Suburban Horror (IC)

[Aoiroo]

Etain moved ahead to the door the thug pointed too and tried the handle only to find it locked. She struggled with it, but to no avail, and Custos couldn't seem to make his way down to tear it open. She turned towards the thug,

"Can you unlock it? I would like not to have a confrontation, but I will not leave if I cannot get my friend."

Her voice was soft, and not threatening in the least. She still clutched the swordbrella, but she kept by the door looking at the man pleadingly for help.

[Supercape]

"No Ma'am" replied the miserable man. "Only the boss got the key. Only way through there is to shoot the lock, or break down the door..." he gave the door a knock. It was a heavy sturdy door, but it would not survive long under sustained assault.

Etain could hear some groaning from behind the door.

"Etain?" came Rene's weak voice. "Is that you? I saw you burst in. Saw you give ze brutes a thrashing..."

The miserable thug looked even more miserable, and shrugged slightly.

"Can you open ze door? I think it is locked. I can't see a damn thing..."

[Aoiroo]

She looked at the door, than him than with out hesitation ran into it shoulder first. When that didn't work, she did it again, and again. Her shoulder was getting sore from the impacts, but she sorely wanted to leave, she wanted to get Mr. DeSaens out so that she would have to look at this place. After the fifth try she looked at the thug,

"Would you be so kind as to lend me a hand?"

[Supercape]

GM

"Best just shoot the lock off" replied the thug. He threw a worried look at the other door.

"And after that I'm out of here missy. I'm not hanging around here any longer. Heck, you can arrest me. I just don't want to be around when the Boss finishes... well, whatever his business is."

The man looked generally scared. Scared enough to ignore his fear of Custos and actually ask the gargoyle to thrown down a gun for him.

[Aoiroo]

The gargoyle was happy to oblige but only when he could see Etain clearly and he tossed it to her. She walked over, cocked the gun and shot straight into the lock. As it tore off she emptied the bullet cartridge and tossed it aside before pulling open the door and peering in cauciosly,

"Mr. De Saens, are you alright?"

[Supercape]

The gunshot reverberated around the basement, almost deafening. It did the job however, blowing the lock clean off the door.

Rene sat in a chair and shielded his eyes as the door opened. He had aclimatised to almost complete darkness.

"Sleepy" he mumbled.

He looked pretty dishevelled, and indeed, sleepy. Clearly the drugs were still in him.

"Took all my strength to contact you" he said. "I can feel it around here, some oppressive magic ward. I am sure you feel it too, oui?"

"Something nasty is here. I heard my captors talk about ze Boss, how he was going to attempt some ritual. And Etain... they took my magic paintbrush. This looks bad. I dont know what they are up to, but you know how dangerous magic can be. Ze brush has already caused havoc, and that was in my hands!"

[Aoiroo]

Etain ran over, in the dim light she could see the bindings on him, but quickly undid them and lended him her shoulder as she lead him out. She looked at the thug and said in a voice that was more commanding than sweet,

"Take him up and leave him with the gargoyle, than leave, as fast as you possibly can. If you hurt him, I will know and I will hunt you down and let my friend up stairs take care of you."

Handing off Rene she unsheathed her swordbrella and looked towards the other door,

"Now go!"

[Supercape]

"uuugh" replied Rene, pausing to put his hand on her umbrella.

"Weak as I am" he continued, his voice more faint than normal. "I must stay", he slumped slightly but could still stand upright.

"Whatever is happening here, they are using my brush, and they kidnapped me. I can only assume they wished to use me somehow, or at least my mystic devices, in order to perform whatever horrible abberration of magic they are involved in. "

"I am not sure I can be of much assistance physically, but I must know, I must do what I can. And you never know, my knowledge may be of value. "

The thug did not hang around to watch the debate between the two mystics. He was already halfway up the stairs and running out of the building.

[Aoiroo]

Etain glanced at the thug fleeing than let out a sigh,

"Fine, you stay by me and I will protect you. We do need to get your brush like you said, and that means."

She walked over the door, jiggled it open than almost promptly kicked it in as even bigger indicator of her presense. There really was no need for subtlety, after all she couldn't turn invisible, and stab them in the back, might as well do so from the front.

[Supercape]

GM

There was a muffled "ooph" as somebody fell over. A man had been trying to hold the door close as Etain kicked it in, with little success as it happened.

The room was a ghastly dim red colour, with poor lightning from cracked electric bulbs and candlelight. It was dusty and almost completely unfurbished, with a concrete floor and ceiling.

Centre stage was a small table against the opposite wall, with a picture, a skull, and a paintbrush on it. The paintbrush was clearly Rene's. The skull was gilded with gold, and to Etains eyes was clearly a powerful artifact, the source of the magic blocking.

The painting was another matter entirely. It was ornate and masterful, a portrait of a woman, maybe around 40 with striking looks and eyes that seemed to penetrate out of the painting and straight into the viewers.

In the room were four robed men, all chanting some phrase in a Language even Etain did not understand. The fourth man, the leader, was consulting a dusty old tome as he lead the chant. He looked up briefly as Etain entered.

"Not now! So close! So close!" he wailed.

[Aoiroo]

"Close to what."

Etain looked at the woman in the picture then the impliments of the ritual,

"Ohh, oh no. You must not, not like that it will...."

She looked at the people and realized her words falling on deaf ears. Instead she rushed forward dodging under the men and going straight for the skull. She brought her sword up in a high arc before cracking it down onto the horrid artifact.

[Supercape]

GM

"Get her!" yelled the Boss, as the three robed men drew sharp knives and advanced towards Etain.

Etain felt the magical ward crack with her sword blow on the golden skull. Crack, but not ablate. She felt her mystical strength return, although in a weakened, dull way - as if she was swimming through tar.

But she didn't need magic to avoid the three men. They were not incompetent, but hitting Etain was damn near impossible.

The Boss cursed as the three cultists clumsily entangled eachother with crude swipes and stabs. He grabbed Rene's Brush and with a powerful stroke, yelled some incomprehensible phrase, swishing the brush across the painting.

The painting started to bubble, and the woman turned, so slowly, in the painting to gaze fully at the room.

[Aoiroo]

With the return of her magic however limited Etain quickly set to stop the attackers. The walls around them warped and arms of stone reached out and grabbed them to hold them in place. It was than she looked over at the boss as he put the brush against the picture,

"No, you must not, the one you seek to take from that portrait is but a shade, and to be summoned in the presense of such evil will no doubt taint her."

[Supercape]

GM

"Never!" cried the Boss, a maniac gin on his face. He waved Rene's Brush like a sword at Etain before turning to the contorting painting.

"Maria, my love, it is I... your husband. Please, I am nothing without you...come back...come back!"

From the painting came a hand, then an arm, that gently stroked the Man's cheek, now anointed with tears that freely flowed.

"I accept your gift" came the whispered voice.

"Of..LIFE!" it roared, as the arm seized the man by the throat and then tossed him to one side before erupting into crazed inhuman laughter.

From the painting, a seething mass of horrible tentacles started to creep forward into this dimension...

[Aoiroo]

"Awwhhhhh!"

Etain cringed at the sight, at the madness bursting forth from the painting, but that didn't mean she didn't have enough control to release her hold on the men,

"Run and never look back, move before it is too late!"

She said that, but her eyes were watery and out of focus as she moved forward with her sword. She didn't care, she probably didn't want to see this abomination anyway. She still knew he was there, and due forward, so she smiled.

"Your place is not in this realm, you are not a creature of sanity, nor are you one that should have form, so I will be stealing that from you. When they find you, there will be nothing left."

There was an eerieness about her words, and her threats. But not so much as eerie as the several hundred cascading weapons of all makes and brands jetasoning out of the thing air in front of her and embedding themselves into the painting.

[Supercape]

GM

The mad, impossible tentacles shrieked and contorted as the wave of blades and spears penetrated the horror's unearthly form. It did not bleed, and it would be hard to say the flesh that was not from this realm was even cut, or pierced, but something about the way the tentacles writhed and shrivelled would lead one to suspect the thing was hurt by the assault.

The poor fools, released from Etains arcane grip, and having revealed to them the true horror of what was beyond this earth, needed no persuasion - they fled as though their lives depended on it. And their lives did.

The horror, wearing the face of the dead wife, turned to Etain, and countless tentacles reached forth to drill into her bones from more dimensions than mortal men was aware of...

[Supercape]

Rene saw Etain being flung to the wall by the horrible tentacles, and vanish from view.

COncentrating his mind, he reached out his hands, and fine silver silk spun from his hands, sparkling slightly with light, to envelop the thrashing tentacles.

"Non!" he said. One word, full of conviction despite his exhaustion.

It was perhaps his drugged state that stopped him applying his full conviction and magical strength to the situation. Or perhaps the thing from beyond was simply to strong for the strands of pure art. For the silk threads wrapped around the tentacles but did not fully ensnare them. Entangled, it lashed out in rage, barely missing Rene, who would surely have been crushed under the weight of the furious limbs, deprived as he was of his mystical devices that normally shielded him from such assault.

[Supercape]

GM

The tentacles swayed this way and that, shaking off the last of the silver strands Rene had woven around them - shrugging them off as if they were, indeed, no more than cobwebs.

The tentacles - and it was somehow hard to count their number - flailed wildly, but not without drive, to and fro. Rene saw one curl just as it was bout to take his head off, and breathed a sigh of relief at his fortune. He turned to Etain with a grin, only to be hit on the back of the head by another tentacle, and knocked flat on his face, out cold...

[Aoiroo]

Light began to return to her eyes, but Etain did not turn to strike the beast. She could not, even if she would not lose her sight once more, she doubted she could stand to keep her sanity seeing a creature of such chaos and corruptions. No, she shot into the darkness, but got no satisfaction of a hit. It did not matter, she could try again, and would. No matter how long it would take, she would destroy this thing.

[Supercape]

GM

The thing from beyond screeched - in ways that could not fully be understood let alone described. Perhaps it was frustrated at its semi-existence, perhaps it was frustrated at being unable to attack its assailant.

But for whatever reason, one of the horrible flailing limbs cracked open the golden skull, shattering it completely. And with it, the unseen bonds that contained it, and contained the magic power around the house sundered and shattered!

The thing was free!

In the corner, the mob boss stirred slightly, and moaned as he saw the horror in all its glory...

[Aoiroo]

Changeling felt the energy fill the room almost as soon as the skull was broken, she was even tempted to turn and see but decided not to. Instead she smiled, smiled because it was gone, that force limiting her power was gone and now there was nothing to stop her. She didn't even have to look, didn't have to aim, there was no one else there concious of her power so no need to restrain it. Ice crept from her feet, though crept was not the right word, it raced really covering every surface, and every free tentical incasing it in a frigid prison. She began to to laugh as she heard the movement stop,

"Such a foolish creature, driven by instinct and nothing else. You think yourself victorious but you have just unlocked the pandora's box to remove any chance of your freedom."

[Supercape]

GM

The thing slowly crawled and oozed out of the painting... only to be coated with the ice that flowed from Changeling, coated and enveloped, and pierced to its core.

It froze before it could clamber out of the painting.

"My lovely thing, I will devour you and all the fleshling lives of this world! Just...let...me....in!!!!!" it screamed, as it turned from slippery charm to livid, frustrated rage.

[Aoiroo]

Etain didn't respond, she didn't move she just held her hand out as a long claymore formed, much longer than herself. She closed her eyes and turned,

"This world is not one meant for ones such as you. You have come here to tempt and devore, and it is here where you shall do neither. Instead, you shall cease to exist, as your existance on this plain in an atrocity to every living thing here."

Grabbing both handles of the sword she ran forward,

"BEGONE!"

She swung the blade a wide round slice through the painting and the beast before she was turned around completely and not looking upon it as it simmered into none existance.

The ice melted away into nothing as she walked forward and went to Rene placing a hand on his cheek,

"Come now, it is not time for sleep, we must leave this place."

[Supercape]

"Wha.. who....where....?" muttered Rene as he slowly came round.

"Zut alors!" he rumbled as he stood up, quite unsteadily.

"The thing! the painting! much as I love art, madam..." he spluttered, he gazed at the torn and shredded painting, and conjured up a bolt of fire that whirled round the room until it struck the painting squarely and set it ablaze.

"...I think we had better ensure nothing else crawls out of that hole!" he finished, giving the crunpled heap that was the mob boss a fierce stare.

He took his magic brush from beside the shattered remains of the skull.

"I agree we should go. As for him" he gazed at the poor mob boss. "He has suffered, and suffers still, what say you to his fate?"

[Aoiroo]

Moving her gaze from Rene who seemed well at least in his ability to conjure she looked towards the mob boss. Kneeling down, she placed a hand on his horrified face and shifted to a more peaceful expression.

"Death is a law of finality of this world, and he paid his price for foolishly trying to reach out into the realms of the afterlife to retrieve what was once lost. He shall live with this mistake, and hopefully learn from the lesson it gives, for now however he shall sleep, quietly and peaceful while the police come to sort this mess."

Walking over, she held her hand out to Rene,

"You look tired, please use my shoulder and we may leave this place. Let us return to Parkhurst so you may rest in your quarters, I am sure Millie will oblidge to bring a meal to your bed while you stay."