I struggled to make it back to the cabin. After the nasty fight we endured, I couldn’t even walk. I laid down in my bed while the rest of the pack was talking with Crafty. He congratulated us for an impressive battle. We were lucky to have survived and we learned an important lesson: never turn your backs on a Spiral. We went to sleep in pain, but high on the Glory of our battle.

The next day I was still too hurt to do much. Ryan came into the cabin and asked me how I was, commenting on how bad I looked. He took out a small pouch full of some type of dust and sprinkled it over me. I had heard of this before in Chicago. It was a Talen and it healed me some to where I could get up.

After getting up, Crafty told us Foss was picking up a new Sept member, Noah Harliss. He told us this is the time to decide if we should be a pack or not. Bjorn has not returned since he remained with Gina to ensure nothing happened to her or her family. After deciding we were going to be a pack, it was time to decide who would be leader.

Eli offered himself up as a leader and I decided I should try as well too. Luke declined after what happened at the beach, realizing his Rage is too much and would be dangerous as a pack leader. William tried to put in for it, but after his constant immaturity we’d endured for two days, nobody took him seriously.

We debated on why we should be leader. Eli stated we were in a time of war, making an example out the fight with the Spiral pack. I felt it was weak argument considering it was only one battle. It was true we were being hunted, but it was doubtful the Spiral pack knew who we were. I argued an Ahroun leader would charge us recklessly into battle when we should be taking more measured and cautious approaches to things considering our lack of knowledge and youth. Ultimately, I received only one vote from Luke who was moved by my courage in the fight with Spirals. Eli was chosen as leader and I was a little depressed by this. Still, I decided it would be better to take up the position as pack beta in order to make sure Eli didn’t get too reckless.

After this, the pack did agree with me on the name of the pack with only a slight modification. I thought the name should be the White Lion’s Roar to let the other Septs know White Lion had returned. We decided on the White Lion’s Pride, which I felt was an acceptable compromise.

Once we got our leader and name in order, Crafty told us to come to the heart of the Sept. He laid out a lion’s pelt and told us to meditate. We did so and were shown two visions. One involved my ancestor who was in love with Eli’s ancestor though they both knew it was wrong. The second involved William’s ancestor being terrified of going into battle.

After the visions, we were told to elaborate on what were the violations of the Litany and where the Litany was being upheld. Once we completed this, we entered the Prenumbra where we saw White Lion with three other spirits, Stag, Wolverine, and Quetzal. Each of the spirits had been drawn to us over the past two days based on our decisions. The spirits petitioned we join them and we were told to choose which one we wanted.

Wolverine was the front-runner and I was strongly opposed to this. His bans on not showing mercy and being extremely violent were dangerous in my opinion. We needed to be cautious, observant, and respectful due to our youth and no experience. I wanted Quetzal, but the disparity of Ahrouns in the pack leads them to choose Wolverine. Still, as usual, I accepted this judgment since I was being open-minded with the pack.

After the choosing of our pack totem, Crafty had received word from Mabe; a spirit friend of his, Noah was dead in a landfill. Eli ordered Foss to take us out there to find out. Once we arrived, sure enough, we found Noah dead and stripped of his skin. There we met a Garou by the name of Smoke Paw. He questioned why we were there and we likewise did the same of him. He told us he had an argument with his pack and left to cool down.

We asked him about Noah and he denied doing anything to the teen. When mentioned about how he was killed, Smoke Paw told us the story of Samuel Haight. I had never heard of him before, but the story inspired awe and even fear in me. I had never heard of kinfolk amassing such power before. Eli tried to do some tracking, but only came up with the smell of formaldehyde.

We returned to our Sept and buried Noah near a tree at my suggestion so he would nurture the tree and continue serving Gaia even in death. I made up a little prayer for him, placing a rock with our tribe symbol by the tree. After this saddening event, we returned to the cabin to rest.

The next day, we were called to lodge because of a problem. Smoke Paw had been killed, skinned, and left behind the lodge. Thankfully, no one saw this, but it was apparent it was a message being sent to us. We quickly gathered his body before anyone seen us and had Foss take us to near where his sept, the Sept of the Three Waters, was. There we howled for them to come to us while Eli sent Foss away. Once they arrived, Eli let me do the talking since I was more socially acceptable than any of the pack.

I apologized for his death and told them it was not by our hands he died. I told them we had lost one of our sept members in the same way. They thanked us for taking the time to bring him to them and we warned to be careful because the Skinner may have returned.

We entered Lupus form and ran back to our Sept. Along the way we talked about the situation. The rest of the pack tossed several different ideas back and forth about who could have done it, suggesting Foss was followed. I brought forth the idea it may have been Foss himself, or at least he lead Noah to the killer. I mentioned his attitude lately, my rejecting him at the party, and us bossing him around might have pushed him over the edge.

We all agreed to talk to Foss about what had happened. I told Eli to let me speak with him alone and he agreed as the taking on of Wolverine had increased their Rage. We lied to Foss and told him we needed his help tracing back what had happened after he dropped Noah off. I took Foss ahead by the area and tried to gradually coax information out of him, but he remained quiet. Eventually, Luke and Eli lost their cool. Choosing to not remain behind, they intimidated Foss until he revealed his treachery.

We decided to take Foss back to the lodge to have Crafty determine what should be done with him. I wanted to him to be punished in some of reasonable way, but the rest of the pack wanted death. After arriving at the lodge, we got out of his truck continuing to discuss what was going to happen while trying to get more information out of him. In the meantime, William was whispering into Foss’ ear things about his family and this set him off. He cussed out all of us until Luke attacked him in Crinos form.

The situation had gone from bad to horrible. I tried to save Foss, but I wasn’t fast enough. Luke entered the Thrall of the Wyrm again and the entire pack had to enter Crinos form to grab him. Eli tried to grab him in Crinos form, but frenzied and ran into the woods to prevent the situation from getting worse. Because of the pack totem, Wolverine, Luke would never run out of Rage and therefore, never stop being in the Thrall. I made the hard choice to stab and kill him with my fang dagger. He managed to Rage back, but this brought him out of the Thrall and into a plain frenzy. He ran off into the woods while we tried to figure out what to do next.