that people have been killed over this, and doesn't entirely believe them. Jacob ducks away to talk one-on-one with Melanie.

Melanie insists that Chad's really in charge, and is a really great guy to boot. Despite that, she asks about Chet. Anyway. Chad's in charge, and #2 is Melanie, or maybe the other girl. Jacob gives her Chet's number and then goes to talk to Mae Walker. He asks her straight out if she's the real brains, and she doesn't deny it. She's in her early 30s, which makes her a little older than the other two, and she confirms that the protects at Texas Green HQ were to distract the company while they got their protest organized in the woods. She does seem very surprised when Jacob mentions rituals. She doesn't believe anyone did anything of the sort, though her Grannie apparently used to dabble in a little light witchcraft. She insists she doesn't know of anyone who unleashed anything on the town. He puts 2 and 2 together and realizes she left the bird in Chet's car, but it's actually a protection, not a malediction. Chet and Jacob decide that they're done there. Chet hands Chad the documents he faked up. Then they back up and get ready to follow Mae wherever she goes. Jacob calls Damien and updates him with the latest intel.

Damien's having to take a roundabout path and then tresspass on some logging roads, and then the trio ends up on foot, hiking up from the bridge. Damien's tooled up to hunt monsters, Sougand's wearing jeans and a Carhartt coat over a wife beater, and Sammy's wearing his nice driver getup, chinos, a cardigan, and a flat cap. As they go, some dude wearing Texas Parks and Wildlife gear steps out of the brush and calls out to them. He's concerned that Damien's poaching. Damien does have a license, so they mostly talk their way out of it.

At the top of the hill, there's a sawmill. The three of them take a look, and discover bloodstains. Beyond the saw table, there's a pit with a body in it. Damien notices crows in the trees. Sammy notices a Druidic sacrificial circle around the table. Sougand figures the skin walker can be killed with cold iron, or be packed in salt and then spiked through the heart. Damien's got some iron spikes, so he's set. They head north in pursuit. Damien notices it's a half moon, so at least they might be safe from werewolves.

Sougand attunes to the skin walker again, and senses it's just come out of the woods around the sawmill, looking down. Sammy wanders in that direction, just casually sauntering. He sees Melba looking down, and calls out, "Hey Melba, is that you?" The skin walker answers in the affirmative. Damien calls out, "Sammy, take it out!" Sammy wades into the fray, just planning to punch the skin walker until it's had enough. The skin walker screams and sort of teleports behind Sammy, halfway between Sammy and Damien and Sougand. Sougand's jinx caused the skinwalker to end up facing away from Damien, but now it turns to look right at her. Sammy tries to use magic to trap the monster in place, but he loses control of his mojo and lands flat on his ass. Luckily Sammy's still there, and while the monster's pondering killing Damien, he rabbit punches it. Owie! Damien tries to shoot it again, but ends up shooting Sammy by mistake, it being close quarters in the dark. Sougand stands up again and uses up the rest of his jinx on the skin walker, causing it to stumble and fall awkwardly. It teleports into the trees. Sammy can tell it has some way of moving between trees, so it's going to escape at this rate. He gives chase.

Sougand thinks fast and comes up with another spell, blocking the skin walker from going into the trees. Now it has to move overland, just like Sammy, but somehow loss of its magical exit seems to have made it even faster. Damien uses his flashlight to help Sammy follow it, and Sammy wales on it so hard that the skin of its arm comes off. Unfortunately the rest of it seems to get away. With Damien's light and Sougand's investigatorial nous, they figure it's headed to Buckler Hill.

Chet and Jacob follow Mae. Once it's dark, they go in. Chet seems to know what he's doing, and they're in the house in no time. They hear some noise in one of the bedrooms. Jacob notices that there's a magical ward over the bedroom door. They come up with an ingenious scheme in which Jacob will make a noise elsewhere, and Chet will grab her when she comes out of her bedroom. In short order, Chet collects a bite wound, and they duct tape her to a kitchen chair. Chet asks her directly who summoned the skinwalker, and she has no idea. They get her to agree to be quiet, and show her the mark on the leather pouch they found. Mae's shocked to hear that Melba's dead. She tells them about Lucius and Andrew Tiedens, twins who went to high school in town. She used to date Lucius, but broke up with him, because he's a power-mad dick. The brothers left town, and when Lucius came back, he'd changed. Mae thinks Lucius sacrificied Andrew for power. She'll talk more if Chet will get her to her Grandma's house. They do that. Chet gives her his phone number, and tells her to call him if she sees anything.

Chet asks Grandma (Martha Taylor where Lucius would go if he was wounded or scared, and she pooints them to Buckler Hill, and also tells them it can be killed with cold iron, or being packed in salt and then staked.

Sammy, Damien, and Sougand roll throgh Buckler Hill, but can't find it. Chet calls to check in, and they all huddle around a speaker phone exchanging intelligence. Chet thinks the monster's likely to go back to the sawmill, since that might be where it came from. After talking, though, they figure it's more likely it will go after protesters, and Jacob comes up with some GPS coordinates for where the protesters are. When the Scoobies arrive, all the protesters have been skinned. Jacob and Chet send pictures of the protesters, so that Sammy and friends will recognize the skin walker if it's wearing one of them. Then Chet and Jacob go to visit Mae to get more pictures, which they also forward.

Sammy asks if we should go back to the truck. Sougand asks if that's really the fastest way to catch up with the monsters. Sammy admits he might have a faster way of getting there. As they talk, they encounter an older woman walking around the woods, of the classic hippie variety. They make polite noises. They move on, Sougand operating based on a hunch as to how to get there. That hunch is completely wrong. Sougand and anyone with him is guaranteed to arrive late.

Jacob and Chet arrive at the protest, and are shocked to find Mae there. She says she needs to be there and also that Granny is up in the hills, defending her grove. The local deputy is watching the scene. Chet and Jacob go looking for anyone matching one of the six pictures they're carrying, but they don't see them. The protest goes on, and Sammy, Damien, and Sougand show up as the protest winds down. Someone starts throwing eggs, the deputy wades in, some physical contact ensues, pepper spray flies, and Sougand ends up catching a dose. Then they hear sirens coming down the road, and then there's a helicopter overhead. This is escalating. The scoobies leave. Sougand casts that spell he made up for seeing without opening his eyes. Chet and Jacob grab Mae and depart. Mae gets a call from Grannie, who had the moral clarity / cowardice to call the cops and report them. Now the law's all over this.

Grannie thinks they should go to Bobbie William's house (that's Julie's dad) and passes that along to Jacob. He and Chet pass the word to the rest of the scoobies, who meet them there. It's a smallish one-story house with a detached garage. Sougand tries to tune in to the skin walker, but only feels that it's close now, and the skin walker becomes aware of him. Chet picks the lock on the front door and lets himself in. The skinwalker busts out of a closer and is all over Chet and Jacob before they know what's what, then runs for the door. Everyone rallies to the flag. Chet chases it down and attacks it, while Sougand jinxes it again. The jinx turns out to be irrelevant, because Chet stabs it about fifty times with an iron spike. It gurgles and dies. In death, it changes appearance, but it doesn't look like we'd expect Lucius too. It looks corrupted.

Chet needs medical attention, but the wounds are just big claw marks. Chet decides to go to the hospital and tell them he was attacked by a mountain lion while mountain biking. The hospital will settle for that.

When Jacob comes home, there's a silver sedan down the street from his house. Agents Sculder and Mulley are looking for information about a certain knife. They're not pressing him, but he's clearly on the fed's radar.