16385/Dredging dark places

Dredging dark places
Date of Scene:	21 November 2023
Location:	Spiral's Body Shop
Synopsis:	Closing out old scene
Cast of Characters:	Spiral, Satana Hellstrom

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Spiral has posed:
Within Spiral's Body Shop, appearances are deceiving. Those that are welcomed guests are shown certain rooms according to being either a trusted customer or whether they're a test subject. And there's the laboratory, a reliquary of stolen itmes, and there'sa paranormal panopticon. The latter is where Spiral has sequestered herself for the evening.

The octagonal room is a kooky cross of aesthetics. Like it was supposed to be a movie set, with all the trappings and props, but with some legit scene from OZ. Not all the Cells are inhabited, nor are the things that are inside them still alive. Her custodial minions diligently slouch around to try and apply Order to Chaos while she sways at the center of the room, occult candles set equidistant at a permieter wide enough that she can orbit and dance between.

Her voice, sharp, brittle, calls out the first words of magic as she pulls power to her. With each phrase, she gestures with one of her six arms, and one-by-one, a different hued flame alights her little beacons.

"Blackest of voids, darkest of depths, I command you bring forth subjects for my tests."

"Bottomless cunning, unkillable unkind, the kind of danger that sends souls running."

Spiral moves about like a spinning top sent careening around each candle, drawing more and more magic, her spell like a dangling lure, or more likely a big stupid clumsy backhoe trying to snatch from someone else's candy jar.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
There are plenty of people out there in the big, wide world who deserve that special attention from the Daughter of the Devil. One thing that humanity does not seem to be running out of anytime soon is a certain capacity to commit the most atrocious of sins against one another

And while Satana might not be losing any sleep over that particular fact, especially since such damaged souls provide her such sustenance, it never the less tends to draw her curiousity. Just as unexpected acts of magic sometimes attract her attention. Her gifts in that department are not small by any means afterall. And she has no shortage of curiousity, that much is certain.

The incantation is an unfamiliar one, but tantilizing in its own way and the somewhat wild, sweeping nature of it means that some of those souls that she has a particular interest are swept up in it. Carried off.

Just when their souls were looking particularly ripe for consumption too!

So it is that which draws her here, magicks wrapping around her, pulling her from her own surroundings to the very different Body Shop, leaving the demoness to tilt her head in curiousity as she sweeps that gaze about. "Interesting..." she says, words conveyed with a low, rich laugh.

Spiral has posed:
Spiral is just in the process of attempting another fervent and tight pirouette of sorts, her arms whipping and curling about like she's trying to do a bit of interpretative dance on an ice rink. The effort to yank and yoink from other domains requiring her to commit to greater physical acts of movement. Eldritch energies trail her fingernails, after-images of talons that scratch at the fabric of reality. The veil a tough taffy to tear through at the best of times. Consequences can't catch she who won't stay still, right? The theory is put to the test as an intruder appears within her most protected places.

The tenous tendrils of power that try to fish places she holds no sway over snap back like vindictive rubber bands drawn too taut. Spiral's lips pull back from glistening teeth and form a grimance of great displeasure and shock. Each snap-back at her digits hits with plenty ouchies.

"No! No no no no!" Spiral protests, careening towards a slower pace, trying to bleed off the dangerous power, pulling back from the sumptuous weight of ~something~ she swears she was hauling in. Gods she feels she was so close. On the cusp of a sneeze that fades, an itch at the small of the back, an idea that was just almost fully formed. The sweat beading her body turns cold when the laugh echoes around the many-sided room.

Spiral whips around and splays her arms like a vengeful Kali. Her eyes widen and she stares, shocked. "What."

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
That's the thing about magic.

It comes in so many different varieties. So many shapes and sizes. All the colors under the rainbow and a whole lot more as well. It makes it all but impossible to learn every variety, nevermind how to counter it all. And there is almost always something new to discover.

Obviously as a demon Satana has certainly been around, has seen a great many different and interesting rituals. But never one quite like this. But then she has not run into very many practioners quite like this either.

She no doubt looks a little out of place and if she is a test subject, well, she is an unusual one with her shock of long red hair cascading down over that skin-tight black outfit that does not seem entirely complete. Despite the strangeness of the surroundings she does not seem particularly daunted or alarmed. Instead there is a half-smile resting on her face as that dark-eyed gaze sweeps the area before returning to the woman in front of her, just a hint of exasperation glinting in those eyes.

"I don't think I've quite seen a ritual like that," she admits, voice low and breathy. "But then I imagine there are not many that would be equipped to pull it off," she admits, a dry note creeping into her words. "Still, you have mildly inconvenienced me and I thought I should see exactly who might be willing to do such a thing..."

Spiral has posed:
Spiral levels her gaze, or at least attempts to. She tilts her head like a canine hearing a sound that tickles the eardrums at some higher range of hearing. From under the rim of her gleaming helmet, her eyes shine. Shock and confusion stomping on her frustration and anger.

She's ~seen~ features like those. A partially illustrated scrap in a grimoire that she peeled off some fool. Or was it that graven image carved from that Titan's fossilized femure. Her nostrils flare as her brain cells go sniffing for the information.

Spiral's chin rises and her back straightens, the helmet over her brow tilting back and falling off her head, spilling her hair. Her cybernetic limb flicks behind her, like it had a mind of its own, to pinch the rim and keep her headgear from clattering from the floor. It almost seems like she's doffing her cap to honoured guest.

"The...Daughter?" She's so close to the avalanche of anecdotes and hushed rumours and very, very spine-straightening fables she's been whispered by one coven or another.

Spiral's mercurial nature rises back to the fore and she bares her teeth, feeling defensive and wrong-footed. Her hand caught in a cookie jar. "You're not what I sought. You're not an Imp, a baker's dozen of little denizens, nothing which I...should have...brought." But then, she didn't ~bring~ her, her brain elbows her.

"I've learned my tricks from...elsewhere and elsewhen, not bound by the culture of this planet, but...perhaps borrowed and plagarized." Her eyes dart to the very similar candles, whose flames waver tenuously in the presence of Satana rather than some bottom-feeding dregs of Hell. They practically cower, which makes Spiral's hackles raise terribly. "I am Spiral, Sorceress, Supreme, Super-duper." she boasts.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
Like her hostess -- no matter how unexpected her arrival might have been -- Satana drinks in the essence of those she managed to summon up, at least until her own unexpected arrival sent the ritual into disarray. And while it might be a little on the rude side, the demoness does seem to take a certain delight in bringing her own unique brand of chaos to the moment.

Certainly not the most polite of guests one can have simply drop in, that much is sure.

When she's recognized, her lips curling up into a smile and she dips her head ever so slightly in acknowledgement of that particular fact, red curls spilling out in front of her, covering one half of her features like a veil. Still, it does very little at all, if anything, to hide away the intensity of her gaze.

"Some call me that," she agrees, a certain bright tone to her words suggesting that she's rather pleased to be recognized. Of course given her own magical abilities she can appear as just about anyone she likes, take on any suitable form as she plies her wiles where her attention is drawn. "But by all means, for such a Super-duper, Supreme Sorceress you can call me Satana," she offers up, lips curving a little more in amusement.

"At least when it's just us girls," she adds with a wicked sort of laugh.

Swaying steps start to carry her about the room, looking over the 'prizes' that Spiral has laid claim to and wrinkling her nose a little as she does so before her attention is finally drawn back to the other woman. "Mmmmm, so I see. It's impressive none the less, though I'm sure I could teach you a thing or two."