[Nexus] Karyana's Forest 6: I'm not that kind of vampire!

[Beans]

This is a meta location, to prevent Home from being flooded. :smallsmile:

Current Events

Karyana has recently died and is going to need a while before Carrie can get her back in a mortal body.


The Nest

The Nest is a converted hotel in the Red Zone. It currently houses Rael Kairos, a 300 year old vampire, a large number of strange lifeforms he's created, and a couple of dozen other vampires that he's made, including Karyana. All of those are C'nor's. Beans controls Zwei, formerly a stitchy undead deathknight, but now resurrected. Technoscrabble is pretty much in control of the Tire Geal here, although technically they're C'nor's characters. Mindfreak has Jimmy, a crazy guy that Rael has turned into a vampire.
The Nest also contains one of two permanent access points to K's Forest, the other being in Karyana's room in HALO.
Players: C'nor, Technoscrabble, Beans, Mindfreak
Frequently Used Locations:

The Roof:
This is exactly what the name says. Mainly notable because Ashley had taken up residence there before she left.
It also contains the only known permanent access to Ashley's Dimension, though that's been sealed off by the mage.
More locations later.



K's Forest
K's Forest is a formerly blank dimension that imprinted on Karyana. She then imprinted it on Zwei and Ashley, though Ashley has recently been removed from the list of those it's imprinted on.
Locations of note within will be added later, but include the Moor, the Crystal Grove, and the City.
Players: C'nor, Beans


Ashley's Dimension
Sealed off. Direct inquiries to Rotting Baron.


Notes
Any players with their own location in this thread should post the description they want to go in the OP here or in the OOC thread.

[Beans]

[Tree... House... Thing]
Tsiln ports in, agitated.
Tiri, dear, your mother's waiting in the Intermission infirmary for you---she had a... mishap and Zwei's there with her already.

[Lady Serpentine]

[Thing of House Trees]

Tiri makes a few half-hearted clicks, not really meaning anything, before hugging Tsiln tightly, burying her face in her live mother's shoulder; given her normally-casual attitude, she seems to be taking it rather hard.

[Beans]

[Trouse]
Tsiln hugs back with all four arms, rubbing her back and stroking her hair.
It'll be okay, love, come now... she'll be okay, she just has to stay with Carrie til she can get a body again.

[Lady Serpentine]

[Trouse]

"She is coming back, then?" Tiri snuggles into the hug, squeezing Tsiln to her.

[Beans]

[Trouse]
Tsiln nods emphatically.
Carrie can always bring her back---just not always right away. But for now, your mother is just fine.
She starts to open a portal, smiling. Now let's get her some hugs, shall we?

[BladeofObliviom]

(I think this thread includes The Nest because the other thread died, but do let me know if I'm wrong.)

[Message Box]

A little message drops into here, from Sarah's floor.


Rael, I could use some assistance when you have a moment.

Something I summoned broke the first layer of containment due to a freak accident and now I can't get rid of it. No hurry, though. It's a Sloth Demon and doesn't seem to be trying that hard to escape.

Even so, I'm not letting it out of my sight. This crap is how careless mages end up as abominations.

~ Sarah

[Lady Serpentine]

(Indeed it does.)

[Messaging]

Rael is less than familiar with demons, as well as being busy dealing with a murderer we agreed to modify before becoming aware of his insanity, and thus requested my assistance; should you be on your floor, I will be up shortly.


Llanyaea

True to her words, a white-haired young woman in mage's robes, with a solid steel staff, a pair of blades at one end, and a heavy sphere at the other, strapped across her back, knocks on Sarah's door a few minutes later.

[BladeofObliviom]

[Sarah's Floor]

"Come in!"

She doesn't open the door, though it's not locked either. Assuming the other person decides to enter, she'll find a fairly sparse room with mostly basic living amenities...

...as well as quite a lot of runes and such scattered about. On the far end of the main room there's a large, relatively open space containing what looks like a summoning circle. There's a smaller circle inside, but that appears to be scuffed by a hat rack that fell over in just the wrong way.

The creature in the center of the circle looks a bit like a bear, though its fur is patchy and there appear to be actual, enormous teeth growing out of the sides of its body. It reeks of surprising magical power, though said power doesn't seem to be directed anywhere.

Sarah is off to the side, frustratedly casting banishment spells in an attempt to get rid of the thing, to no effect. Of course, you probably remember what Sarah looks like by now, so I'm not gonna bother describing her.

"Frakking Maker-Cursed Spirit! Begone!

...Dammit!"

Yeah, she's got a problem here. I'm not really familiar with Llanyaea, but based on her equipment, I'm assuming that she's also a mage. As such, she'll probably be able to tell that normal dismissals aren't going to work on this particular demon. In fact, Sarah seems to be just tossing out semi-random spells in the hope that one sticks.

[Lady Serpentine]

(Hmmm. So, this is like the one you meet on your initiation? And Llanyaea is a mage, yes; ex-circle, in fact. Can Sarah tell they're from the same world?)

[BladeofObliviom]

(A little bit like that one, yes, but quite a lot more powerful. More like the one that traps everyone in the Fade during the actual Circle Tower main quest, though this one doesn't happen to have a handy realm to trap people in and is still a little bit bound.

Sarah could probably tell, or at least notice the familiarity, if she were paying close attention, but there's sort of something else on her mind right now. :smalltongue:)

[Lady Serpentine]

[Sarah's Floor]

"...Well, this is a mess. Figuratively, I mean; it's quite nice otherwise. What've you tried already, how is it bound, and what method did you use to summon it?

[BladeofObliviom]

[Sarah's Floor]

Sarah looks up at the other mage a moment, though she maintains her hold on the integrity of the outer containment.

"I used Velan's Veil Vacation in combination with Orlen's Organized Oubliette for the summoning and sealing. The latter includes dismissal when the spell is released, but the seal was broken when my hat rack suddenly snapped and fell over right onto it.

Thankfully, Caldbright's Careful Contingency held, but this Demon is frustratingly tenacious. I've tried to return it to the Fade with basically every banishment spell in the book by now."

That's quite a precise answer, actually. On a side note, I'm officially just making up spell names as I go. :smalltongue:

[Lady Serpentine]

(Hat rack is in the circle, yes?)

[BladeofObliviom]

(The bottom of it is outside the circle, with one of the "legs" having broken off at an inopportune time. The top of the rack, which is wider than the main structure for the sake of actually holding hats, managed to land directly on the inner binding circle. The outer circle has some hat rack above it, but not actually touching it.)

[Lady Serpentine]

[Sarah's Floor]

Llanyaea raises a hand, and the hat rack should start to lift itself out of the circle, making its way over to her, a moment later.

"Have you tried speaking to it? And might I use the floor, please? I have an idea that requires... similar precautions. At least, it does to be safe, and given what you said in your letter, I suspect you'd prefer that."

[BladeofObliviom]

[Sarah's Floor]

The hat rack is telekinetically moved! It doesn't actually accomplish much, but there it is. Sarah for her part, nods at Llanyaea's request.

"Chalk's over in the corner."

Sure enough, there's some chalk over in one of the corners.

Oh, and the Demon decides to speak up.

"Yesss... ...see, the new-comer speaks senssssse. Br-eak the circle, it'ssss easier forrr ussss allll..."

Sarah groans.

"Yeah, that's what happens when you try to negotiate with a Sloth Demon. It just suggests awful ideas."

[Lady Serpentine]

[Sarah's Floor]

It gets it out of range of the demon, at least. :smalltongue:

In any case, regardless of the efficacy of moving the hat rack, Llanyaea retrieves the chalk, and quickly makes a third circle, which she steps inside, before cutting open her palm, the blood writhing out of the wound and prodding at the air, before slipping through the Veil, opening a long gash, through which steps something that looks like a beautiful woman with purple skin, in a strange garment that loops around her neck, splitting to leave her stomach and back (as well as most of her sides, for that matter) bare, before rejoining to make close-fitting pants, though a line of horn-like spikes, slanted down, runs along her spine, and black lightning crackles between them.

[BladeofObliviom]

[Sarah's Floor]

Sarah's eyes light up in horror as she spots the knife.

"Wait, no!"

But it's too late, and what's done is done.

You see, Sarah herself is a Blood Mage. At first glance, it might seem like a good solution to the problem. Got a demon that's giving you trouble? Kill it with blood magic. Simple. Easy. Which raises a question: Why hasn't Sarah already done that?

Because it's too simple. Too easy. Resorting to Blood Magic to deal with a problem is a shortcut. And as Sarah knows, that's exactly what Sloth Demons derive their strength from. Mortals taking shortcuts. Well, and apathy too, but that's not as applicable here.

"Yesss!"

The second seal bursts into flames, shattered by the Demon's sheer power. Sarah's a talented mage, but even she can't hold back a full-fledged Ancient Sloth Demon that's just had a meal. The thing melts away from visage of a Bereskarn, through the form of a shade, and grows into something much larger and more frightening (http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/jWaAHIWMtIg/hqdefault.jpg). It almost looks like a floating man, but formed from golden ropes intertwined rather than flesh.

"It hassss been sssome time since I last feasssst-ed upon... ...a mortal. I've almossssst... ...forgotten the tasssste."

The Demon isn't doing anything yet, though, even though it's in the same circle with a Mage. On the other hand, just being this close to a powerful Sloth Demon without a barrier between them is probably sapping her strength. The Sloth Demon seems relatively unconcerned with what sounds like a Desire Demon being added to the escalating situation.

Sarah, on the other hand, is grabbing her staff and weaving some mana together; presumably, she has some idea what she's doing...

[Lady Serpentine]

(Hm, any chance the Desire Demon can sense if there's anything else he wants, especially things desired more than eating Sarah?)

[BladeofObliviom]

(Eating is actually pretty low on the priority list; Sloth, not Hunger. Besides, who said anything about Sarah? There's a whole layer of binding circle between the Demon and Sarah. Not so for the other mage in the room! :smalleek:

That said, this demon seems mostly interested in possession of a mage. Like the usual Fade Demon, really.)

[Lady Serpentine]

(Wait, I'm confused now - the second circle (the one it was in) just broke. Sarah was outside that. Then Llanyaea and the Desire Demon are over in a third circle, a few feet off from the ones Sarah made. So shouldn't it be Llanyaea who has the circle between her and the Sloth Demon, with Sarah exposed?)

[BladeofObliviom]

(...Oh. I'd misread your post as putting a third circle around the existing ones rather than off to the side. Ignore my silly mistake then, it's totally focusing on Sarah and your circle even gives some protection from the drain.

Granted, standing in a circle with a Desire Demon is still an awful move. :smalltongue:)

[Lady Serpentine]

(They have a deal worked out where Llanyaea lets her out to play on her enemies, thereby granting her considerably more time out than she would get if she broke the arrangement; she's even gotten to possess a few mages, of various types. So Llanyaea is somewhat safer than she might be otherwise.)

"You know the deal. He's the enemy, touch her and no more cushy vacations for you. So do your thing, Flash."

With that, the circle drops for a moment, and 'Flash' steps casually across it, the lightning on her back flaring and becoming steady arcs, as she drinks in the want that Sloth has to possess a mage - but also, more importantly, his lust for the power and freedom that would bring, that being her specialty, though she waits to see what Sarah is doing before taking further action.

[BladeofObliviom]

[Sarah's Floor]

The Sloth Demon continues to watch amusedly as Sarah powers up a spell and the Desire Demon watches for a weakness.

"Yesss...yesss, lit-tle mage, toss your little fi-re-balllll...

...A mage figh-ting with magic. How Uncre-a-tive."

And then Sarah casts a Glyph of Neutralization on the ground under the Demon's feet. The creature's gloating suddenly turns to otherworldly cries of agony and surprise, its assumed form melting into the more familiar guise of a shade before being further reduced to a writhing black puddle of ectoplasm.

Even a manifested Demon, in truth, remains in the Fade, but merely projects its consciousness onto the material. The Demon effectively lies across the Fade, spreading into both realms. So what happens when somebody uses brute-force creation magic to strengthen the Veil right on top of them? It's almost like a hula hoop that suddenly tightens around its user with crushing force.

Worse, the effect seals it off from using any magic on this side of the Veil, so now it's basically helpless.

That said, Llanyaea is hardly redundant: Sarah can't actually strike a finishing blow while she's maintaining the spell. All she can do is hold it still and give her ally an opening.

(And on a weird side note, Sloth Demons are kind of fun to write for! It's actually fairly liberating to mutilate text like that in an attempt to imitate the odd vocal patterns that they usually use.)

[BladeofObliviom]

[Sarah's Floor]

About 45 seconds of messy Fade-squeezing and significant amounts of violence later, the Sloth Demon is banished. Or maybe dead. It's kind of hard to tell sometimes.

Aren't discretion shots grand?

Sarah sighs, picking up a dustpan and mason jar, before getting to work on scraping up the remains of the demon off the floor. Bad stuff happens when people just leave Demonic Ichor lying around. :smalltongue:

"Thanks for the help with that mess. Was trying to summon something else, and he managed to jump in. Name's Sarah. You?"

[Devixer]

Outside the Nest

Normally, the Operative visits a public location in disguise, having possessed some poor shmuck on the street. This time, though, all pretenses are gone. Any observant people will probably notice a man in a hooded black combat uniform and a gas mask approaching the building. His posture suggests that he's ready for war.