12423/15 Fears: Squirm

15 Fears: Squirm
Date of Scene:	13 August 2022
Location:	The Velvet Room - Sitting Room
Synopsis:	Mercy recounts her harrowing ordeal at the hands of The Crawling Rot's avatar and a new face visits the Velvet Room.
Cast of Characters:	Chas Chandler, Jonathan Sims, Mercy Thompson, Rien D'Arqueness, Detective Chimp

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Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas is sitting at one of the couches in the sitting room, with a packet of papers in hand. There is a small glass of some dark black, almost brown liquid next to him on an end table. He sets the packet down before him and crosses his legs as he leans back. "I mean, it's not comprehensive and there's a lot missing still, but..." he shrugs.

    "I think it works for a good primer" he says with a shrug of his shoulder. "But what do -you- think? I mean, in terms of research papers, you're more experienced in that area than I am. That's for damn sure."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon is pacing, restless, carrying an glass holding an old fashioned in his left hand, flexing the right irritably. What looks to be an /actual/ right arm, though it definitely smells /off/ and wrong. The packet of papers that he's looking over is held in /another/ hand, this one glowing green and disembodied, floating in front of him so he can read it while he paces.

    He takes a drink and says, "It all looks good. Accurate, so far as I can tell. Nothing resonates as--off." He shakes his head, irritably. "I don't know what the bloody /point/ of getting flashes of another timeline is if I can't /predict/ any of this, but--well. Better than nothing, yeah?"

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    The door to the sitting room flashes a light and then SLAMS open with enough force to bounce back closed. Not even bothering with the stairs, or anything something rockets from the balcony about the size of a medium dog that smells just AWEFUL. It's sailing through the air and lands with a bit of a tumble roll, and leaving a few splotches on the ground while the animal struggles to its feet.
    As soon as it has all four paws on the ground it's head swings for the wet bar and it starts to run full tilt at it. Jumping on whatever furniture is in the way to get onto the bar and knocking over some glasses in the process as it hurries for one of the sinks. Paws frantic in their clawing at a faucet, teeth scraping on metal as the dirty animal that is way too big for a bar sink is doing whatever it can to get the water on, and roll and twist under the spray. Generally making a proper mess.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas was in the process of smiling at Jon's approval of his document when Mercy enters. "What the bloody fuck--?" he exclaims at the canine, rising to his feet in a flash. When he finally recognizes the creature as Mercy his expression softens but only some. "Mercy?" he asks. "What's gotten into you?" he asks moving around, carefully avoiding the slimy splotches the shapeshifter left in her wake.

    "Jon... can you..." he frowns at the mess she's making with the small sink. "I mean, water is your thing, right?" he asks the man. "Just a prestidigitation or whatever the hell you need to do?" He rights a few of the bottles and glasses. There's loss, of course, but nothing to do for that now.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    The whole thing makes Jon startle for a moment, staring at the ruckus in utter confusion. They duck out of the way of all the running and jumping, and blink. Auras are easier to read than recognizing a coyote, so--"Mercy? Wha--"

    Jon figures out Mercy's goal a second or two after Chas does, and raises his left hand. Whether or not Mercy got the water on, he adds his own, which is easy enough to summon up. It's not just water, one might note--it's water /plus/. The most crisp, refreshing water possible, washing away stink and gunk and sending it all /right/ down the drain.

    While that's going on, Jon goes over to crouch down next to one of the patches of slimy guck that Mercy tracked in with her. "What happened? What is... this?"

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    Mercy cannot talk right now. She's a coyote over by the wet bar. In fact she's a coyote that would howl Jon's praises as he helps her with water. She is all but doing summersaults inside it as best she can to get the yuck on her paws off, and then rubbing at her muzzle while shaking it firmly to try and get all that smell off her. She'll apologize about the mess later. Once she is as clean as she can be the coyote jumps from the bar to the area.
    Before touching ground there is now a very wet and very naked Mercy there, tattoos the only thing she is wearing. "What the," she stops herself from searing. "BUGS! That's what. BUGS! A woman made of bugs walked into my shop and sta," that's when Mercy remembers some of it to rush for the sink and begins retching a little bit. Mercy's hand goes up over the bar holding up one finger. Give her a moment.

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
The door to the Velvet Room opens from the Oblivion Bar, admitting one Detective Chimp and one Rien. She closes the door behind them and motions around the room, "Welcome to the sitting room. So far we've unearthed a training room, a library, a garden, and we've managed to get private rooms set up for individual use. We're still in the process of exploring and unlocking all the secrets of the castle, but we've been forced into a slower pace due to the Fears that I mentioned earlier. We're going to be starting back up with the explorations, though, since the castle and the Fears seem to be linked."

Rien is explaining to Detective Chimp as they enter. The utter horrid STENCH that greets them, however, has her pausing, gagging, then pausing to steady herself as her eyes water. Shaking her head, she reaches into a small pocket dimension and pulls out a tin, swiping a finger across the gel within, then smearing it under her nose. The tin goes back from whence it came before she even attempts to breathe again. "Oh that was.. unpleasant." She pauses, then looks towards where Jon and Mercy are crouched, frowning.

"Mercy? Jon? Everyone alright?" Waving a hand, she covers Mercy with a very large, thick, soft bathrobe. Rien looks back to Detective Chimp and murmurs, "Seems we're arriving at an auspicious time..."

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp has heightened smell, but at the scent of this he puffs on his cigar a bit more blowing the smoke out his nose to try to ride the smell and replace it with his cheep cigar smell. He looks around the place as Rien makes with the introduction. He looks over to the Coyote turned woman, and raises a brow, but he is a good egg. He will remove his green jacket, and walk over to the woman, waiting for her to finish emptying her stomach and then offering it to her "Here you go miss." He looks to the others listening and waiting to see if there will be the comment about a talking Chimp or perhaps not.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas looks from the wretching Mercy, to the stains on the ground, to the pair that just entered. "Auspicious is one way of putting it, Rien" he says wryly. The walking, talking, cigar smoking chimpanzee gets a raised eyebrow. "Wait a minute... I know you," he says, pointing at Detective Chimp. He looks at Rien. "Where'd you pull him from?" he asks the Frenchwoman.

    The spot on the ground smells terrible. Not just terrible, -wrong-. Evil. There is also a small bit of motion at one of the other wet prints from the canid's entry, a tiny silver wriggling thing amongs the disgusting ichor that twitches and writhes as if wounded.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon glances over at Mercy retching into the sink and a glass full of water appears next to her. "The water clears out hangovers, it should help with anything you may have swallowed accidentally." Oh, eww. Ewww, thanks for that thought, right?

    Then he turns back to peer down at the gross spot on the floor. He's wearing a bronze ankle-length skirt and black shirt with some obscure band logo on the front, his nails are painted alternating black and red, and his hair's been dyed in brilliant rainbow hues, like he couldn't decide whether to go "scene" or "emo" and settled for "heck with it, both."

    A flicked glance up at Rien and--the talking chimp? Huh. "Hey. Great timing." He reaches out with his right hand and summons up a pair of tweezers, with which he picks up the wriggling wrounded thing from the print. "It's... a worm? Sort of? Or... hmm, no." He narrows his eyes. "Anyone know etymology?"

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    Nudity was so far from Mercy's mind she honestly had not even realized it may be uncomfortable for others. That doesn't stop her from pulling the robe tighter about herself when it appears. She politely shakes her head a the offer of a coat and isn't sure if she WANTS the cigar smoke or wants to chase it away, "No thanks. You're chimpanzee." Mercy's brain is firing quiet on all cylinders so her witty banter game is off the mark. She also is really regretting having to be her other form, a normal coyote has more then forty times the olfactory receptors a human does.
    The bottle of water is taken from Jon, "Thanks." She gets it in her mouth, gargles and spits but doesn't drink right now. "I didn't swallow anything. Just the sm..." Then she sees the worm being held in tweezers and goes right into fight mode. She snatches a bottle from the bar, The Fool if anyone looks, and is vaulting over the bar to smash that worm slash bug with full might. "NO! Kill it now! My shop was filled with thousands of these things. She WANTED to get to the VR. I only ran here because I didn't have my phone."

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
"Ah, good! Snarky British Angel that knows John Constantine, meet Snarky Talking Chimp that knows John Constantine. You both have SO much in common! Discuss, please." Rien flashes a brief, saccharine smile towards Chas before marching off towards where Mercy is hunched over the bar sink. That Jon picks up the wriggling something doesn't immediately trigger anything, but Mercy's reaction to it does.

She hurries over to catch Mercy around the middle, keeping her from reaching Jon's hand or the wriggling thing he holds. Rien looks to Jon and frowns, "If that is what I have the sinking feeling that it is, destroy it now. We can't take the risk. The stains too. We need to cleanse the room."

Keeping her hold on Mercy, she murmurs, "Calm. We need to know what you know. Breathe, and tell us everything, from the beginning. We'll take care of the rest."

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp will calmly walk over towards Jonathan at the picking up of the creature. He will speak to Chas in a bit. He looks at the other stains while making his way to Jon. If he sees no movement in the others, he will pull a magnifying glass from the pocket of his jacket, and looks a bit closer at the thing in the man's hand but makes sure to keep the glass between him and it.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas sighs. As much from the disparaging remark from Rien to the destruction of a Fool bottle by Mercy. "Jon... I think it best you do what you can to absorb what you can of that thing and then obliterate it. For the sake of everyone here. If you can't. I will." His eyes change from blue human-seeming to pools of blue flame. "The smell of it alone tells me it's one of Them and we don't want anything here that can provide a marker."

    He moves behind the bar, weaving around Mercy and Rien to get to the bottles. Already a new Fool is in place, because the bar is magic like that. "Let me get us all a drink, destroy the bug, and we can talk. What'll you have?" he asks the room.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon flicks a glance up at the chimp and his brown eyes are bright green for a moment. "You might want to step back." He fixes his eyes back on the bug on the end of his tweezers, and suddenly a huge green eye materializes behind him.

    "Ceaseless Watcher, /know/ this squirming thing. Understand it in its entirely, and in understanding, /unmake/ it." The giant eye focuses on the wriggling thing, the pupil widens, then narrows, and a beam of green light shoots out to envelop the thing. There's a moment where there's almost an X-Ray image of the thing hovering in the air before it's utterly destroyed.

    "There. Got a good image of it to try and study. Better than nothing, I suppose." Jon nods and lets the tweezers disappear, looking up and around at the room. His eyes have reverted to their usual tourmaline brown. "Well... shit," he says. "Chas, mate, help me with this? I can take on Ma'at's power to try to cleanse everything, but I think using angelic power will help make sure it's gone. Ugh. /Bugs/. Don't suppose she gave you a name, did she, Mercy?"

    He looks to Chimp again with a smile. "I'm Jonathan Sims," he introduces himself. "The Archivist. Welcome to the Velvet Room."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    Mercy will ask who is John Constantine later. Her adrenaline lunge after the run she had and everything else is not hard for Rien to intercept and holds the slim brown woman from reaching the bug. She stops fighting quickly and is about to take a breath to calm herself but stops and clamps hands over her nose. The fact everyone, okay well several, back up Mercy's 'kill the bug' thing helps her calm down. Her jaw set firmly, and her eyes never leaving that 'bug' until it is dead she answers Chas' question first. "I don't drink." Soon as the thing is done Mercy's eyes track everywhere she landed and that is a smudge. "I shouldn't have come here but I had to get a warning out.
    Mercy leans against the bar as she begins. "I was in my shop," glancing at the Chimp she adds, "I have a mechanic's shop in Harlem. I was working on my project car when suddenly a woman was in my office. She didn't look right and she smelled worse. She had on a red dress, and a trench coat. She moved stiff and jerky some. She had these wrong green eyes that almost glowed. Black hair, needed a wash, and super pale skin." Mercy wets her lips, "Then holes started to open up in her sky. She was asking about the room here. Wanted to know if I heard the Song." Mercy shakes her head, "She was really big on this song. Said she was going to give it to all of us, how we'd join the chorus and stuff. She already had my shop surrounded by her bugs. I was working so no phone and no key. I had to throw myself through the front window of my place. Shifting as I did so the clothes protected me from glass. Then I ran. I ran hard and didn't look back."
    Mercy bangs her head on the bar's top to groan, "My shop! I can't fix that damn window, and if my tools are stolen I'm done. Not to mention I smashed a lot of bugs in my escape." Then a thought comes to her, "oh the woman wasn't real. When I shoulder checked her on my heroic escape she sort of just.... squished and tore apart into more yuck." Mercy shivering and curling her lip in disgust.

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
Rien doesn't flinch from the Ceaseless Watcher, she remembers it from having to watch them deal with it during Jon's trip. But when they mention cleansing, Rien perks up, "Oh! Good chance to try out this whole conduit thing! Lets see if we can amp it up and /really/ make sure it's cleansed to the core." She looks from Jon to Chas, bright-eyed and chipper once more. its a relatively new facet to her powers that she's eager to try out!

She looks back to Mercy as the woman relates her tale, then smiles softly, "Mercy, it's okay. We'll help. We can go back with you and make sure to clear out your shop. Anything broken or stolen, we can help. We take care of our own." She releases Mercy once she's certain that Mercy won't be trying to lunge for the bug, offering a smile before pulling back.

The offer from Chas has her blinking and giving a distracted nod, "Sure... I'll have whatever you're having as long as it's not that Godsawful Chartreuse." She looks back to Mercy and murmurs, "How long ago was this? And did she give you a name? Even if it seemed like.. not a real name. Did she call herself anything?"

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp does step back, but does watch what is going on with the eye and the big "It seemed to be some type of wasp larva, I would need to look up a bit more to find out what type of wasp it was." He does step away from this now and lets the others deal with this. To Chas, he says "Scotch if you have it a beer chaser." He moves back to the bar, and to Mercy he says "Pretty sure we can find any of your tools go missing."

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas watches Jon with a certain wariness. It's one thing to say you have the power of an Old God under control. It's another to use it in a display. He relaxes as none of the corrupted wrongness of the being used permeates the air. Maybe he -has- controlled it.

    He listens to Mercy's tale with a frown as he fixes the drinks ordered, a thick rum for Rien, Scotch for Chimp and Jon--with a beer for the former, and water for Mercy. "Wasp larvae? What the hell... that's... ugh..." he says with a shudder.

    Once the drinks are set on the bar he looks to Jon and Rien. "Oh... you mean... directly. Alright." He closes his eyes and a blue firey aura surrounds the man. When he opens his eyes they too are full of the blue flame that surrounds him.

    "I bestow my blessing unto you, Archivist and unto you, Queen of Nothing," he extends his right hand and vibrant blue light pours from Chas and into Jon and Rien, giving them both the same firey blue glow that Chas has.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Probably best that you did," Jon says to Mercy. "Better than spreading these somewhere else--and better that we have the warning." His brow furrows, as he considers this. "Red dress and a trenchcoat--one of Nyarlathotep's servitors, I think. And I /don't/ think she serves any of the Fears we know about yet." He gestures toward the dossier. "'Bugs' don't fit under any of the other headings." He shudders. "Wasp larvae. Gods."

    Shaking himself, he focuses around the room. This time, his eyes go teal as Chas pours energy into him. Wings flare out from his back, colored in teal and blue and gold--with odd blue-black feathers here and there, clearly out of place. A circlet appears on his brow, holding a black feather. "I'll start at the door, Rien." His voice reverberates with the power of the goddess that works through him. "You check the sink and the bar? We can meet in the middle and then double-check each other's work."

    Then he flies up to the balcony, and starts running over everything Mercy touched with his water, collecting up the bits of debris in a globe that he lifts into the air and carries along with him.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    Mercy closes her eyes, taking her mind back to that unpleasant moment. The skin on her dark arms prickles with goosebumps and she says, "They talked in plural. The said something about coming for a well. Dark justice. Then it was about me hearing this song." Then her brows draw together. When they open she looks at Rien and says, "The Crawling Rot. They never said that. But... it feels right. That was their name." Belatedly she tugs at the robe she's wearing, "I appreciate this by the way.
    As for the other stuff you asked. I got a security system, so that stuff will have a time stamp and footage. Assuming it just doesn't show a bundle of people clothes smashing out of my window and a coyote tearing ass out. I say it couldn't have been more then fifteen minutes, maybe ten. I was just running hard trying to get away from the scent." There's that gurgling sound of almost retching. "Do we have milk? Wait no. That'll make me think squish juice. Just clear, clean water for me." She can drink that probably.
    Mercy looks to the Detective, "They could jump higher then I stand. These things were pretty spray in a way. I tried to keep them away with a pneumatic hose before I made my escape." She looks at her hand, "I was just running when I suddenly tasted metal and my key was in my mouth. I saw a large storm drain that had a grate and a lock. Rammed it with the key and twisted so I could bolt through. I guessed if the key appeared on me it was safe. I just felt so unclean I wanted RID of where it touched me. If we need me to do more cleaning. I get it."

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
"I was going to -oh! Ohhhhhhhhhkaaaaaaaaaaaay, this is..." Rien halts her explanation of what she /meant/ when that power hits her. It's almost like a drug to an addict. Something about drawing on that power really gives her more than just a magical charge. Her own eyes shift to a dark and muted grey-blue as she looks around the room. Like she's seeing it for the first time despite having been here many many times.

She almost misses what Jon suggests, giving an absent nod even as her body is limned in that muted glow of energy, "Sounds like a plan Jon. Rising up into the air, she hovers there and turns towards the bar. There's a brief look sent to Chas, an odd look, but its gone nearly as quickly as it appeared. Then she brings her hands together and aims towards the back of the bar and 'washes' the area with a glowing 'fire' that sizzles and pops as it burns away any lingering taint, but passes harmlessly over the people and other items.

Slowly sweeping the area in a wide spread that moves towards the middle of the room. "You're welcome. Feel free to keep it, I have many more where that comes from. And it's good to know the keys will appear whenever we need them. Though I would suggest keeping it on you now that you've been visited."

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp 's fur might stand up a bit as the fire passes over him, but as it does nothing to him he does not freak or anything. He does pick up his drink and tastes it, seeing it is not his normal stuff he takes a moment sipping it not just shooting it back. "Well can't say you don't make a new arrival feel like he is seeing a bit of a show." The chimp climbs on a barstool if there is one and says "So, how long has this problem been going on?"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas doesn't seem to mind lending his energy and as the flame passes over him he barely bats an eye after all it's -his- own power supercharging the sorceress. He nods to Mercy as she gets up and heads to the hall where the private rooms are. "Rest well, you're safe here." Then he turns his normal seeming eyes to Chimp. "About a month an a half as far as we can tell..."

    He nods to Jon and Rien. "They'll have more infomation but..." he moves around and picks up the dossier before slapping it before the detective. "This has everything we so if you want to give it a once over. I'll write up more given what she's told us here and add it to the document tonight." He takes up his own dark rum and sips it. "Old Gods seem to want something in this castle. Not sure what, but it's important to them. Maybe it's a ley line. Maybe it's a battery. Maybe it's a doorway for them. Whatever the case... they want it."

    He watches as Jon and Rien use fire and water to scour the room. "Whatever the reason, these fifteen servants of The Crawling Chaos are attacking JLD members left and right. Before tonight they'd hit six of us, Mercy here makes seven."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon sweeps the water along through Mercy's trail, gathering up all the gunk. "They hit her differently though. Not a nightmare--a direct manifestation. Either they can't get in her nightmares or they know we're onto them and they're stepping things up." He frowns, thoughtfully, as he meets where Rien had moved to and keeps going toward the sink.

    "I don't think it's /just/ the Velvet Room they're after," he notes. "This thing, this... hive?" A beat. "This Flesh Hive, yes. It said something about a well? That almost /has/ to be the wellspring of the Great River on the Astral Plane. They're afraid we're going to stop them, so they're trying to stop us, first. We're a /threat/ to Nyarlathotep." He laughs. "I realized that the other night. It was... just such an odd thing to realize. That together, we actually challenge this thing."

    With another gout of water sent down the sink--Rien's cleansing has been thorough, but he's being extra careful--a light grows in the midst of the globe of water. Bright light bursts out and through, destroying the gunk he picked up, illuminating the whole of the room. Warm light, sunlight, powered by the angel.

    Jon's right arm up and disappears with the burst of light, too. Rather than freak out about this, though, he laughs happily. "Oh, thank the /gods/, I thought--"

    But... then it reappears, as if asserting itself, and Jon sighs. "Well," he grumbles. "At least I know it /can/ go away."

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
Rien scours the muted flames across where Jon's water has rinsed, adding the extra layer of 'begone' to the room, just in case. She focuses particularly on where the stains were that Mercy's passing left behind. Once the job is done, Rien floats back down to the bar, seating herself on it and crossing her legs while reaching for the rum Chas poured for her. She sniffs at it, blinks in surprise, then takes a sip. Letting the taste of it wash across her tongue before swallowing.

"That's not half-bad.. I can taste the spices in it.. the cinnamon, the cardamom, all of it. Very nice indeed." Blinking, she lets out a sigh, then reaches out to touch Chas' shoulder, passing the power back to him with a small spark of energy. She sways lightly as it leaves her, the glow in her eyes dimming back to their normal deep blue as she lets out a whoosh of breath, "That's intense... not bad, but intense."

Looking back to Jon, she frown faintly as the right arm reappears, lips pursing up briefly, "If you want, I can... I can try to unmake it. Entirely your choice, of course, but... I might be able to, ah, unravel the creation." Then she's looking to Detective Chimp and offering a wry smile, "Started with how we ended the angelic invasion. Then it sort of... spiralled off into something all its own."

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp 's brow raises a bit and says "Take it the arm has a curse side to it?" He asks the other man. He hmmms and says "They could see your use of the castle as part of how you are a threat to you, and if so ending you or taking the castle away from you would work either way. He does thumb through the folder he is given "Can I borrow this or get a copy to take to read more closely?"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas gestures to the one he presented to Chimp. "Keep it. I've got about ten more in the backpack over there" he says gesturing to a backpack on the couch. "But yeah... we've been given hints that the castle is in itself tied to there ultimate goal. Which seems to be the Wellspring that Jon mentioned. Maybe the source of all creativity in the astral... maybe. Not sure myself."

    His expression turns a bit wry. "I spent a little too much time focusing on the material world while I was on the Gate. Didn't even think about the astral." He shrugs. Rien gets a smirk. "Not everything we drink is terrible." He sips his own dark liquid before looking at Jon. "You should probably tell him about your arm, just to avoid any further questions. He's bound to sus it out himself eventually after all. It's sort of what he does."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "I lost the arm to--" Jon pauses. Swallows. His right hand compulsively flexes open and then closed. "I lost the arm. Even when I died and regrew a new body--I didn't have that arm anymore. I /shouldn't/ have that arm, whether or not I may want it. Someone under the influence of one of these... things... took me and... forcibly regrew that arm."

    He shakes his head. "It's /wrong/. It's... umm... I'm not exactly human, anymore? I'm sort of..." He laughs. "A demigod, I guess? My body is ectoplasm, really, held together by my will and the goddess I serve, Ma'at. I /should/ be able to override this, and have my arm be gone, and use the magical prosthetic I summon, but it's been... hard."

    He flexes his wings around and plucks a blue-black feather from one. "Don't know why she thought I should have /black/ feathers, either. Bloody hell." He shakes his head, and sighs. Then furls in the wings and they disappear, as does the circlet, and the power flows back to Chas. He goes to pick up the scotch Chas poured, glowering.

    "Thanks, Rien, but--maybe when I'm more willing to--the thought of someone else messing with my form right now is... uncomfortable. A little further out, though, yeah."

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
"It wouldn't be a leyline or battery, we could /see/ those. I think... I think it's a /person/. Or at least, a being. I think there's someone that's... attached.. to this castle, that the Old Ones want to take out or neutralize or... something." Rien frowns faintly and stares down into her glass, "Something Nikola said..." She lets out a breath, "I need to go back to the tower. Remake it. Make it mine. Take what's rightfully mine. I think that's why they were so /eager/ to have me join their team. Why the I Do Not Know You never came to me personally. /Everyone/ else has faced their Fear directly. Mine never appeared to me. Just it's servants. It knows that I can take it's power. That I can usurp it."

Shaking her head, she takes another swallow of the rum and levels a long, considering look on Chas, "No, I suppose not. Still. I'll bring in a truly exceptional bottle of wine for you to try. Perhaps... yes. Chateauneuf-du-Pape Les Cailloux Cuvee Centenaire. Bold, packed with ripe blackberry and plum accented by heady vanilla and violet. It's a yielding, luxuriously textured wine anchored by sunny acidity and ripe, penetrating tannins. A truly hedonistic wine. Then we will see what you think, yes?" Is she laying on the accent a little thicker? A trained ear would pick up on it for certain.

There might be the faintest smirk on her lips for Chas before she's looking back to Jon with a softer smile, "Of course. Take all the time you need, Jon. I don't mean to push, I only wish to help." To Detective Chimp, she nods, "We are definitely a threat to them. We've removed one of their number already, bring it to our side. I plan to powergrab another one. They've already been blinded," she motions to Jon, "and soon they will lose their anonymity. Then we will be the ones hunting them."

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp sits back and finishes the scotch and then starts sipping on the beer. "Well my first question about the arm would be is it before or after the eye?" He hmmmms a bit and says "Can I see one of those keys, as an idea comes to mind could be totally off, but my first thought and probably way out there is that the castle maybe built atop one of their kind, or some other form of power. They want the castle to get to the thing or portal or what ever. My worry though would be this, are you sure you have the one of their kind bound? If they can not take you by force it would be one hell of a way to get a man inside."

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas looks at Rien and pantomimes wiping something from his cheek. "Maybe buy me dinner before you spray your French all over my face" he says with a smirk. He then moves around and stands under the chandellier in the middle of the room. He looks to the detective and then up at the lightsource. "So... he's been vetted" he says.

    There is a chime and small blue, antique looking key appears; rotating in midair. Chas takes it and tosses it towards Detective Chip. "It's yours. But I'll tell you right now, I wouldn't go exploring the castle without backup. We're planning on taking a tour--as a group--in the next week but..."

    He looks at Rien. "A couple of our number had to die over and over and over--forty plus times--in order to get to -this- room. The castle is trapped within and without." He makes a face. "Whatever is in its depths... they want it protected or at the very least kept hidden."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon actually grins at Detective Chimp. "That," he says, pointing at the chimp with the glass in his hand, "is an /excellent/ question. And precisely the right attitude, about all of this. I like you." A pause, to take a swig of the scotch. "But what I have isn't really an Old One anymore. It's more like..." He swirls the liquid around in the glass, pondering how to explain.

    "Alright. I /thought/ I had an Old One, the Ceaseless Watcher, on a leash, but it... turned on me. It had attached some of its energy to me, so I took that energy and purified it, pulled it away." He takes another drink. "So it's sort of like if I just stole all of Chas' power and left Chas himself... depowered. At least--I /think/. I'm not 100% certain, and I'm bloody well hoping to get rid of it whenever we can seal these things away."

    He gestures over at Chas. "But the angel over there is keeping an eye on me, and so are the others. I'm not arrogant enough to think I've got a handle on this without being /certain/, goddess in my corner or not. If Chas says I can't be trusted--then I can't be trusted." He shakes his head. "I should have listened, with Lydia. I'm not making the same mistake twice. I make plenty of mistakes, but /usually/ not the same one twice."

    He glances between Rien and Chas, and adds, "You two cut that out, or I swear, I will subject you to videos of me singing at Cael."

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
Rien turns a saccharine sweet, tight smile to Chas, "I would offer to /cook/ you dinner, but I'm not sure you would recognize food that hasn't been boiled into a tasteless mush and shoe leather, then slathered in brown gravy. Or fried until it's drier than the Atacama." Wrinkling her nose at him, she adds, "But if you ever want to taste /real/ food, cher, you have only to ask."

She lifts the glass for another sip of the rum, then blinks and gives Jon an owlish look, "Cut what out, Jon? And I would adore to see videos of you singing to Cael." She may or may not be hiding a smile behind that lifted glass, but another swallow is taken. Turning her attention to Detective Chimp, she nods, "In my case... well. I.. am a bit of an odd duck to begin with. And yes, I mean that quite sincerely as I sit next to the demigod Archivist made of ectoplasm and the British human-born angel. I don't know that what I'll be doing is /purifying/ so much as... claiming a birthright."

Then she's turning a faintly surprised look towards Chas as he gives credit to her 'contribution' to opening the castle, quickly lifting her glass again and mumbling, "It was nothing really, just doing my part." Clearing her throat, she glances to Detective Chimp, "Chas found the castle for us to begin with."

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp hmmms and nods his head a bit to this and says "Well, I would like to see the rest of the rooms you have been able to clear, see if I can find any clues to more information about the castle, maybe go through some libraries, and see if I can make some connections." He looks to Jon "Not that you don't have the information, but figuring out which bits to put together is part of my thing. I don't sling fireballs or magic eyeballs. I know a little thing here or there mostly protective stuff, but if you want something figured out, give me a few bottles of booze, a couple days and and I will put a good dent into finding it out.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas inclines his head to Rien. "I had a hunch and made a deal... that was all" he says, modestly. "You guys did the work of opening it up." He looks to Jon and Rien and nods to Chimp. "He's on the up and up. It -is- what he does. John didn't put a whole lot of stock in him, but I've seen the writing on the wall."

    He sips his drink. "He's probably one of the best, if not -the- best detective in our line of work." He shrugs. "I don't know about you two, but to me, he's a good fit and I wouldn't mind letting him have a go at the place, especially since he could just sit in our Library and grab any book he's probably ever heard of."

    He nods to the door to the Library. "Any book that any visitor has ever written is in there. You think of what you want and the walls just have the books. It is one of the finer features to this place."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "John doesn't put much stock in anyone he can't con or stick his--" Jon clamps his mouth shut, clearing his throat, and then shaking his head. "Well. /John/ is not here. /We/ are. /John/ is not the one Nyarlathotep is afraid of, nor seeking revenge upon, because he basically noped the fuck out when he found out the literal universe depended on us. So... pfft. Good riddance, anyway." He shrugs, and takes another long drink.

    He glances over at Chimp, and says, "That skill is more useful than slinging a fireball /or/ a magic eyeball. Most wizards would say 'knowledge is power,' but I prefer 'If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.'" He raises a glass. "You're more than welcome, for me."

    He then casually says, "I'm just going to point out, also, that local curries are considered the national dish of both the UK /and/ Japan, and has variations on multiple continents, despite originating in India." A pause. "I'm just saying. It was spice that encouraged the trade routes, more than anything else, and neither the English /nor/ the French know how to properly use spices." Oh, shots fired.

    He grins, and says, "The dossier's good, Chas. Give me a copy and I'll use my alumni credentials at Columbia to get enough printed out and bound for the whole of the JLD. I could use a trip to campus anyway. If you don't show up and drop some money on them every so often they forget you were ever there."

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
Reaching over, Rien pats Jon lightly on the shoulder with a faint smile, "Fuck John Constantine in the worst way possible. He left the JLD high and dry, we picked up the pieces and continued on. You, Chas, and me. We're going to make sure the JLD keeps going." She sips again on her rum and nods to Chas' assessment of Chimp, agreeing. "He and I have some friends in common from the days of the BPRD. I can confirm his capability as a detective."

She glances back to Jon and lifts a brow at him, "Funny. We've had /excellent/ cuisine and are considered /the/ culture to go to for determination of haute cuisine, with chefs the world over seeking us out to learn the art of cooking... and we've done it all without having to slather our foods in spices OR gravy. Discerning palates don't require a heavy hand with either." Rien siiiiiiiiiiiiiips from her glass. The gauntlet has been thrown!

Still, she chuckles and looks back to Chimp, "Don't mind us. The bickering shows that we care. But yes, please do feel free to make use of the Velvet Room and the library. Poke around in the rooms already opened. But don't venture beyond the closed door at the top of the stairs on your own. That goes into the unexplored parts of the castle."

Back to Chas, she lifts a shrug, "It was a good hunch, and that you did it while a prisoner of the pearly gates is impressive and worthy of note." Credit where its due!

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp nods his head a bit to this and says "Sounds like a plan, I will spend the day here and see what I can find, will need to head out and pick up a few things if I am going to spend time here. " He hmms and says "You guys rigged up anything so phones or computers can connect here?"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    "Didn't have to... they just work" Chas replies with a shrug. "We don't question it. The attendants also don't seem keen on giving us an straight answer... faeries, right?" He sips his drink, content to leave Jon and Rien to bicker about food. He doesn't need to eat and his tastes were strange before he became an angel.

    He moves around to set his glass in the sink. "There's a lot of things that are automated and just... provided here. But that's the other reason we need to go exploring... we don't fully understand how or why and that can be... worrying for some."

    He shrugs. "But it'll be good to have you on board. A deductive mind is always a welcome one in our sort of field. So... I guess, make yourself at home."