[end of the first day of the jaunt] Tell me baby, how do I turn my back on you, tell me how to leave

[finalizes]

Can we leave the immediate area of where any of us showed up safely?

And does anyone know or knows how to find out which direction would be best to head into if one wants to find the closest free wolf packs?

[When they arrived he figured that he would just stick with his pack and sometimes return to Liminal and it would be good, but he's already fed up with all the noise and all the humans. Plus he could really use some off-time from all this human-mind business. Just running with a wolf pack for a few days or more sounds perfect.

He just needs to find one and hope that it all works out.]

Comments

[truerevelation]

The concert itself's on the edge of the forest, it's a state park... Dunno what the wildlife situation's like out there - the local rangers would be the folks who know if there's any packs in the area. But if ya wanna go stretch your legs or, I dunno, go ask the locals if they've smelt anything funny, seems like a good place to start?

[finalizes]

Humans can't smell that well.

[He knows how human bodies work. He has one. They are positively deaf when it comes to anything but sight.]

Where can I find those rangers?

[truerevelation]

I was thinkin' the fuzzy kind of locals, if you're going looking for packs in the area... as for the rangers? Probably gonna find all that kinda stuff around the park entrance. Information stations and exhibits and everything like that.

[finalizes]

Most animals with a good sense of smell don't have territories large enough to make their information something I couldn't find out for myself. [As for other senses, though... his voice reflects him thinking what animals he could look out for to acquire information from that spans larger areas. Some species of larger or wide-roaming bird, probably. Maybe certain species of prey mammals, if the humans here let them roam freely enough. Assuming any of those want to talk to him.] I'll look into it.

How do I find the park entrance?

[truerevelation]

Fair enough, yeah. [It was worth a thought anyway. As it is, Kanji doesn't really have the time to make his overlay deal with the after effects of his own animal forms...] Hope somethin' works out.

Follow the road between the camp 'n the local town? There oughta be signs along there somewhere...

[finalizes]

[...] What would such a sign look like?

[He's going to have to drag someone along to help him identify the right signs. Maybe Gale. Gale could need some getting out right now. Even if the tracking in question is just a question of finding the right sign and the right human.]

[truerevelation]

[To be honest, Kanji'd probably agree with that sentiment.]

Man. Uh. Good question... Signposts, arrows... [Casey might have been looking on his way to the concert venue, but as for park specific information signs, Kanji's wondering what would be relevant.]

[finalizes]

...Is there a specific kind of picture that would denote rangers?

[Because if it relies entirely on reading, he'll be completely useless and have to rely entirely on someone who can identify the right words for him.]

[professorwolf]

If I recall, er, there aren't actually many wolves in California... I think they were just reintroducing them, in my time, twenty years later. I didn't live here, though, so take that with a grain of salt.

You may find the wolves here a bit disappointing, though. They probably won't understand you, and they won't have... mmm, the same sensibilities you do.

[finalizes]

If there are none in California, where would be the next closest area that they might live in? [Someone is from Europe and expects to be able to blow or run everywhere in the wider area within the six weeks that he assumes the jaunt to last.]

They'll be wolves, not werewolves. They aren't supposed to be able to think with a human-mind. That is why I want to find them.

[professorwolf]

Laughs-at-the-Storm, California is... very big. A couple of countries that you're used to will fit inside it. You'll be gone for weeks.

[And he may be a bit dismayed at the idea of his pack splitting up-- so many of them are still themselves this Jaunt. He'll let him go if Laughs really wants to, but he'll be sad.]

[finalizes]

I have the storm form.

[Which is faster than a wolf runs, though it depends more heavily on what currents there are in the air already.

He'd rather not be separated from his pack for all of the jaunt, especially with how badly Gale is doing right now. But he also needs to be among proper wolves, or at least Lupi. People who won't think with their human-mind before anything else.]

[truerevelation]

[Can't read, huh - well, he's not going to get onto someone across the network about it when he doesn't know their background.] Lemme think. Maybe a tent, or a tree, or ... I can't remember if there's a standard one. Sorry, dude.

[finalizes]

[And this is how Laughs ends up on five campsites and two tree-themed restaurants before actually finding rangers.]

I'll ask Gale if he wants to come.

[That's what packmates are for, after all. And if Gale refuses he'll bother... okay, not Hajime, but Lyall or Tick-Tock.]

[truerevelation]

[He's trying, at least?]

You guys friends? Yeah. Good thinking... [Kanji can totally get with the whole idea of 'distracting Gale'.]

[finalizes]

Packmates.

[His favourite packmate, even, though Lyall is a very close runner-up and generally just really not to be compared.]

[truerevelation]

[Kanji's looking at Casey's choice in jewellery, and fidgeting with the heaviest ring - the one most like a Junkyard Tag Ring. Of course. His reply's plenty friendly, though-]

Heh. He's a good guy to have in there.

[theflyingone]

[ Sometimes, not often, he feels the longing to slip into wolf form and dash across the land, forgetting about where the Jaunt itself is most likely to take place. He'd escaped a little on the last Jaunt, though by horse. However, he is not a true werewolf; he could choose not to use the form he'd retained after a Jaunt ever again, if he wanted. Unlike his Infiltrator, he did not live and breathe a werewolf's existence, and the moon did not rule him. ]

There is a bookstore in the city. Likely there is a library as well. You should be able to find maps of the area and books on wolf territories. Be careful, however. On the road, I saw a sign warning about mountain lions.

[professorwolf]

[Lyall is silent for a moment. Then he asks,]

If there are wolves about, I'd say go east and north, into the mountains. They'd be there. But can you manage to wait just another day? Maybe we can do something, the four of us still ourselves, tomorrow and then run together tomorrow evening, and then you can go.

[He doesn't want to waste the Jaunt time together.]

[finalizes]

We could all go together.

[He would like that, and he can stay around another day for the sake of the pack. He feels like all of them could need some running with wolves, so it's not like it would be bad for them, either.]

[finalizes]

[That was like the least useful advice of them all to Laughs, who cannot read to save his life. He'll consider the information about mountain lions, though.]

How big are mountain lions?

[finalizes]

He is. I'm glad to have him.

And it's good for him too to have an additional group that he belongs to, too. [Especially now that the people-from-home group is kind of failing him. Pack might not mean the same for Gale that it does for Laughs, but he still thinks that it is important enough to him that it will make Lupa's absence easier, and well. The way their pack here works, there is a certain baseline emotional stability that comes with it, faint as it may be.]

[professorwolf]

[Lyall hesitates, tempted, but in the end has to sigh and turn the idea down.]

I can only change at night, by day I'm going to have to be human. I'd slow you down. But tomorrow we can go into town maybe, avoid the worst of the concert and do something together that isn't too stressful, and tomorrow night go for a run. Will that be all right?

[finalizes]

I would not mind slowing down for you.

[He's not going to push it, though, as much as he would like to - even if all four of them were to go, what if Hajime was pushed back into his own mind halfway through the jaunt, like Yakumo was last jaunt?]

Going for a run tomorrow night sounds good, though. [He's not sure if there is anything that can be done in a city that won't be stressful for him, but he'll tag along. Being with pack will be better than being without, at least.]

[theflyingone]

I do not know, but the library should have pictures. I mean, photographs—paintings made by a device that sees the world as it is.