The Castle (Rebma, for the heck of it, but don't hesitate!)

[Boog]

"There, you see?" Jeremiah looked down at the girl again, displaying far more faith in the charm than he felt, "It will help you. Just relax." He looked away for just a second and scrunched his eyes shut; hypnosis tended to make his eyes ache if he tried to do it too much in one sitting. He turned back and was all smiles again, hoping to put the girl at ease. True, with the other persona that seemed unlikely, but he was fairly sure that if he could calm down the real one and keep her focused, nothing would go wrong. Assuming that the scared one is the real persona. Gah, why did I just think that!? "Stay with me, Miss, stay with me! Focus! Do you have a name, Miss?" If I can just get her talking coherently, that might help her focus on what's going on and stay in control. If it doesn't, I still have the chance to ask what's going on.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel refrained from rolling her eyes, "try not to die quickly" was such helpful advice. And his specifics were no better. How did one manage to stay out of the shadows around here? It was like they were hosting a shadow convention. Light barely dented them. And a holy symbol wasn't something she tended to carry with her. Or did she? She moved to one of the pews that hadn't been overturned and picked a pouch out of her pocket. She emptied the pouch onto the pew. It was a bunch of old jewelry she had picked up to either break down for it's parts or eat for the minerals. Perhaps one of the pieces was a holy symbol. "Do any of these things look holy to you?" she asked of Gareeku and Aisha.

[Aisha deCabre]

Better and better, Aisha rolled her eyes, having almost rushed the last few stairs up to the chapel, while hearing the snatches of conversation between Mel and Sebastian.  She looked back briefly to see if Gareeku was still there, and then quickly turned her head away from the dark corridor, not adamant on wanting to go back down again.  The chapel was a somewhat welcoming sight after being near-blind in the crypt, even if it kept the feeling of foreboding.  There still appeared to be a storm outside.

Suddenly hearing Mel's inquiry, Aisha took a brief glance at the jewelry that she had emptied out.  "Lots of shiny things," she commented with a slight laugh and looked the pieces over.  Gah, how frustrating, growing up in a monastery and not instantly recognizing something like that.  "I'm not sure how many look holy...I'd keep a few of the silver ones, though, and since we're in a chapel, you could fashion anything into a cross with an easy blessing.  Or maybe something light-magic enchanted would help as well."  She glanced at the wolf to see if he had an opinion too.

Aisha gave a reassuring smirk to Mel, anyway.  "If we took care of that thing with some bruises to show for it," the panther said, referring to the wyrm's corpse, "then we can probably take care of a cursed angel, too."

[Stygian]

Stygian's eyebrows shot at Aisha's reply. Then, he laughed, the sound echoing within the chapel. He paced a bit to the side and eyed her from next to a piece of the altar. He shot a look at the remains of the wyrm, the ashes of his half-burned corpse laying to the side of the chapel.
   "That thing was named Archaon, and he had been my guardian and torturer for some time. True, he was made powerful, but it was by the angel alone. She can do those things, given time," he said, and gestured to the creature. "I don't suppose you still have his heart? That was the source of his power. She gave him some of her own blood." He crouched down and took some of the ashes in his hand, rubbing them between his fingers with a look of distaste to his face. "She burns, you know? Burns with the fires of the Hell she was cast into..."
   He sat like that for a little while, then got up and walked over to them. He looked at them quite seriously.
   "Silver will do well. That statue's sword is blessed as well, if I remember correctly. But we will have to vanquish her in another manner. The key to destroying her is very specific, unfortunately." He brushed the ash off his hands, and cracked his knuckles a bit.

   The woman seemed to still a bit, but her face was still frozen in a sort of panicked mask as she looked at Jeremiah.
   "Gi-gi-na... Gi-na..." she stuttered, her face twisting into a snarl just a moment in between. "Ple-please hellllllp meee...!"

[Boog]

"Gina, what a nice name..." Jeremiah replied gently, brushing a stray strand of hair out of the wo- wait. Gina's face, "A pretty name indeed. Now," again, his voice slipped into that hypnotic, trance inducing reverberation, "Tell me what happened. It will help you keep the other one down, and help us figure out how to best deal with your problem. Just relax and tell me the whole story, and everything will be fine..."

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel separated the silver from the other metals and looked at what remained. It wasn't much, this was simply a bag of broken items she had picked up from a pawn shop: a single earring, a couple of charms probably off a bracelet, two bits of chain, a short coil of wire, and a few small coins so worn that there was no telling their origins. The biggest item was a necklace that looked as if it had been through a fire, most likely while on someone killed with a fireball. The silver was firescaled and most of the crystals that had decorated it were shattered or otherwise ruined by high heat. As she heard Sebastian talking about the angel burning something clicked. "Would something that can spoil the aim of fire spells be useful?" An item ruined by fire was easy to enchant to attract more fire. It wouldn't be powerful enough to do much more than alter trajectory a bit but a couple of inches could be the difference between a hit and a miss.

[Gareeku]

Having stayed quiet as they had gradually made their way back up to the chapel, Gareeku raised an eyebrow at Stygian's suggested that they should not die too quickly.
"Thanks for the advice." he replied with a slight smirk as they walked back into the chapel. As Stygian explained who the fallen archangel was, the wolf's eyes narrowed as he thought of who this person was.

Upon being asked where the creature's heart was, Gareeku looked over to the spot near the altar, where the bloodied heart remained, before walking over and picking it up.
"I take it thisis what you're looking for." the wolf said as he handed the heart over to Stygian.

[Aisha deCabre]

While Mel was sorting through her jewelry, Aisha looked back to Sebastian with a slight incredulous look when he had laughed after her comment.  She had gotten responses like that before and were quite used to them.  Without words, it felt like she was told of being or a little too sure of herself.

She hummed thoughtfully, looking over the ash, bone, and blood remains of the creature, pondering the rest of the story while Gareeku retrieved the heart.  With the bat's description of this angel, it sounded like any one of them if standing alone would be in over their head.  The panthress turned towards the statue and looked over the sword thoughtfully, and then back upon Mel's suggestion.  "Very specific key...I guess we keep on our toes and make sure they're not sliced off while looking for it."

[Stygian]

Stygian turned a bit and listened to them, then looked back down the midship of the chapel, as if searching for something.
   "Right. So, were we going to search for your friends, or are we going to be sensible and prepare here so that we can find out what it actually is that kills her?" he asked them. He didn't seem impatient, there was no stress in his tone or nervosity to his movements, and yet you somehow got an overwhelming feeling of urgency from him.

   "I... was go-ing to... ta-ke pictu-res of th-the painting-s... there's a-an interested buyer in Zinvth... for the p-proper-ty...!" the ferret twitched out, looking at them. "An-nd I came in-to the library, and th-then...!" She started to cry.

[Boog]

"Shh shh shh shh..." Jeremiah continued to try to calm her down, "Don't worry, everything's fine now, just you wait and see." The frog looked up at Cog. Anything else you could try? He mouthed.

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha turned back to Sebastian, then cast a glance to the blood-ridden heart that he had asked for with a grimace.  "Will that have any significance?" she inquired.  For a moment, the panther shifted on her feet a little and started to pace across the chapel, a little impatient herself, after hearing the question.  "Indeed the sensible choice is to stay and find out.  But if our party members are in trouble..."

Her voice started to trail off, and she strode over to where the altar once stood, looking at the statue thoughtfully and reaching up to touch the sword that it held with narrowed eyes...Sebastian had said that it was blessed, and one of the good things to use against the angel...just not one of the specific things.

Then the huntress reached for the handle and paused, wondering if she'd even be allowed to take it.  During that time, Aisha glanced over the others.  "I guess we all go find them and try to wing through the fight...or we split up.  Either way, maybe it is time to get moving."

[Cogidubnus]

Cog paused and shrugged, and then stopped - for some reason, the cross did seem to be doing something...perhaps something of a similar nature would help as well. He was no priest, but he could read. Holy books weren't limited to clergy, after all...
He started to chant, low and softly, and began to ramble on, reciting what he had read in the old books that some long-lost cathedral had once housed... "Kyrie, fons bonitatis, pater ingenite, a quo bona cuncta proecedunt, eleison, Kyrie, qui pati natum mundi pro crimine, ipsum ut salvaret misisti, eleison, Kyrie, qui septiformis dans dona pneumatis, a quo coelum, terra replentur, eleison, Christe, unice dei patris genite, quem de virgine nasciturum mundo mirifice, sancti proedixerunt prophetæ, eleison..."

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel had been so distracted by the items in front of her that she only caught the last part of Aisha's statement. "We're leaving here?" She looked down at the things she had been planning to enchant then with a sigh set her plans aside. While preparation would help, people were important. And if they didn't know where they would be when trouble hit most of her preparations would be useless anyway. Better to save her magic if they were going to be moving around.

[Stygian]

The bat simply shot them a look over his shoulder, before beginning to pace down the midship and waving a hand at them for them to follow.
   "So, we're finding your friends. Let's hope they're somewhere near..." he said. With every step he seemed to slip more and more into the shadows, as if there was something with him that naturally made him stick to them, or that made shadows attract to him. "And don't trust them if we do find them. They might be possessed."
   
   Stygian gathered the shadows to him, and started letting his darkness slip out just a bit, extending his senses and using the night that had settled over the castle to augment them. But the darkness fought back, influenced as it were by some other malignant will. He did not enjoy being so overpowered as this, or so trapped. If she wanted to, she could sacrifice herself and bring down the whole castle around them. That was the greatest danger, he decided. They had to approach and kill her in a way that did not have her suspecting that they could actually succeed. In a way, that made searching for these people's companions convenient...

   As Cogidubnus began to chant, the girl started moaning and thrashing again. She hissed and screamed.
   "No! No! Are you insane?! Please! Help! She's hurting me...! Aaargh! She'll kill us all! Do you understand?! Niveus era rumor lacuna, quod contemno lemma! Lacuna moneo suus! Please! Nooo...!"

[Aisha deCabre]

Listening to the confirmation in Sebastian's voice, Aisha turned to the statue and made a respectful bow of her head before prying the sword away with effort and letting the weight of it settle in her hands.  She didn't like the idea of practically looting the cathedral...but whatever was best in helping their fellow adventurers...she couldn't rely on her boomerang alone, the only real light-enchanted weapon in her arsenal.

While stepping down and moving across, the panther paused to watch Mel as she pondered over her jewels.  "It might be good to still keep those on hand, amiga," she commented and started walking again, glancing to Gareeku as well with a smirk.  "Time to walk into another fight."  Maybe it's overconfidence.  But our party is still quite formidable enough, I think.

But while hearing Sebastian, she paused.  "Possessed?  Oh great," Aisha commented silently with a roll of her eyes, pacing with a little more determination.  However her expression turned from annoyed to curious again, seeing how the bat mingled with the shadows.  I think we'll be asking ourselves for days just what we got into.

[Boog]

Jeremiah struggled to hold her down when her new outburst began, cursing the other voice for showing up again.
"Who'll kill us all? Who!?" the frog gritted his teeth and glared down, his patience fraying, "Something about a mistress? Speak english and give me some damn answers! WHO?! Cog, what are you saying to her?"

[Stygian]

Stygian stopped, and looked around a bit. He had heard some screams. By the sound, they should have come from very far off, and toward the ballroom. But there had been more there. Was...?
   He looked up above, at the two gargoyle-esque cherubim statues that cornered the balcony where the organ stood, one on each end. Those were not supposed to be there. This was a more modern building style, and no renovator would have kept a pair of statues of that kind, or size, inside. He took a step back.
   He barely had time to react before the first "statue" opened a pair of glaring red eyes, and then dove for him. He made a handflip to the side and avoided the devilish creature's swipe. Then its large tail struck out at him before he could get into stance, knocking him back and into a column. There was an audible crack.
   The fiend turned, and then shot a glare at the others. It was about twenty-five feet from head to tailtip and looked like a wicked-horned dragon, almost, but with nearly black leathery skin and a flatter, shorter face and more spines along its back. It whipped its tail as its twin landed down beside it with a rumble, and growled, loping for them down the midship.

   "No! Not me! Please! The Lady who hides the knowledge of this house, you idiot! Aieee! Fuck you! Hear that!? Nooo! Fuck you, you fucking prick! She'll kill us all! Stoop! Pleeease!"
   The ferret woman cried out a last curse, and then fell back, going unconscious. Silence followed, strengthening the feeling that Cog and Jeremiah had of being watched.

[Cogidubnus]

Cog faltered when Gina started to react the way she was, and thought perhaps he wasn't helping as much as he had thought. He rambled off and stopped.
"It was a old liturgy...I'm fairly certain it was used in exorcisms, long ago." He said, shrugging taking one of Gina's arms. He managed to get it around his neck. "She said something about...a white mistress...she condemns the emptiness as a rumor, or some such." Cog shook his head. "My Latin is very rusty. In any case, give me a hand here. We're not going to get her any better in these shadows, and I'd like to see if we can't find the others. Maybe they're back from wherever they went." He grinned. "Boy, do we have a story for them..."

[Boog]

Jeremiah looked at the unconcious woman and thought hard about his situation. Unfortunatly, he was unable to think of any curses that really and truly expressed his opinion of how things had gone. Fortunatly, where his volcabulary had deserted him his creativity had picked up the slack, and he belted off a single sentense that, if asked later, he would say he didn't remember all of and blush furiously. Seeing Cog hefting Gina, Jeremiah shook his head and made as if to take the girl off his hands.
"A story we have, but we haven't finished writing it yet. And, as your co-author, I refuse to let you end it with "and then they were eaten by a monster". You need your arms free. My spells just involve my hands and eyes, but you need your dexterity to use that sword," Picking up the diminuative mustalid, he grinned at Cog, "So, how much you want to bet the other personality is this 'White Mistriss's ex? C'mon, it makes sense! He's abusive and angry because she scorned him, he shows up at her house in some other woman's body, fight scene ensues..." It was a sort of coping mechanism; better to find things funny than horrifying.

[Cogidubnus]

Cog laughed in spite of himself. "Maybe so. Let's hope we're not in the middle of a lover's spat, then. Hell hath no fury, and all that." He let Jeremiah take the woman, and he placed a hand on his sword, and another on his back. "Don't know what I was thinking, anyway. I couldn't lift a brick, much less a person." He offered an apologetic grin. "When I was fighting that huge dog-thing, he managed to slam me into the wall but good. Back's felt a little funny since." He twinged. "And by funny, I mean pain." He removed his hand from his back, and held the bronze coin in front of him. The light parted the darkness, and he began the long trek back to the anteroom, trying to stay aware of any shadows that might spring, and keeping an eye out for his hat.

[Boog]

"I hear ya," Jeremiah winced, pain lancing through the scratches on his own back, "Huge dog thing, eh?" He remembered it in a sort of hazy manner, details blurring together, "You mean the one I just staggered past like an idiot while I was bleeding and out of my head because of Nex?" He followed Cogidubnus, stepping gingerly to avoid both shadows and more pain in his back.

[Aisha deCabre]

As she followed, Aisha's ears perked at the sounds of screaming, about the same time that their guide stopped in his tracks as well.  An immediate grimace came to her face, muscles bunching.  "Damn, I think we've taken a little long to..." then her voice trailed off, just as her foot had started to come down on the floor and propel her into a run.

But instead, it braked, skidding slightly on the hard dust-strewn floor upon hearing another noise, an impact like something heavy had fallen down.  She turned back to see a flash of dark grey moving against Stygian, a gargoyle moving on its own accord.  "Oh for the love of..." Aisha muttered, but had a smirk on her face, almost humorous due to the fact that a fight had sprung up not long after saying so.

The other gargoyle jumped and moved against the group, and the panther looked it in the face with eyes equaling the hue of red, raising the sword in her hands with a pause.  Test run time, I think.  She sidestepped around the flank of one monstrosity, then sprank to its side and made a swipe, hoping to distract it for Gareeku and perhaps Mel to get in a shot somewhere...

[Cogidubnus]

Cog nodded as they walked back into the room where the dog had attacked him. "Yes. That one." he said as he peered into the shadows.
He was somewhat on edge, this room being where the majority of the shadows had attacked them, and he kept a firm hand on his sword accordingly. As he walked, his back protested against him, and he absently hoped somebody in the party was a healer. About halfway through the room, he saw his hat lying right in the middle of the path. He smiled and kneeled down to pick it up. He dusted it off and placed it back on his head, somewhat relieved to have found it. Just a hat, but still. He was pretty attached to it.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel jumped backwards, away from the gargoyles. They were as large as she was in her true form. Hopefully their hide wasn't as tough. She cast the first spell to come to mind. "Snake." The illusion of a half dozen snakes, large red and black ones, slithered and circled the gargoyles. She put enough magic into the spell that they would feel very real if they bit.

[Stygian]

The loping "gargoyle" didn't mind the snakes, but Aisha's new sword had a substantially greater effect. She felt a slightly stinging feeling in her hand as she swung it, but it felt very good in her hand, the balance and handle just perfect. And even more, the effect that the blade had was devastating. The gentle curve of it seemed to lengthen almost doubly as she struck, and turned into an arc of fire in the air which sliced right through the fiend's arm and a good bit of its neck as well, the pressure of the strike feeling much lighter than it should have when hitting something so hard and large. There was no need for her companions to finish it off, because the demon turned to the side and fell over screeching, its blood spraying around a burning wound from which its flesh was quickly turning to cinders and ash.
   The snake illusions then quickly concentrated around the other demon, which seemed busy pounding the column against which the bat had been thrown. The smashing hits struck it with furious force that shook the floor, and the column cracked on the point of breaking.
   Then, the thing stopped with a scream, one of its arms still held up and ready to strike, but now bleeding profusely. It was hard to see for all the darkness, but there seemed to be something jutting out through it, something like a spike, darker than the shadows themselves. The fiend screamed, but was quickly silenced as something else swept through the air with a hard, almost metallic swipe, and summarily decapitated it, sending its ugly head flying a good way against them. Finally, there was a short burst of visceral, cutting sounds, about a moment long, and then the demon was thrown back into the opposite column, striking it and falling into crumbling, burning pieces.
   Some dust and ash settled, singling through the air, and out of it the bat walked, straightening his vest. He peered at them over his glasses, his eyes dark but with a dangerous glow to their heart for a moment. Then, he brushed himself off a bit.
  "Let's go," he said in a slightly off voice, and started walking out again.

   There was a screech to the side of Cogidubnus and Jeremiah, from the doors on the side of the ballroom where they had not been yet. Then, a few seconds later, the doors flew up, and myriads of bats swarmed in, filling the room and flapping around them. They could feel claws and teeth and leathery wings beating at them from all directions.

[Gareeku]

Following the others and staying silent, Gareeku looked at Aisha with a slight smirk, though he probably wasn't as enthusiastic as she was about fighting. Noticing the gargoyle coming to life, Gareeku reached for the hilt of his blade, only to stop when he saw the devastating effect that Aisha's new sword had when swung.
"Wow...that's some sword..." the wolf muttered, relaxing and standing back upright as he knew the fight was over, albeit rather quickly.

Looking towards the other demon, the wolf's eyebrows were raised as he observed how Sebastian dispatched of the fiend; appearing to use the darkness of shadow as a weapon.
Who is this guy... Gareeku thought to himself as he watched Sebastian compose himself, before setting off and following him.

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha had barely noticed as snakes had suddenly begun to writhe around the demons, though she could spot them from the corner of her eye.  Her concentration and effort had been put into her attack, and the slight sting as she swung the blade was but a minor distraction, excitement and adrenaline flowing through her veins upon feeling it strike the beast.  The grip felt well enough in her hands as if she had handled that particular one before.

Suddenly, she felt a blast of heat near her hands, though her grip held firm until the arc of the attack was completed easily, forcefully, and swiftly.  With wide eyes, she watched as the flames lengthened from it and burned the gargoyle's flesh, the blood splattering her clothes.  The thing charred and fell, and she stood watching, the moment feeling like it went in slow motion.

Then she brought it down in front of her face, eyes still wide as she examined the upright blade, the shimmering surface appearing almost clean and new.  "Dios mio..." she muttered with amazement, gripping the handle with both hands and holding it up to the dim light in the chapel.  "Yeah.  It works."  With a grin of approval, she brought it down and used a part of her cape as a makeshift sheath, placing it in her belt next to her own dragonblade while smirking at Gareeku's remark.

Her head then swiveled at where the other creature had fallen, splattered against the other column, more broken up than its brother...decapitated and leaving the floor as much painted in crimson.  She tilted her head at Sebastian as he walked past, urging them to continue on.  "Yeah...we'd better," she replied, albeit with a thoughtful tone while keeping in step with the others.

[Cogidubnus]

Cog's eyes alternatively widened and narrowed, and Cog yelled and tried to tell Jeremiah to get down. A bat flew in his mouth as soon as he opened it, and stifling a scream, he spit the foul creature out, and simply closed his eyes and dropped to his knee. Stifling yet another scream from his back, he slammed a fist into the ground - the air around him warped, a powerful wave of force emanating from his body in a fishbowl shape, striking and pushing everything around him. The swarm was crushed and blown away, and most of the bodies fell dead from the sky.
A moment later, he grimaced. He dearly hoped Jeremiah and the girl were alright...

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel recalled the magic she had expended on the snakes. The battle had been over so fast that no one had even noticed them. She didn't even know if the monsters were susceptible to illusions. She chewed on her lip as she realized that her strongest attack, ice, ran counter to Aisha's new sword and it's holy fire. She'd have to stay far from Aisha or try to figure out what help she could be with only her weaker skills.

She shuddered as she watched Sebastian just dust himself off and walk away after being put through a huge column then butcher a gargoyle. Right now she was wishing she had that holy symbol.

[Stygian]

This time, Stygian didn't wait for the others. The house was obviously more entwined than when he had last been free, and manifesting the Angel's fury more clearly. If she was so blatant as to send a pair of demons on them right away...
   He took a few steps forward and wreathed himself in darkness. There was a seething sound, like sand in the wind, and he dissappeared...

   There were still quite a few bats flying even after Cogidubnus's release of fury, but those quickly fluttered out of the windows which had smashed open, and now admitted the pouring rain and chill darkness of the night outside. The quarter moon did little to light the ballroom, almost completely obscured by dark, thunderous clouds.
   There was a crack of lightning that could not have come more than a mile away. And then Cog felt a presence. And then, someone placed his hat, which had been knocked off by the bats, on his head.
   He heard a low, murring chuckle in some snaking, demonic voice from behind.