Nazareth Awakened - Chapter 02: Wives of Solomon

TillForPie · May 27, 2014

Faye has alarm written on her face. "Knew we'd be here?" She casts the beam of her flashlight into the darkness around the group, spooked by mention of a trap. "Who?"

Meanwhile Harper is refining his imago as he prepares to cast his first spell of the night. In one moment he's looking at the others and the trailer and in the next he feels a curtain pull away from his eyes.
[sblock=Spirit Tongue]For several seconds Harper wonders if his spell has failed. Nothing on the trailer - nothing but darkness. Darkness he can't banish with his flashlight. And it's moving, coiling around the trailer like a snake.

The spirit is a cloud of ink, churning turbulently. Harper has only seen a few spirits since his awakening and they've all been different, their shapes and behaviors determined by their natures. He doesn't know for sure what this is, but he can hazard a guess: Fear given form.

Harper can feel it noticing his attention and it begins to pull itself down the side of the trailer with a pair of black, skeletal arms, each jerky motion accompanied by the loud plucking of a violin's strings. It drops from the trailer when it nears the bottom and slinks along the ground, the tense music of its movements growing louder as it comes closer. Harper follows the creature with his flashlight until it passes out of sight behind a patch of thick vegetation, the continuing pizzicato the only sign of its presence. He keeps his flashlight pointed at where he last saw the spirit. It's keeping out of sight now that it knows it's being observed but he knows it's still there.

Whatever it's doing here, Harper knows it can't have been here long. Spirits don't belong in the physical world and only a few of them (like his familiar) can manage it for extended periods. Hell, most have no way of crossing from one world to the other to begin with. His best guess is that it's been here a very short time and without a source of energy it'll dissolve away into nothing before long. Based on the way it had attached itself to the trailer it might have been trying to feed from it, absorbing any lingering terror left behind by whatever happened here.[/sblock]None can see what Harper sees - they can only watch while he follows something away from the trailer with his flashlight.

Law sees the twilight static drift away from the trailer toward a patch of nearby bushes and Agnasci can detect the consciousness moving away.

GlassEye · May 27, 2014

Harper, Thyrsus mage

[section]

"Shi-i-it," drawls Harper. He takes a few steps towards the concealing clump of vegetation and wonders if the spirit even has a mind or if it is as mindless as the fear he suspects spawned it. The latter, he would guess. Continuing on around he's half afraid of finding what brought the spirit into being or across the gauntlet or whatever. "It's big," Harper says, trying to give a commentary so his companions know what is going on. "And it might be a spirit of fear; I just don't know enough. I think it was trying to feed. Until it noticed me looking at it."

Harper edges on around expecting the spirit or some other unpleasant thing to come into sight any moment and bracing himself for the worst. "What happened to you, huh?" The soothing tone he uses may not do anything to the spirit but it makes Harper feel calmer.

[/section]

Shayuri · May 27, 2014

"The bikers," Chance tells Faye, but is distracted by Harper's antics for a moment. Once outside the trailer she calms down a great deal, and her natural curiosity reasserts itself.

"What is it?" she asks him, trailing along behind. "Argh! You have to teach me to do...whatever it is you're doing!"

Rubberneck · May 27, 2014

Law overheard the possibility of this being a trap and goes on the defensive. Head on a swivel, taking in all of his surroundings. He's not too worried about the spirit, if it were hostile it would have attacked them when they first entered the trailer. Law is under the impression that the main threat would be that biker gang and whatever they were up to. The spirit was just taking advantage of the situation to feed. Law will drop his Speak with the Dead spell and go back to using Grim Sight. If those bikers show up or are lurking in the darkness, Law will see death following them.

"There's nothing left in that trailer to discover, the owners are gone, I say we go look for them and find out what the hell they're up to."

Shayuri · May 27, 2014

Chance looks back at the man named Law and blinks, remembering her vision again.

"Oh, alright...well, I have a couple of leads. First, they were Dogs of War. It's a local biker gang. Name rings a bell fer some reason, but can't place it right off..." she trails off for a second, then continues. "Anyway, they did something to a car with the license place, uh..."

She shuts her eyes for a second and mutters. "Had 'god' in it, I remember... I god...win? No, wait! I god wait. That's what it was."

Chance gives them a proud grin.

TillForPie · May 27, 2014

Harper follows the spirit around a patch of nearby bushes.
[sblock=Spirit Tongue]The creature stares back at Harper eyelessly. "Trapped..." Its voice is the sharpening of knives. "Summoned... Send me back." Now that the mage can examine the spirit more closely it's clear it's not long for this world. Feeding on fearful essence from the site, if that's what it was doing, wasn't enough to keep up with its rate of decay. It's being rejected by this foreign physical world.[/sblock]Meanwhile Faye is addressing the others. "We can go over what you've learned on the way back to town. The ley line - can it be restored?"

Mosier · May 27, 2014

At the mention of the Dogs of War, Agnasci steps closer to the cop with the gun.

"Don't want to fight," he mutters, feeling suddenly vulnerable.

GlassEye · May 28, 2014

Harper, Thyrsus mage

[section]

Harper stares at the spirit trying not to feel much pity for the spirit. It feeds on fear; not a good thing. Remember that, he reminds himself.

"Why were you summoned? What happened here? What is blocking the flow of the ley here?" He gives the spirit time to answer each question before asking the next.

[/section]

TillForPie · May 28, 2014

The others can hear Harper's questions but not the spirit's responses.
[sblock=Spirit Tongue]"Creatures of flesh brought me here." The spirit is settling among the roots and branches of some bushes, slowly strafing away from Harper's flashlight. "Meant to summon something else. Something not of Shadow." It's being cooperative but it retains an oppressively sinister presence and Harper wonders how helpful it would be were it not so diminished in strength. "The creatures killed one of their own to bring it here," Harper thinks it might not understand the distinction between a man and a dog and could be referring to the animal, "and I fell through."

Harper asks his final question but the spirit is becoming distracted. It seems to sense Agnasci's anxiety and stretches in that mage's direction. "The failed ritual could have damaged it..." It's replying absentmindedly now. "Perhaps when I am returned it will be fixed."

Harper knows nothing about ley lines so he can't say if this is a reasonable idea. It would be awfully convenient for the spirit and the group's interests to be aligned in this way, so the suggestion could be wishful thinking (or an outright lie) on the creature's part.[/sblock]

Rubberneck · May 28, 2014

Law is surprised at Agnasci's reaction to the mention of the biker gang. If they were so well known why hadn't he crossed their path at some point on the job? Law responds to Agnasci,

"What do you know about them? To be honest if they are out here then we might not have a choice but to fight, I'm sure as hell not going to lie down and die like a dog. So out with it. What about this group of thugs has your panties in a bunch?"

To Faye,

"The ley line has been disturbed by that group of bikers when they were trying to use magic. I have no idea how to fix it. If you know how speak up. If not let's report what we've discovered to Penrose. I'm sure he might know how to fix it."