The Castle [02] (Remba, but don't let it stop you)

[Prof B Hunnydew]

"Cog, I think the Bat said She got it, so we just had to get it done before your time is up....." said Bambi mulching away in a corner and She hears a that bell ring again  or thinks she does when drops her fork and it tings on the floor.  She finishes passing the butter to Gina.

... "ah Did anyone answer the front door bell?" asked PBH  

PBH

[Stygian]

"I know how to get us back!" the bat said out loudly, and bit her lip a bit as she drew practiced circles on the piece of paper she had. She began hastily explaining her theory to Keaton. "It's all about admission, not reinforcement! We set up a ritual to nullify the curse by giving it no reason or way to exist. We don't even have to cross-reference to the event itself; all we need to do is admit..."
   She stopped, and looked up at Keaton, her face suddenly dead serious and those gleaming eyes with their shifting colour boring their gaze right into Keaton's skull.
   "We all have to admit that we were wrong in our convictions. You have to admit that you were wrong about angels. Perhaps not all, but at least about your prejudices. Can you do that?"
   The question was hard, and probably painful. And it drew Stygian's attention to other things too. She glanced over at Cogidubnus with an unreadable but incredibly meaningful gaze, some of the pain he had seen before still there, before she bent down over her papers again, starting to calculate.

[Cogidubnus]

Cog grew silent at Sebastian's words, and stared at the shelves of books that lined the walls. He recognized dozens of arcane tomes and books of poetry alike, growing more glum at the former and less at the latter. He caught Sebastian's gaze, however, and himself felt a bit of melancholy spread like an ink stain. What could he say – she'd treated him better than he deserved thus far, at least concerning his recent behavior. He'd done all he could, in that regard. She'd have to work that out for herself...
He was distracting himself, he knew. Intellectually, he knew that he was probably wrong about mages being the scum off a sewer dweller's boot. But still, and the root of it, they had caused almost all his problems. Not that he complained, but he certainly wasn't going to endorse them heartily.
He had, in point of fact, made it a habit to kill the especially rotten ones.
He coughed, and spoke with a flat voice. "You are quite certain?" he said, hoping that perhaps this was the alternative to a costly and probably dark cleansing ritual. He looked morosely at a painting of an angel descending from heaven, and muttered a few lines under his breath.
"And malt, does more than Milton can, to justify God's ways to man..."

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha mostly concentrated on her meal while things were going on, people walking in and out of the room.  She greeted each new person to walk in following the smell of breakfast, respectively, with either a wave or a nod, her jaw too full of food to say anything directly...she did pause though when Mel needed directions to the washroom, avoiding the comment that the dragoness needed it as much as everyone else had before.  

In particular though, she kept an ear quirked to the conversation about the cure to the curses, her eyes widening a little and her head turning when Keaton had mentioned something about the curses becoming permanent.  Remembering their mannerisms and reactions to the venom, she felt concern for them again, and relief, wondering what would have happened should she have been bitten.  Her ears flattened against her skull at the thought, before she returned to slowly finishing her breakfast.

However, when Sebastian burst back into the room in a frenzy of epiphany, the panthress nearly jumped and her head swiveled.  Putting the plate aside, she stood and watched the conversation unfold with a tilted, curious expression.

So there was hope for them.  If they could face it.

[Stygian]

Sebastian scowled a bit and then turned to Cog.
   "I know precisely what I'm doing. The only other option I can see would be killing ourselves and necromancing new bodies for us, and then doing a Stigma ritual while our souls are still bound fast. I hardly think that we have enough resources or the bodies required to do that..." she said. She muttered something, and stopped writing, looking on her paper. "It's going to need a lot of blood, still. And we're going to have to speak out loud. Also, we'll each be possessed by the knowledge of the other's failings in turn as part of the ritual. And I am not sure what I can do about what you remember of magic, Cog."
   The bat didn't wait for a reply. She stood up, crossed over to the central part of the floor, and pushed aside some tables to clear space. She stood there, looked around and assayed the surroundings, then let her eyes fall upon the others.
   "We'll do it here. And we're going to have to get some materials. I want you to find at least two dozen candles, a bit of..." she stopped, and looked them over. "Antimony for Cog, mercury for Mel and... no, that wouldn't be right. I am Putrefaction, and we wish to unite here, not sunder... We should use the opposite; Cancer. Solution. Yes. That would even go together. Twelve candles, that's all. And a silver cup. And I would much rather do it..." The bat stepped over to the windows, and pulled the draperies fully shut. "...without the sunlight."
   She walked to the back of the room, back to where, in the wall, was an enormous hearth, the kind that some very few libraries have in reading areas for some reason, and picked out a piece of coal from it. Then, she moved back to the centre of the room, and got down on her knees and started to draw a complex twelve-edged star in a perfect circle on the floor, along with mystic symbols.
   "Get moving! We can do this at once if we hurry."

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel was startled when Sebastian ran off, but quickly followed him to the library to see what he was shouting about. Which meant she heard the explanation. She even dared to peek at what Sebastian was writing. When he gave his list of supplies she spoke up. "The chapel should be able to supply those. Most religious ceremonies use both. In fact the chapel would might be a better spot for this, it was surely magically prepared for rituals and would save us some steps." Then she thought of the condition she had last seen the room. "Or maybe not. It would take a lot of effort to clear the mess out. Is there a large empty room nearby?"

[Cogidubnus]

Cog raised an eyebrow as Sebastian began to speak of various alchemical reagents, and then moreso when she demanded twelve candles and a chalice of silver. Surely, things they should keep on their person, no?
Her other words, however...'possessed by the knowledge of each other's faults.' That sounded...very unfortunate. There were things in his past he would prefer very much to keep hidden, let alone recall in a darkened room. He sighed, looking straight down at the polished wood table for a few moments. He slammed his fist down, stood, and shook his head, heading for the door. If that's what it took, so that's what it took. He'd have to live with that, and the arcane knowledge burned into his mind also.
"I'll head for the chapel and look for a chalice and whatnot, then. If I remember correctly, the anteroom is rather large, if we want another location."
He waved a hand at them as he opened both oak doors  and strode down the hall towards the chapel. With any luck, he wouldn't have any trouble finding any of these things.

[Stygian]

"Fine. We'll do it in the ballroom then," Sebastian said, and got to her feet. She toyed with the piece of coal in her hand as she walked out, passing the others with decisive steps and making her way out.
   The ballroom lay not that far away, and was quite obviously almost entirely open. The tall windows let in the morning sun, much to the displeasure of the bat who squinted behind her glasses. It was still cloudy, but the light was enough that it spoiled the mood for her, and the draperies that hung around the windows here were only to the outer sides of them and decorative, meaning they couldn't shut it out. She sighed, supposing that it did not matter and getting down on the centre of the floor to draw once again. She completed the complex circle fairly quickly, adding the indicated positions for the three participants with circles and a focus point for the chalice. Then, she got up, and paced over to one of the seating areas in the corner of the room, sitting down in one of the sofas and going over it all in her head.

   When Cogidubnus arrived at the messy chapel, he quickly found what he was looking for. Gleaming in the light colored by the stained glass windows, the ornate candleholders at the podium all held nearly intact tall candles, and at the foot of it, obviously knocked over and away in the battle earlier, lay an equally ornate silver chalice with a few ruby inlays. The metal was, of course, a bit matted with age, but it was still a beautiful piece, and thankfully the metal was thick enough that it had survived its treatment quite easily, though Cog suspected a few of the rubies had fallen out. Around the brim was an inscription in latin: "Cruor vacuus Iusticia , Iusticia incruente". It seemed strangely fitting for the occasion.
   The chapel lay still and silent, not even the wind from outside audible. And yet, it was as if in that moment, with the rosy morning sun rising and shedding its goldened light through the windows, Cog could hear a choir, somewhere far, far above...

[Boog]

Jeremiah leaned around the door to the library. "H'lo? Sorry if I'm interrupting, just tying up what looked like a loose end," he entered the room fully, revealing another plate of pancakes in his hands, and set it down by the spider woman. "Mind if I untie her hands? Not all the way, just loosen 'em enough for her to eat." That ringing was starting up in his ears again, and Plic was rather enamored of all the books in this room. That was bad; she was a kleptomaniac who could only steal noncoporeal things, like the meanings from the words in these books. Thus, he seemed a little distracted as he spoke. After all, he was focusing on both this conversation and trying to convince Plic not to turn any of these tomes into useless piles of paper.

[Cogidubnus]

 The Chapel was indeed peaceful, and the sunlight streaming it, beauteous. In particular, a stained glass effigy of a golden angel standing before his sword caught his eye. He marvled at the scenery for a moment, before remembering why he had come there. He located all the needed materials, and smiled glumly at the etched writing on the chalice. Irony, it would seem, had made this place its permanent home.
Cog managed to place all the candles that they would need under one arm, and hefting the chalice in the other used his foot to open the fair number of doors in between him and the ballroom, nearly falling once or twice. He did not fall, however, and entered the ballroom without undue delay, stopping short of the runed star that Sebastian had placed on the ground.
"Twelve candles, one silver chalice. I hope you didn't want any particular colors, as they were all white." he said, setting them neatly by the side of the star. "I'll let you to it, then."
It vexed him somewhat that he understood what most of the runes that Sebastian had placed around the star, but what they meant disturbed him even more. He found an empty wooden chair near the edge of the room and took a seat, preparing for the ordeal that would likely follow.

[Sunblink]

"You WHAT?!" Keaton exclaimed, ears pivoting upright and clear blue eyes widening into saucer-shaped spheres.

It was obvious that Stygian had instantly garnered her full attention, indicated by the revitalized liveliness in her expression and the alarmed excitement in her voice as she approached him, watching him with keen interest as he started to scrawl an elaborate series of archaic circles and symbols on a piece of paper. Although she couldn't decipher the heiroglyphics included in the image, she tried to listen to every word Stygian presented, her expression gradually falling as he reached his conclusion.

Admit that she was wrong about Angels? Never before had Keaton met an Angel who had proved her prejudices incorrect, but then again she never exactly made any effort to socialize with them. Slowly, she started to think: had a traumatizing experience with one, heartless Angel really marred her opinion about an entire race which she had unfairly categorized as nothing but irredeemable monsters?

Well, it wasn't like she was all sunshine and roses herself. But Keaton found the idea of there being even one, solitary benevolent Angel unbearably hard to believe. As though mirroring her innermost thoughts, her eyes reticiently shifted to her mace, which was leaning against one of the armchairs. Just as Keaton turned her gaze back to Stygian, about to say something along the lines of, I'm not sure I can do that, he had already left with Cogidubnus in search of materials for their ritual.

Once more, Keaton looked behind her, this time at one of her wings, looming over her shoulder-blades. Light glistened off of each individual feather, giving an almost ephemeral, sleek shine to each alabaster-sable fiber. Reaching out, Keaton carelessly plucked a feather off of the wing, ignoring the slight sting of pain that followed this action.

Sitting down, Keaton stared for a good, long while at the feather, curved and resting almost peacefully in her palm, a disturbingly vacant, heartless look on her face.

Isolated in only her thoughts.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

Stygian didn't say anything but simply stood up, placed out the candles, one at each point of the star-like pattern on the floor. Then, she put the chalice in the centre of the circle, and turned to Cog.
   "May I?" she said, not really waiting for his permission but simply walking up to him and smoothly pulling his katana from its sheath. She slipped it out, sweeping it deftly through the air though with a bit of an edgy and wavy hand, as if she were more used to a longer or heavier blade, and strode up to the chalice in the centre of the floor.
   "The blood poisoned shows the path to the cure," she recited, and then placed the middle of the blade at her wrist, its length nearly parallel to her underarm. Slowly, she cut a deep wound into it, and blackish red blood spilled into the chalice in fat drops, nearly a stream.
   When she was done, the bat whipped clean the blade with a single stroke like a practiced swordsman would, the blood still on it spattering out into the circle a bit, and then spun it on her hand, landing it so that she could reach it to Cog butt-first. When he took it, she picked out a handkercheif from her pocket and pressed it to her already healing wrist.
   "The same words, and make sure it's a good deal of blood, then take your place at the circle with the symbol of the Moon," she said, and walked over to stand in her own, formed as Cog could see with a whole deal of patterns and symbols that connected to darkness and death, whereas his was clearly marked toward mysticism and spirit, and Keaton's was inscribed with signs and patterns of fury and agony, and also, oddly, a little hint to the Erinyes.

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog's eyes widened when Sebastian simply took his sword, and he had to stop himself from taking it back, forcefully, if only out of muscle memory. With his particular style of fighting, it was actually easier to kill someone who had a grip on your sword than one who who didn't. They were close, weren't going to move away, and weren't expecting the rather obvious reversal. Nevertheless. He let her take it, and mumbled something under his breath, affirming both Sebastian's luck and the certain death that awaited almost anyone else who tried such a thing...
He watched her begin the ritual with some chagrin, wincing as she drew his sword across her wrist. He quickly glanced at his own, and wondered if he would be able to complete the ritual without bleeding out at some point. He took careful note of her words, and was mildly surprised that she had the courtesy to wipe her blood off the sword. Rust was so difficult to remove. He accepted the hilt of his sword back from her, and mused that Keaton would probably need it as well. He nodded to Sebastian and approached the chalice.
"The blood poisoned shows the path to the cure," he said, placing the blade to his wrist in the same way, and with a flinch, drawing it across. The edge bit deeply, and red blood quickly flowed out from the wound and dripped off his wrist, into the chalice. It swirled and mixed with Sebastian's blood, creating a strange, streaked look to the fluid. His wrist throbbed, and he wrapped a piece of his loose clothing around the wound. He hoped that it would be enough to staunch the bleeding.
Wiping the blade off with his sleeve, he gingerly handed his sword to Keaton, fairly certain she would be needing to do the same thing. He walked to his corner of the star, marked with the moon, and waited.

[Aisha deCabre]

As Sebastian started her speech on what it would take to break the curse, Aisha moved out of her way when things were rearranged in the library for the ritual about to take place.  Her eyes narrowed, tracing the intricate pattern on the floor before it was only half-finished, at Mel's suggestion to move someplace bigger.  Aisha wasn't inclined to argue, nor say much of anything but simply watch, as someone unfamiliar with such practices would do.  Plus, sticking around in a library, crowded and holed in with bookshelves for barriers should something go awry, wasn't too comfortable a thought.

The panthress hopped away from the table she was leaning on, arms crossed as she watched the others get up and move towards the ballroom.  The bat lead the way, Cogi having gone off to find the supplies...Keaton looked the most uncertain.  Aisha waited for a second before coming up to her, having the idea that maybe she was too far in uncertainty of facing her prejudices to have noticed the others leaving.

The panthress couldn't blame her...she had a vendetta against the polar opposite of an angel...demons.  Both sides different, but depending on one's experiences, also one in the same.

"Hey," she said to get Keaton's attention, starting to walk out the door after everyone.  "You wanna be cured, right?"  She gave a friendly smile.  "Whatever must happen can't be worse than anything else you've had to endure, I just bet."  The panthress shrugged.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel stood off to the side of the room, near the doorway, but watching with great interest. Time had changed a lot of how magic was used since she had been trained. Whatever else came out of this visit to the abandoned castle she was certainly updating her arcane knowledge.

[Boog]

Jeremiah shrugged. He could live with being ignored. He loosened the bonds on the spider woman's arms slightly, scooted the plate of food slightly closer to her for when she woke up, and turned to leave the library. Plic was still straining against Jeremiah's will, and he felt her reach out and brush the edge of Mel's mental shields, gently, to see what was inside and if it was what the personality would call Shiney Stuff. The action was accompanied by a slight flicker of green flames at the frog's fingertips, which he hid by stuffing his hands in his pockets. He picked up the pace, moving as far from the library as possible. Some reason I'm going off. That bell. If anyone asks, I figured it was a doorbell and am trying to remember where the front door was...

[Sunblink]

Keaton probably would've spent hours just sitting there, looking at the feather, if Aisha hadn't come along, alerting her to her presence and drawing her back to reality from where she had been suspended. Blinking confusedly as though jolted out of a very deep, concentrated trance, Keaton lolled her head towards Aisha, not bothering to hide the feather or the slightly irritated look on her face. 'What do you want? Can't you see I'm moping?' her expression seemed to say.

Whereas Keaton was expecting a possibly uneffective consolation or something equally tedious to her, she found Aisha's words slightly more tremendous than that. Reasonable. Keaton's ears lowered as she listened, nodding slightly at Aisha's question. "Yeah..." she muttered, averting her gaze deliberately, "I want to be cured."

More than any of them knew.

Though Aisha's words rung true--whatever could happen was probably going to be nowhere near as devastating than what Keaton had already went through. Being forced to share the same race as one of those she hated most inexorably (there was one other thing Keaton hated more, though, but that was irrelevant) had brought utter emotional disaster upon her, such she had not experienced in years. Was letting go of her pride and her long-contained loathing more painful than having to endure any of this?

Keaton looked down at the feather again, her eyes raking over its alabaster outline, gradually snaking down to the sable spot that crowned the tip.

Some part of Keaton wanted to crush it in her hand and tear it to shreds, but slowly, surely, that shard of her had found itself, for once, silenced and shoved back into the cage it deserved to be in.

Instead, Keaton tipped her hand over, slowly allowing the pinion to float elegantly to the ground.

Standing up, Keaton turned away from Aisha, dusted herself off, and with a look of liberated determination on her face, started to depart for where she surmised Cogidubnus and Stygian had gone. Just as she was about to step over the threshold of the door, she stopped, squaring her shoulders. Oh yes. She had almost forgotten something.

"Ahem," Keaton cleared her throat, then craned her head around to face Aisha. "Thanks."

And with that, she left.

--

When Keaton had arrived, she came just in time to watch Cogidubnus make the first cut along his wrist. Stopping during her first step, her pupils pinpricked as they followed the drops of blood plummeting into the chalice, vanishing past the rim of the vessel. Oh crap. THAT was what they were doing? What was this, some sort of satanic sacrifice?

The idea disgusted her, but regardless, Keaton approached, appearing beside the two once the final dollop of blood had made its departure. This couldn't be anywhere near as agonizing as having to endure being an Angel for the rest of her life. After all, it wasn't as though Keaton was transient to pain. Cogidubnus passed her the blade without comment.

Rolling back her threadbare belle-sleeve, Keaton stared down at her wrist, setting down the knife for a moment so she could remove her glove. Taking up the knife again, Keaton pressed the tip of the blade to her wrist and swiftly sliced it, freeing a steady stream of crimson without so much as a moment of hesitation or preparation. Anything of that sort would only delay this process. Keaton extended her arm over the chalice, tilting it slightly so that way the excess of blood would rain down into the bottom of the sanguine-filled grail.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

Keaton's blood spilled into the grail with a wet, dripping sound, and through some odd means the red mixed with oily black in the cup on the floor looked almost as if about to boil, shivering and seething. When she took her place in her circle, it didn't take so much as a second before she felt as if something gripped her or bore down on her, like an invisible tension in the air. A quick look to Stygian showed her standing still in her circle, her face focused and her eyes gleaming, but yet still. And somehow Keaton could still feel that it was the bat who had started the ritual, pushing down her foot to start the avalanche, so to speak. The light from outside grew fainter, the clouds somehow darkening in seconds and the air going thick and blurry. On its own, the blood in the chalice swirled, and then somehow began running up its sides and over them, down to the foot of it and running out, exactly following the lines drawn on the marble floor.
   Then, suddenly, the bat spoke up.
   "We are here, tres osoris, three haters filled to the brim with its poison," she said, in a voice that seemed to echo more than it should have, and the light dimmed further, the blood still finding its way through the scribed lines.
   Something shook Cogidubnus' mind, gripping it. It felt like a sort of dizzyness, a power and a presence that was not his but seeping through and within him, lending him its strength and telling him what to do. He felt words come over his lips that he had not thought of, and had no intention to speak.
   "We are here, tres fatuus, three fools cursed by our mistakes as much as their reason," he spoke, before the feeling almost completely left him, the power still lingering just somewhat. The presence then gripped Keaton, and she looked almost in shock as she spoke.
   "We are here, tres petitoris, three seekers, fearing the answer yet still in need for it. You," she spoke, and then felt as her head turned. She saw as she looked and pointed at Stygian. "What do you hate? What do you believe? What do you fear?"

   The bat breathed deeply, before she sighed and then spoke, looking not nervous, but almost as if she felt helpless.
   "I hate women. Not women as people, nor the gender, but women as for how they behave, and what they have done to me. Everyone who has ever managed to really fool me, who has managed to betray me or to wound me so that I felt it has been a woman. A woman stole my place in life that I sought, a woman killed my love and scarred me and a woman cast me out and left me for dead, setting me on the path to revenge I have walked my whole life. I believe women to be above me in a way, I believe them not stronger or better but somehow more pure or just, and for that I hate them. And I fear the power that they have to turn and lure, even without intelligence or strength or cunning or even understanding."
   Keaton felt her hand sweep through the air. And although she and Stygian were perhaps thirty feet apart, she could feel the swat on the bat's cheek, and see her head being knocked aside.
   "Fool!" the jackal heard as she said, her voice hissing and odious. "Your greatest enemies have never been women. The reason you were cast away was not because of your sister. The reason your mother left you was because she wanted you to live. And you only have yourself to blame for your weakness, if it is pain or passion that troubles you. Women are just people, as foolish as anyone. There is no reason for your hatred!"
   The presence left Keaton, and she breathed heavily, her face feeling warm and her body trembling somehow. And then, the bat looked up, and pointed at Cogidubnus.
   "You. What do you hate? What do you believe? What do you fear?" she spoke, her eyes fixed dead straight at the wolf.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

PBh knew what the Ballroom would be important to her friend and took Gina to watch the ritual.  As Stygian, stated the reason for his/her hate, PBH watches Gina's face.  What part of this lady in the bat's past was Gina? PBH wonders  Yet, She did not ask, she only watches the Cursed three and the magics of ritual.  also she was watching Gina's reactives, and then places her hand on the ferret's arm to offer support.

PBH

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog stood with his arms crossed, his eyes obscured by his glasses, and struggling to keep from shouting. He wanted to scream at this presence, this strange force behind part of this ritual – the very idea of magical domination was part and parcel of his hatred, and although he could rationalize his hate away, it didn't diminish it's presence. He was no stranger to mental domination: that was part of his being as well, and as such he had developed an incredible resistance to mental attacks. Many a foolish mind-reader had thought that without mental shielding a mind was ripe for the picking – they had found his mind fortified indeed. But this thing, whatever it was, had made him speak as easily as he could make himself.
As Stygian stared at him, he felt himself again nudged by that force to answer. He fingered the bandage wrapped around his wrist and looked down at it quickly. It wasn't staunching well. A few stray drops were falling onto the floor and onto his clothing, and the material of his shirt was getting soaked. He thought about trying to heal himself, but decided fingering the crucifix right then might not have been a good idea.
But still, there was that nudging prodding force in the back of his mind, urging him to state his hates, his beliefs, and his fears. But, to his surprise, it did not make him speak like a puppet this time, did not force the words through his mouth. He nodded his head slightly. He had to speak the words, and the ritual would not make him. It was part of its power, and part of why the ritual worked. Free admission of your faults. He stared at the others, and at those standing outside the star, and closed his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he swallowed his pride and reserve, and spoke. His voice was not flat, but rose and fell with the pall of deep emotion.
"I hate mages. I hate them, for I see them as others do not: for what they are. Abusers of power, bullies who use the arcane to further their own petty, personal goals, and damned be the cost. A group of egotisical, might-makes-right tyrants, petty kings who lord over the rest of the earth as if it was their own playground."
He narrowed his eyes and continued. "The Necromancer, the magician who steals bodies, both alive and dead, to raise a personal army of zombies, or to sacrifice the souls in exchange for yet more power. The Wizard of healing, who 'procures' his cadavers for study anywhere he can – from graves when he can, but if none are to be found, well...street trash won't be missed. Even better, you can experiment so much more with a live body! The Master of Destruction, who likely began his path swearing to protect lives with his power, and calls down such flames and fires that the land itself grows twisted for centuries. Mages! Mages, who can not only kill out of curiosity and greed but out of sheer spite and annoyance! Under any other name, these kinds of men would be called murderers. But no one dares call the Lord of the Tower anything but master."
He was shivering at this point, his face coloring under his fur, and his voice shook.  "Mages, who cursed me with madness under the full moon. Mages, who tricked me into destroying the life of an innocent man. Who I have seen kill countless innocent and weak. Mages, who could HELP. They could do so much! But they instead, choose to take, and take, and take, and drunk with power finally attempt something so beyond them they kill all they touch."
By the end, Cog's voice had grown flat, and the blood was now really starting to drop. He already felt lightheaded, and he quickly wrapped more of the shirt tighter around the wound. With luck, he hadn't hit a vein...
"I believe Mages to be abusers of power, and abusers of gifts, without exception. They are cruel without equal, and greedy beyond the most tight-fisted baron – for they do not lust for money, but for power.  And...I..."
Cog took a deep breath, and continued. 
"I fear to become like them. I fear that one day, I might wake up, and find that I have killed, have murdered, and destroyed, all for personal gain. I fear to become what I hate."
At that, his statement had ended, and he glanced at Sebastian from behind shaded lenses. It supposed, like Keaton, she would now tell him where he had gone wrong. He waited for her answer.
She regarded him with blazing eyes. "Fool!" she said, her voice dark, almost akin to her growl. "You do not hate mages - you hate all those with great strength! These men you describe may be despicable, but do you think this is limited to throwers of magic? What of the horrors ascribed to great kings and generals? Is the sin any less when a town mayor steals from his populace? Fool! You do not hate because of right, but because of prejudice! Mages are not the source of the world's troubles! There is no reason for your hate!" As she finished, Sebastian gasped, and her eyes cooled. Cog absorbed what she said numbly, and was again nudged by that force. His turn.
He turned to Keaton. "You. What do you hate? What do you believe? What do you fear?"

[Sunblink]

As the final drop of blood exited Keaton's willing veins, her clear blue eyes watched with detached, paled interest as the blood gathered at the bottom of the vessel's chamber boiled and started to darken into a sickening, blackened concoction. Seizing a handful of her opposite belle sleeve, Keaton ripped off a sizeable strip of sable cloth, which she used to hurriedly obstruct the acrimonious gouts of blood that were still pouring from the laceration in her wrist. Securing the ligature and biting her way through the still-livid pain stinging along her arm, she looked up, ignoring her injury, and stood at attention.

Stygian went first. For someone who happened to be female, Keaton found herself surprisingly unoffended at his confession. People had their share of prejudices, and so long as they did nothing to interfere in hers, she wouldn't do the same. Without realizing it, though, there was a sudden grasping sensation, as though her very being had been whipped from her body and replaced with a vile, crawling essence, which was speaking in her voice, through her mouth, slapped him with her hand, but just wasn't her. She was returned to her body, leaving Keaton utterly shellshocked and startled by this occurrence. Trying to regain her breath and some sense of being to her surroundings, she looked around, as though she had been just woken up from some very deep, unpleasant sleeping spell.

Cogidubnus went next. His acquiescence was considerably more dramatic, and this time Stygian was possessed by the same, dominating force as before. Hissing about power, hate, and foolishness in a way disturbingly similar to how she did. Stifling a gasp, she grasped her injury, not noticing how the blood pulsing in her arm had started to quicken and electrify thanks to her stress, saturating the layers of cloth bound around her self-inflicted wound.

Then everyone's eyes were on her. Cogidubnus spoke to her. Ears folded back. Keaton looked up, her gaze flickering from Stygian, then to Cogidubnus.

She was silent at first, her hand's slender, long digits unconsciously wrapping around her wrist, squeezing against the damp patch that had formed there. The blood against her palm, the rapid, furious throbbing, seemed to invigorate her, to urge her to talk.

Finally, Keaton got herself to speak, forcing her voice out. "I hate Angels," she said. "I hate them like nothing else."

She knew that wasn't going to be enough. Stygian and Cogidubnus had freely admitted their loathing, so she could too. "The person who humiliated me and treated me as his servant for seventy years of my life was an Angel, and completely personified everything that's WRONG with them. He was greedy. He adored power above all else. He took advantage of those who were beneath him, treating them like dirt."

The final word of that sentence was no more than a rasping growl. Despite rising, simmering rage, Keaton continued, forcing her words out through her bladed teeth. "Especially me. He hated me because of my clan affiliation, but I was useful to him. That was the only reason he kept me around. Nothing more. Nothing less."

Oceanic eyes squeezed shut for a moment, and Keaton wrenched out a slight laugh as the memories came back in a rushing avalanche. As her eyes opened she looked deranged; startlingly mad, a razorbladed smile trembling on the corners of her lips. "Even worse was that he tricked me. He ruined the memories of someone I adored, someone who had been my best friend, comfort, and inspiration, and laughed at me for it."

Keaton continued remorselessly, ranting, raving, the smile vanished. "I believe that Angels are the scum of Furrae, that they are nothing more than lying, cheating, selfish, hateful pieces of..." the jackal sighed, managing to cut off her vulgarity for just a fleeting second before resuming, "...and if they were somehow erased from the world that would be a blessing for all of us.

"I fear" – she spat out the word as though it were venom on her tongue – "That another Angel will come and manipulate me. But I don't fear Angels themselves."

But she had gotten back at him. She had won. She had emerged victorious, free from his control and his presence. Where Keaton had once served him, he now did the same for her, his very soul lingering within the prison of her mace where he would suffer until the day she died. And she would personally ensure that would never happen any time soon, if only to spite him.

It was Cogidubnus's turn to speak, Keaton's head snapping upright and her eyes widening, then narrowing in his direction. "Foolish girl! You chose to hate Angels only because you needed somebody to hate, to blame for all you had went through!

"One individual's actions are not enough to condemn an entire race!" Cogidubnus said, his expression vehement. "You have been living, enveloped in lies that you have forged yourself. You hate and hate and hate, and it owns you, it devours you. You have become yet another puppet, but this time one of your own hate and rage!

"There is no reason for your hate."

The presence was ejected from his body in the same manner it had left hers. The lycanthrope blinked, shaking the dizziness from his head, and found himself staring into Keaton's face, the jackal withdrawn, her eyes large and surprisingly glassy—she looked entirely appalled, emphasized by the dark rings that underlined her eyes, the way her teeth tentatively dug into her lower lip, her pupils dilated, and how she pulled in on herself, tremulous hand clutching her wrist like her life depended it, blood oozing through the fabric and onto her gloved palm. It became obvious that this was the first time anyone had reached her—had shown her the cold truth of her emotions.

And it had brought something among the tempestuous whirlwind of reeling emotions that wracked Keaton's mind that she hadn't experienced in hundreds of years.

Remorse. Terror at herself, her actions, and the truth.

The next moment Stygian and Cogidubnus blinked, that lapse of weakness—that shadow of a little girl--was gone, left only in the sullen demeanor still hanging wretchedly around Keaton's aura like a rotting, exuding tapestry and the thick valleys beneath her eyes. Gritting her fangs together, Keaton averted her eyes, staring resolutely forward, towards the inky mass of blood smoldering in the bottom of the grail.

She could hate herself all she liked, but it would only trap her in the same pattern that she had been imprisoned in for years. She had done enough of hating. Now was the time to change, and to free herself from the vile feelings that fettered her.

And to undo this curse which plagued her.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Gareeku]

Choosing not to join the others for breakfast, Gareeku continued to read the book, not being able to take his eyes off of the text within as his eyes flitted from left to right and back again, the soft sound of rustling paper echoing out quietly and occasionally as pages were turned every once in a while.

[Stygian]

The blood that had been oozing out of the chalice now filled the full pattern of the circle, its still wet slickness gleaming in the light from the candles, the sky outside the windows having become dark and cloudy. There was something almost like a ripple through the wet surface, the floor shaking once, twice, under their feet. The air around the lines scribed on the floor shivered as if heated, and there was a smell close to ashen in the air.
   "Our hatreds are useless. Purge them!" Stygian said, eyes glowing and enraptured.
   "Our beliefs are void. Purge them!" Cogidubnus said, feeling that gripping presence again and speaking a lot steadier than he felt.
   "Our fears are null. Purge them!" Keaton almost growled, with an anger that she only partially felt.
   The sanguine seal around their feet burst into flames, fire snaking and coiling through the air in unnatural ways as it wormed itself up around them. It immolated them, set fire to their skin and fur, seeped into them with their hasted breath and they could feel it burning through them, from inside and out. The feeling was absolute pain and pleasure all in the same, as they felt every cell in their bodies squirming, suffused with the power.
   And then, as quickly as the fire had taken hold, it stopped, leaving them standing completely unscathed. Now, there was only the three of them, standing there on the empty floor around the drained chalice. The feeling still lingered somewhat, crawling through them, before they all gasped in turn, and breathed out, clearing their lungs and wanting for fresh air. Stygian expelled a cloud of seething black, ash and flames like those who had entered from her mouth, shakily breathing in again. Keaton saw a cloud of reddish-purple fire, like plasma, ooze into the air and fade away as she cleared her lungs. And Cog had good time to catch sight of the glowing, moonlight-like mist and fire that crackled slightly as it left him. Outside the window, the sky had returned to a bright and clear blue, just a few clouds loitering idly through it. All was still again.

   The bat held up her hand in front of her face as the effects of the ritual dissappeared. She was still female, but judging from her expression it was no catastrophe. The spell had not failed. It was just that...
   She turned her eyes against the windows, squinting her oversensitive eyes in the light. Then, she promptly turned on the spot and swaggered back to the shadows in the other end of the ballroom. A sort of crawling movement ran over her skin, as she shifted, and grew into her clothes, making them a perfect fit.
   Male and capable of shifting freely again, Stygian looked down on himself, holding out his arms a bit. He ran familiar fingers and claws over his arm, over where the cut on his wrist had faded to nothing, then breathed deeply, closed his eyes, and smiled.
   "Perfect," he said, in that same smooth, hidden-edge voice they had heard before, looking up at them with gleaming eyes and a grin.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

When the circle burst into flame, despite knowing that the fire couldn't leave it's fixed point, Mel couldn't suppress an involuntary squeak of dismay and a jump back that made the door behind her rattle. By the time she got her eyes open it was over. At first glance nothing seemed different. She hoped they hadn't gone through this for nothing.

Mel stepped forward to offer to heal the slashed wrists. Both Cog and Keaton had lost a lot of blood yesterday and couldn't afford to bleed too long. Cog was closest so she stepped up to the edge of the ritual site and offered, "May I tend your injury?" She spoke softly, so as not to startle the swordsman so soon after being in the magic thrall.

[Aisha deCabre]

"Sure thing," Aisha had simply answered Keaton as she left the library to take her place in the ritual to happen in mere moments.  The panther, noting pretty much everyone had left save for Gareeku, gave him a quick farewell, deciding not to bother him with his reading.  She followed not-too-closely behind the succubus-turned-angel, her arms crossed in curiosity.  This will be interesting.

She entered the ballroom as soon as Keaton had taken her place in one of the smoothly-crafted symbols etched to the floor, and she slowly made her way nearer to the other bystanders, a safe distance from the edge.  But they were certainly close enough to hear and see what went on, especially when their successive voices rang out and echoed across the walls, accentuated by the sudden darkening of the morning...and their blood, spilling as if from its own will into the intricate markings.

To distract the panthress from the crawling feeling that came from witnessing this, from the blood to something having taken control of them, as if something out of stories of mind-rending unholy cults...their lamentations were certainly something to listen to and something more for them to let go.  The panthress unconsciously made mental notes of each respective turn, individuals facing their prejudice, and certainly impressed by their will.  Aisha couldn't help but wonder if she could have gone through it half so well.

It looked like a weight was lifted from them when the spell down and the light was brought back through the curtains anew on the individuals after a dazzling blaze.  The first to revert was Sebastian, with certain relief seen on him.  Now there was just the others.

[Boog]

Jeremiah continued onward, the sounds of the ritual fading beind him. Sounds like they're making progress. Good for them. Now, if I remember correctly the doorway was... was...
Annnnnd he was lost. Briefly, he remembered what Sebastion had mentioned about the castle rearranging itself. "Oh hell..."

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog's eyes came unglazed, and his first action back in control of himself was to cough up a great deal of what felt like blood coming up - at least, it was liquid, cold, and felt as though it didn't belong. He was greatly surprised when he coughed up cloud of moon-colored mist, with lightning crackling amidst the vapor.
Cog came back to the world of the living much as he had left it - he felt...different somewhat. Not less or more, but different. He felt whole, clean almost - he sighed, and nodded. The curse had indeed left him...but now to test it.
He concentrated, and tensed his hands, trying to conjure up the sparks that came with overflowing arcane power. Nothing happened. His hand was as stable and grounded as the flagstones outside.
In his head, however, he still had a great deal of the arcane knowledge that he had had. In point of fact, it was still all there, just as vibrant as it had been when he'd been cursed. He sighed. Memories did not fade, and that simply could not be changed.
Strangely, he found he did not mind so much.
Mel's soft voice brought him out of his reverie, and he nodded to her gratefully. "Please, thank you." he said. He'd rather not get this far to die of blood loss. It would be rude, at the very least. He offered his arm to the dragon's inspection, hoping that whatever he had cut was able to be fixed somewhat easily.

[Stygian]

The bat's smile quickly dimmed into a half-smirk when he looked up, and then went away as his face was made expressionless. He shifted his stance, straightened his shirt, and then paced back through the ballroom, back to the door they had come from. He spared a brief glance to Keaton and Cog, and to Mel who was aiding them, a quite bitter look, and only made a single comment before he left.
   "I'll be done with breakfast and then go to my quarters. Feel free to do as you like."
   Sebastian passed Jeremiah as he went, the frog not having come so much more than the left side of the castle out of confusion, and just walked silently past him, then did precisely as he had said, finishing his soup and hastily downing his tea and a sandwich even though the latter really wasn't neccessary. Then, he grabbed a couple of books and papers, and some ink and a quill after a quick search, not minding or at least pretending not to mind whether if anyone else walked in on him, and made off against the nearest stairs. He headed for a certain room he was familiar with from another time, on one of the higher floors, intent on staying there for some time.
   The bat's mind was tense and angry, and he knew no better way to calm himself than to go somewhere off and busy himself with business. It was not what he needed, as in actuality he was, despite himself, hoping for someone to come by or disturb him with something interesting, but it was the only way he could think of that he didn't think would end in more stupidity or frustration.
   And so, high up, he closed and darkened a room, laid down his things, and went to bed again, hoping to wake up no time before darkness had fallen again outside.

[Sunblink]

As though emboldened by the confessions of the three assembled around it, suddenly, the entire circle came to life: the sky outside of the window darkened, the clouds orbiting the castle becoming thick and dark, like smog oozed from the towers of a factory; the blood pooled in the vessel set before the trio started to quake and vibrate; and the floor shuddered and convulsed beneath them. Somehow, despite these evolutions in her surroundings, Keaton remained resolute, her ears folded back and her clear blue eyes locked inseparably on the chalice.

The three spoke once more, their voices resonant and bold, the force that dominated them before possessing them for that final explosion.

Fire coiled in serpentine trails from the crimson-scrawled seal, crawling around them, embracing them, even as they burst into flames. Keaton sunk her teeth into her lower lip to keep herself from screaming, nearly drawing blood, her muscles tensed and her fists tremulously clenched. It ended surprisingly quickly, and somehow left them completely untouched despite the seething, realistic sensation that had erupted from all over Keaton and the others' bodies. Around her, clouds of unknown substance emitted from the group, each individual producing a significantly different toxin.

Then it ended. The skies outside were crisp and sapphire again, speckled with sparse tufts of clouds.

Keaton looked down at herself, carefully examining every detail of her body. White still replaced the vibrant yellow that would normally colorize her fur; feathers still grew from her wings. Had the spell failed?

In Stygian's case, it hadn't. The bat retreated into the darkness, using it to shape his body and return him to his former body—distinctly male. Cogidubnus's body failed to radiate the lightning that had crackled from it before. But then what happened to her?

Suddenly, Keaton felt a crawling feeling all over her body, the halo around her head dying almost instantly. Alabaster oozed away from her body like ivory ichor, revealing the layers of yellow fur that had been concealed beneath; feathers shed from her wings and vaporized into diaphanous fog the moment they departed her pores; two-fingered claws flexed from atop the joints of the wings; and color returned to Keaton's eyes, leaving them mismatched and a chocolate brown. Crowning off the entire transformation, head-wings identical to Keaton's newly-metamorphosed, leathery wings burst from her head in a flurry of white sparks, stretching instinctually atop the mess of dirty blonde hair.

She was back, Keaton realized joyfully. She was BACK.

A broad grin spread along her tanned lips, jagged, enamel fangs sparkling. Indescribable happiness seized the jackal as she examined herself in its entirety, embracing her draconic wings, her yellow fur... everything that made her her. After trials and tribulations, she was finally back to her original form...

This happiness was momentarily interrupted when dizziness started to stem from her head, originating from the still-bleeding cut in her arm. Groaning, Keaton reached up to clutch at her head, her headwings twitching. It was a blessing that Mel approached the two, first attending to Cogidubnus. When it was her turn, Keaton proffered her arm, watching with surprising concern as Stygian left the room.

Crap. After all of this she still hadn't thanked him. First things first, she would go to visit him, if possible. Then she would go take a bath. She smelled like blood and frankly, she knew from experience that it was no fun to lie around in. A wardrobe change would be necessary, as well, since her clothing was torn apart in several places, most notably where the gash in her side once was and her sleeves, which she had used as bandaging.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Prof B Hunnydew]

PBH sits shocked at the bat's ah hasty exit, and it nag at her, that he did not even see Gina or herself...

"That s it?  No thanks or nothing.. Just 'I am going to my room and we are free for the day'?  I'm not his servant and he is not paying me.  Well, Gina, We need some answers or he owns them to you..."

This angry is fake, PBH had seem the bat's reaction many times in your uncle and herself, when someone should to celebrating a great success, they just wanted to go and hide from people, even friends... Too much time alone will do that and the bat has been alone 60Xtimes longer than her depressed years.

Bambi takes Gina's hand, they started to follow the Bat.  But finds a confused Jeremiah looking lost, she motions to him to follow after finding out where he was going.  She takes and points him down to the hallway main entrance hall just off from the library.  She quickly passes Keaton, as continues on after the bat as just he leaves the library on his way to his sanctuary.  With Gina in tow, she climbs up the stairs and to his tower room that is dark as cave.  Standing in his doorway, She yells "Stygain!, What about >>>ABEWBLabcbliwbcl!"  Bambi stands shocked at the nonsense coming out of her mouth..    " OH fategsy rosiskvoipem;t[[" Bambi trying again.  With a look of horror, She places her hands over her mouth and turns to Gina.  PBH trys to says "I love you" as reach a hand out to her with pleading look, but her voice sounds even worst with grunts and growls.  PBH looks in horror at her own mouth and faints.