10065/A damnation of demons

A damnation of demons
Date of Scene:	10 February 2022
Location:	The Shadowcrest Estate grounds
Synopsis:	Mobbed by demons and saved by Atrun-Rai
Cast of Characters:	Zatanna Zatara, Achilles, Atrun Rai

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Zatanna Zatara has posed:
It's a clear night, stars bejewel the branches of the winter naked trees, and the new moon is a dark blue shadow promising spring and light in the days to come. Only the eyes of the initiated can see the stone walls surrounding the Estate. The main house is a black silhouette behind the high walls. The weathered stone covered in ivy could be centuries old. Indeed, the dense trees are the oldest in Gotham. Groves of tall oak stand cushioned in loam, and little secondary growth makes moving through the grounds easy.

Achilles has posed:
    When normal people have a chill run down their spine, like someone walked over their grave... they usually dismiss it and go on about their day or not as if nothing were really wrong. They just have that momentary hesitation where their primitive hindbrain tells them that something might be wrong.

    But most normal people aren't Homo Magi. Ever since that book from Mephisto was brought into the estate, things just felt a little wrong. Just a little off kilter, out of whack. You know... someone walked over your grave.

    But tonight, there is an odd feeling that hits Zatanna -right- before a slow knocking comes from the front gates. There is a young woman standing there waiting patiently. But something just -feels- wrong here.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Things do go bump in the night. Inter-dimensional demesnes are prone to floors settling and doors needing a little oil on their hinges as the house moves through space in its inimitable way.

The Estate's current owner is in her bedroom getting ready for bed. The duvet, its rich patterned cover turned back, in the four-poster bed as old as the house waits for Zatanna to settle in. A fire burns in the large fireplace that dominates one wall. Zee undresses, not relying on magic to change into a black t-shirt emblazoned with 'Good Witch' and yoga pants. She freezes, looking around the room, wondering what touched her intuition. Then, with a huff, she puts on her slippers and pads out of the room before walking the long corridor leading to the large staircase that will take her to the library.

Achilles has posed:
    Patience seems to be a trait that the young dark haired woman at the front gates has in abundance. She knocked... made herself known. And now she waits with hands clasped behind her back.

    She stands a tall five feet one inch tall, and can't weigh more than a hundred pounds. Petite is the right term to describe the young woman. Her eyes are a dark chocolate brown, and the expression on her face indicates amusement. Just the hint of a smirk to express that.

    Whomever she is, she seems to obviously know how to at least reach the gates to the estate. That alone shows that there is more to her than the raw appearance might indicate.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
The wards protecting the house flare on the map of the Estate adorning one wall of the library. More modern conveniences (thanks to her long association with Batman) give her a picture in a screen next to the map of who stands at the gate. Zee frowns wondering where she has seen the face before.

The woman standing at the gate will hear a buzz as the gate unlatches and swings open to admit her.

One of her mortal servants has roused and goes to answer the door as the Great House begins to shake itself awake to admit a late night guest.

Looking down at herself, Zee makes the decision to change. With a gesture, t-shirt and yoga pants are replaced with an oversized cable knit sweater over slender black pants and knee-high boots. She might be dressed for an midnight ride.

Achilles has posed:
    With the opening of the gate, the girl's eyes widen before the crinkle... not shut, just narrowing. Why do they narrow? I am glad you asked! She has one of those smiles that, when formed... makes the eyes crinkle halfway shut. A smile that reaches the eyes, as the sayings go.

    Her head bobs and she takes one step onto the grounds beyond the gate. When the servant reaches the door, a voice is felt more than heard. It resonates ... almost vibrating. Far too deep a bass sound for that petite body to have formed it. The tail end of the words reach the servant... " ... for we are many..." it says slowly.

    And that is when inky black smokey power pours from mouth, nostrils, eyes, ears... and the girl drops to the ground outside like a rag doll.... the inky power seeping under the door... roiling and splitting off into a hundred different directions even as Zatanna approaches the door. One of them is attempting to worm its way into the mortal servant while the rest race off as fast as they can.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
The House resonates like a bass string plucked by a giant unseen hand. Zatanna prosaically mumbles, "Crap," under her breath as she watches the girl crumple like a delated balloon to the ground. Like a spider giving birth to a thousand offspring, black power invades the grounds.

eflexively, still a few feet away from the entrance, Zatanna slams the door with a back-handed gesture and grabs the servant's coat to pull him to safety. She releases him after closely inspecting his eyes for demon-gleam then orders, "Everyone stay indoors. Wait for the magic password before letting in the house. Stand ready. We're invaded. And it's my fault."

Achilles has posed:
    Of course, the entity that was trying to invade the servant, turns to assault the mistress of the house. In reality, the whole front door demon is the distraction. It is a suicide run to keep the Mistress busy while the others seek for the book.

    Anyone as experienced with the supernatural as Zatanna is could figure that out fairly easily. It's not some super genius tactical maneuver that would fake out the smartest folks. What it is, is a threat that must be honored. The servant seems to have been saved for now, since that powdery inky cloud is still swarming there, probing at Zatanna's mystical defenses.

    Meanwhile, hundreds of tendrils race off in every direction, looking not only for the book from Mephisto, but anything else that they could grab, inhabit, possess or otherwise threaten Zatanna with.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Throughout the house at Zee's hand-waved gesture, doors slam shut and glow briefly golden as wards are activated. "Sound the general alarm. Everyone stays in their rooms," she orders. "I will stop this. I want everyone safe behind wards."

To the occult eye, Zatanna's clothes also gleam golden, clothed in cosmic power, the antithesis of the inky blackness invading the Estate.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    In the midst of this, a triangle is drawn in space by distant hands - distant tendrils - across the gulfs of space and time. From somewhere in the void, the geometry is inscribed, cut into the flesh of the Veil; it opens in the space somewhere on the grounds, halfway between the gates and the house itself, and from the shape of inky blackness steps a man in black. Atrun-Rai manifests once more, stroking his beard as he looks out across the night-stained land. Whispers from his masters brought him here. So to the house he goes.

    Scenting evil. Forty thousand years or so ago he was a preeminent exorcist among the ancient Atlantean city-states, before Atlantis was an empire. The old instincts rise within him as he walks of across the grass, leaving frosted footprints in his wake. The black portal from which he walked seals behind him, black tendrils licking at the air hungrily before drawing away. Only a faint scar is left in the Veil that will swiftly heal.

Achilles has posed:
    Regardless of wards and such, of triangle-ports or other precautions, the entities that look somewhere between a swarm of tiny gnats, black pepper floating in mid-air, and dark black smoke... kind of all at once, continue to flow through the house.

    These demonic entities are lesser beings. They are in service to a goddess from ancient times. An incarnation of even earlier forces. In reality, the same energy may have coalesced in different personifications over the eons. Discord, Eris, Conflict, Entropy, Chaos.... their master or mistress is not present. The presence of THE BOOK is an excuse to probe the defenses. But it is also hopefully to be presumed to be their objective. In truth, the objective is to torment, and to cause Zatanna to worry. To make her lose some sleep. Mostly, to put her off guard and to do what damage can be done to the estate of the Shadowcrest Manor.

    So even as the individual form tries to swarm over Zatanna, it makes a sound somewhere between a record with the needle scratching over it, and a pig squealing as it is stuck by a blade as it pulls back from the contact. It intended to try to enter her and possess her right up until she pulled the EXACT right counter out of her hat... er.. sweater?

    At the moment, these entities shooting through the house, slamming into wards with enough power to strain them a bit, but not break them... they have no idea of the ancient Elder One Avatar approaching.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Another surge of power portends reinforcements, but the power signature is different than the inky black that races toward the library. Zatanna ignores the surge outside in her hurry to rid the house of the unwanted visitors. She will deal with it when she has the time or no choice. No Amazon deliveries are due.

Grinding her teeth against the noise, the homo magi reinforces her personal shield with a double-handed sweep that covers her from head to toes. If she can't operate, the demonic pests invading her house will have a field day.

Impatiently, she snaps at her butler, "Get to safety behind a warded door, or you will taken."

Not staying to confirm whether he listens or not, she races to the library behind the dark cloud.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    Atrun-Rai marches toward the house - and then, suddenly, hurtles toward it. He does not run; instead, black tendrils exude from his body, through clothes that were exuded as well, enormous, ten-foot lengths of obtenebrate substance that flexes and moves as biological flesh without having any of its real properties. They hurtle him toward the front door, even as his eyes and mouth begin to fill with a gray fire that leaps and crackles like a yule log seen through a black-and-white television -- unnatural, the obliterating flame of the Void, the fire of entropy.

    << I CAN SMELL YOU, LITTLE MONSTERS, >> Atrun-Rai roars as the tendrils carry him up the side of the house, his voice a gutteral, otherworldly boom. << GO HOME, LEST I ERASE YOU. >>

Achilles has posed:
    The butler was literally frozen in fear like the dear in the headlights of an oncoming car. Panic had his brain locked up. Right up until Zatanna snapped at him. Then his head shakes like he just took a boxing jab to the forehead and was trying to shake it off.

    Finally released from his panic attack, the butler scrambles... hands clawing at the floor until he is up on his feet... feet that carry him at top speed towards the nearest door. He slams into it, fumbles with the handle one, and then opens it to vanish through to the other side... the door slamming shut. What? He's not a mage. He's a butler. He's also not a former special forces butler. Just a normal butler. Demons are scary. At least he didn't scream like a nine year old kid as he ran.

    Now, the entities are all over the house, having scattered like the smoke particles they emulate. The one left behind that bounced off of Zatanna's shields... turns towards the front door as Atrun-Rai enters. It seems a bit confused... and then a sound like two hundred fingernails on a single chalkboard comes as the thing attempts to flee further within the house. Yep, the Atlantean scared the demon.

    In the library... there are at least half a dozen entities that made it there. And they're not searching the library... they were literally lying in wait. So as Zatanna enters, they all converge upon her from different directions... briefly dimming the light of her power as they swarm over her... before all six of them are repulsed. To any normal mundane person, it isn't all that remarkable looking. To those who can sense the mystical... it looks like a grenade went off in the middle of them and scattered them in all directions. In fact, of the six, only two remain cohesive. Zatanna's shields are no joke... four of them have become discorporate just by trying to breach them. But still others, maybe dozens... are in the house. However...

    Hearing Atrun-Rai's threats, they seem to think that they might be more than they really are. Because they start coalescing outside the library. Trying to gather strength from sheer weight of numbers before they assault one of these two. It is obvious that a few will not be able to overcome them. But maybe a legion of them.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna stops mid-way to the library shocked at what comes through the front door. In some ways, the void magic that prickles her skin is worse than the voice that had made the house tremble when the girl collapsed into a cloud of demonic energy. Still, she recognizes its source and the voice's owner.

A snap of her fingers springs the front door open, so her age-old relative can enter.

She turns back to the library and the cloud trying to invade it and draws a line in the air opening a portal, ""!tuo ti peewS" (Sweep it out). She dusts her hands with satisfaction and waits for Atrun-Rai to join her.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    He attempts not to seem human as he arrives in the hallway leading to the library; Atrun-Rai, bristling with the long, black tendrils that exude from all over his frame, practically fills the corridor as he begins to proceed, a human shape with a wall of undulating darkness at his back. The gray fires that burn in his eyes, in his mouth, throw strange lights across the walls of the corridor, making them seem somehow two-dimensional in the glare of those flames. As though being made not entirely real. As if flattened by the baleful light. << LITTLE MONSTERS, >> he booms again, and now his voice rings off the walls of the hallway like compressed thunder. << I AM THE HAND OF THE OLD ONES, THE SCION OF MANY ANGLES. I GRANT YOU ONLY THIS MOMENT OF MERCY TO DEPART BEFORE YOU ARE CONSUMED IN THE NAME OF THE HOWLING VOID. >>

    He is ready. The flames that burn in his strange face are real, and is prepares to vomit them forth as the monsters solidify...

Achilles has posed:
    A little known fact. The light of cosmic purity.. yes, that is death to the touch for most of these entities. But these are beings of conflict, discord. When you fight them, it only makes them stronger. When you use dark power, dark energy... even energy of the old forgotten ones... it is still strife, conflict, and dark power. Energy is never destroyed. It is just transformed.

    So the wounded one was scared of Atrun-Rai... but then a group... a large group of them. Forty three to be exact, swarms past Zatanna... careful not to touch her. I mean she's basically the demonic version of a bug-zapper right now. But they flow towards Atrun-Rai like iron filings being drawn to a giant electro-magnet. Drawn to his power. Drawn to the promise of violence. For in attempting to use such power against agents of Eris, goddess of strife... one only feeds their power and makes them stronger.

    This is what Atrun-Rai faces now. It is like he is trying to put out a campfire by blasting it with a flamethrower. It's... not the most effective strategy.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
The corridor is like being trapped in a cave awash with a tsunami of noisome energy - in a sensory overload, Zatanna is blinded, feels her mouth fill with bitterness, clutches at her ears and is sand-blasted by prickles of dark energy as Atrun-Rai unwittingly multiplies the invaders' power. It is akin to trying to portal a tornado while standing in its eye.

Reacting without thought, she cries, ""!thgiL"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    It takes him a moment to realize what's happening - but only a moment. Closing his eyes, the flames vanish from his mouth, his eyes, leaving only a faint actinic taste. The tendrils retract, lowering him onto the ground. Calm, calm, it needs to be /calm/. Atrun-Rai is a black lake, but he is a lake nonetheless...and it is with the sheer weight of his towering sorceror's will that he manages to bring the roiling surface of him to a standstill. Hands formed in mudra-like gestures of peace, the leaping fires within him being tamped down.

Achilles has posed:
    Well, with a reduction in the dark power emanating from Atrun-Rai, and the flare of light bursting forth from Zatanna like a spotlight began shining out from her in every direction... the spirits of strife begin to lose the strength that they had been gaining from the void.

    But, the spirits begin swirling about Atrun-Rai... until the light reaches them. Then they begin moving such that they are effectively taking cover behind him from said light. In fact, they seem to be trying to depart out the front door. That light... it's like sunlight to a vampire. But for the moment, Atrun-Rai has freedom to act without being assaulted. They're trying to escape. They were sent on a suicide mission, and they're trying to escape. They are truly terrified at this point.

    It is almost like they are pounding on the door yelling, 'LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!'

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Blinking at the after images of color that ricochet through the corridor, Zatanna stares at Atrun-Rai. His form takes slow shape. Dazed, she comments, "You look like what I imagine a black hole looks like."

"They seem to like your energy. Let's check the rest of the house. They didn't seem to be after me or the people who work for me." She bites her bottom lip considering her own words.

"I wonder who just paid me a call. Thank you for coming. Did you feel the disturbance or did the Old Ones send you?" She looks behind him following the trail of desperately departing energy. "What /were/ those? Come on let's see if there are any left."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    They are trying to escape - but they cannot. He reaches out, through the angles of time and space, those things that the ancient, primordial beings which he represents have power over. And thus, by extension, himself. Reality bends, grows cold...and crystallizes, like ice, drawing the terrified mass of blackness into its substance all in a rush. Assuming there is no last-minute escape, there will be in his hand only an impossible gem the size of a baseball, its facets irregular, its angles seeming to shift as the light play off of its glittering black surface. Throbbing in its heart, a dim purple light.

    "We will study them," he tells her, holding up the dizzying gem. A faint sheen of steam licks off his body - he, like the creatures he imprisons, has been seared by the light, though he is of a stronger substance so as not to be too terribly wounded. "We will discover the answer."

Achilles has posed:
    Have you ever had what you thought was silence, suddenly become -true- silence? That is roughly what happens here. What sounded quiet... suddenly goes utterly silent as the entities ... the spirits of strife vanish as they are sucked up into the prison formed by the Atlantean.

    And yet, there is the echo of a laugh that issues forth from the last one to be absorbed. The last spirit imprisoned seems to call out in a female voice.. one Zatanna likely recognizes. "This was fun. I look forward to testing the limits of the Atlantean next time......" and then it all ends.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
A bad smell lingers, "I am going to have to fumigate in a big way. I will need a gallon bucket of smudge stick to get ride of this."

A smile wavers on her lips and flickers off as she stares at what Atrun-Rai holds. "Not to put too fine a point on it but that is like holding the bottom of a cess-pit in your hand." Forlornly, Zatanna adds, "I recognized the voice, "Did you?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "To be fair," says Atrun-Rai, who tucks the jewel away into his robe - and, by extension, whisking it away across the gulfs of space into the distant black pyramid he calls his home. "I /am/ of that cess-pit. The Void is the cistern into which all things drain." A smile, then. "I am pleased that no damage was done. As for the voice...perhaps. Tell me to whom you attribute it. Voices are, after all, so easily falsified."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Eris," she answers with distaste. "Not a friend. Follow me. I need something to drink before trying to go to sleep. Can I get you anything?" Zatanna invites him to the Library with an extended hand.