16597/So a Weird Thing happened in Gotham City...

So a Weird Thing happened in Gotham City...
Date of Scene:	17 December 2023
Location:	Sheldon Park - Bleake Island
Synopsis:	A potential portal to Hell in Gotham turns out to be a lonely gill-having demonoid person with singing appliances in their apartment. Talia, Megan Gwynn, and Lydia Dietrich attend to shenanigans.
Cast of Characters:	Phoebe Beacon, Talia al Ghul, Megan Gwynn, Lydia Dietrich

---

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    On the OUtskirts of. Gotham City Proper, there was an old meat packing plant, which used to stand on a farm. And hovering over this meat packing plant there had been a flock of ghost sheep that hovered where a hill used to be, before they shifted the course of the river and flattened down what had been an old farm.

    It was also the only place where Phoebe had felt an opening to Hell in Gotham City before tonight.

    It's only appropriate that the neighborhood is called The Cauldron. Something devilish was going on here.

    An alert had gone out from Phoebe's number, saying tht something weird was going down in one of the neighborhoods surrounding the Curio.

    It could have been Christmas Lights -- but who does their entire inside of a house up in crimson? The air is thick here, even to those without magical senses. It feels Wrong. Greasy, vile, like a sugar belch when you've had too much sweet to eat, and the chill of a fever running down your back.

    Phoebe -- in her Balm get up, since this was magic business -- was perched on a nearby (desanctified) church tower, clinging to an old cast iron cross as she watched the building in question.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
There's only one portal to Hell from Gotham? If she knew the specifics, such a thing would come off as an actual shock to Talia Al Ghul. Much less that it wasn't underneath the Mayor's office. Butupon the call she arrives as smoothly as she can. Not quite sure of what they're up against, and not having anything particularly weaponized to use. Just some salt, as many cold iron blades as she could get, other miscelleneous things.. No time to stop by the Nook. She did not have permission to go to the Cave to take what was within there that might be of help. No favors to call in from the more aberrant mystically inclined that were in the area.
    So, it means going, doing so wiht what she has on hand, and getting there as soon as she can.
    She prioritizes arriving there as fast as she can over taking the time to get as many weapons as possible and specialized things. The text was sent in panic. There is no time to prepare.

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Gotham may not be her hometown, but anything supernatural is bouncy to catch the chaos faerie's attention. Not that she cared for the gloomy, crime ridden city but such a serious alert cannot be ignored..

Dressed in her black mini dress, gold boots, gauntlets and x-belt, she is in stealth mode as she steps onto the scene from a glowing pink portal that opens up out of nowhere, peering up at the creepy red lights. And shivers as she feels the darkness crawling there somewhere in the back of her mind. "Ugh, not at all festive, just...Wrong.." she shivers at the thought, "But I guess we'll have to go inside to figure out more..So this is a hellmouth or something?" she tries to think back on her lessons, if she ever learned a bit about hellmouths, frowning.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    It takes her a while to get to Gotham from her apartment in Brooklyn. Even flying as fast as she can and making a beeline for the area, it takes her close to 45 minutes to get there. When she arrives she settles down next to Phoebe, the starfield of her mutant power swirling around her in agitation.

    She's wearing pretty standard ware. Bluejeans and boots, cream colored blouse and a denim jacket that doesn't look nearly warm enough for the cold winter weather. Slung over her shoulder is a duffel bag filled with various magical tools, anything they might need to combat whatever the weirdness is here.

    She looks over at the remains of the meat packing plant and the ghostly sheep and purses her lips together. "That glow can't be good," she says. "Especially in an area that's so steeped in death."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Gotham is, however, Phoebe's hometown -- at least as far as she's concerned. She looks to the accompanying supernatural types (and Talia, who is weirdly approaching adopted mom status which should be worrying all on it own).

    She stands from where she's clinging to the cross, and gives a wave to the arriving folks.

    It does feel demonic. Definitely fel and foul.

    "Hey all, thanks for coming by. Ordinarily wouldn't send out a general yell but... uh... things have been WEIRD in Gotham." she admits, rubbing the back of her neck.

    "This place in particular's been odd. Red Robin picked up a haunting here that's been following him around, but it's weird... that someone in a building would be trying to open up a passage to other worlds."

    Balm's expression flattens.

    "I'm not pleased with this, and neither is Batman going to be when I submit my nightly report." she breathes out in a sigh.

    "So. Who wants to go and knock on the door?"

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Talia al Ghul comes when she's asked to. So when it had come in from Phoebe, Talia had gone to it. She would go to the request of only two. Her son being the other one. At the commentary from Phoebe she would look just slightly amused. "You've been able to set a standard? My, my. I thought that would be a task impossible ablve almost all other." She would quirk a brow at 'picked up a huanting'. "I'm not sure I.. Grasp the particular specifics of that." There seemed to be something more personal implied with involvement by that turn of phrase.
    "There are numerous reasons why any location would have someone trying to make a gap to other worlds. Desperation, exploration.. Unless the reasons are part of necessity, they don't matter in the end."

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Megan Gwynn frowns at the ghostly sheep. "I think they're a bit late for Halloween. I mean really?" but of course in the supernatural world, halloween is a full time gig..Or something. She frowns as Phoebe gives a bit more background to the story, nodding.

"Soo, we find the twat who is trying to make hell on earth and stop this madness?" she grins, stepping towards the front door of the building. "Sounds simple enough, let's get this over with!" she says cheerfully.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia assesses the slaughterhouse with her hands on her hips. "Desperation, or just plain evil," she tells Talia. "There's plenty of things out there that just want to bring a bad time to Earth."

    When Phoebe mentions the Batman, she shifts a bit uncomfortably. "I'm officially here as your friend. Not as a member of the JLD. Make sure you mention that in your report, please? I don't want Batman getting angry with us for working in his back porch."

    When nobody steps up to knock on the door Lydia takes a breath. "Right." Her starfield coalesces around her to form a kind of armor and she marches up to the door and pounds on it. "Open up. We demand you cease and desist all paranormal activities or we shall be forced to enter. Believe me, you don't want that because we will all have a bad time if we do."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "This one feels weird. I've been around portals that were left open... and I think this is less 'Hell on Earth' and more -- I dunno -- Demonic Doordash?" Phoebe questions out loud as she breathes out, and then motions everyone forward as they come to the front door. She follows behind Lydia.

    "Don't worry. I'm just going to label it 'situation was handled by outside contractors' and let that be the end of it." she comments quietly.

    THUMP THUMP THUMP Lydia knocks.

    "ASK KNOCK FOR THE BELL THAT --" a voice booms from inside. And then a soft "no, no, that's not right -- Knock Three Times if you want to meet?" the voice answers, and the door opens.

    Inside the door there is someone who looks at once like they're eighty with great skin and maybe fifteen with no hair. The ears are slightly tapered, and eyes are large and black. They are wearing a "SUPERMAN RULES" T-shirt and a pair of jeans, with no shoes. They blink confusedly at Lydia.

    "Is... is this a noise complaint?" they question, looking to the three fighters and the pixie in a black minidress.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Talia al Ghul would tap her fingers over her shoulder. "Sometimes you just need a quick snack. Maybe they opened a portal to a parallel plane of existence rather than a truly demonic one. It could simply be a Portal to Heck." She uses that like a very real plane and term. That might get the others to glare over at her as she would cross her arms.
    "That's your cue to say 'picking up or dropping off'" she would quip to the individual opening the door for them. Talia moves to the forefront just enough to partially conceal LYdia from view. It's moreso for experimentation to see if the.. Individual is magically aware. Whom does her attention go to first in the group? The woman with a katana? The Batling? The vampiress? Or the Pixie?

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Megan Gwynn frowns at Talia's comment. "I mean I totally do t do that.." although she bites back a grimace as she says that, "But at least I know what I'm doing! This guy obviously does not.." she bites her lip as Lydia beats her to it and swallow as she hears a voice..Not quite as intimidating as she expected..Nor is the old young man with the Superman shirt. "Err..Hi!" she smiles and waves cheerfully, "We're just..Uh...The supernatural...Er..Police..." she sighs, "Okaay, let's just get down to the point. Did you open a hell portal in your house?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia actually looks surprised that somebody opened the door. "Oh! Hi. Yes. Thank you for answering the door and not immediately attacking us. We appreciate the civility." She nods in agreement with Megan's assessment and adds, "We detected an anomaly and merely wish to determine its safety. May we come in?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe hangs back, folding her hands behind her back as she looks at Talia at the portal to Heck joke.

    The black-eyed individual doesn't seem to look at nyone in particular, but that may be because their eyes are entirely black.

    But their head does tilt a moment, listening, and they open their mouth, close their mouth, and then appear to flutter a set of gills on their neck.

    "Do you have a warrant?" they question. "Because I am definitely not opening Hellportals in my livingroom." they state very sternly.

    Someone may be able to see that the red glow indeed isn't coming from the livingroom/entry -- it's in the kitchen.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Talia al Ghul would glance over at the them and go to fold her hands in front of her. "I'm with the Prince of Insufficient Heck. The warrant is thus in verbal form. It is in the language of Ner'Ak'Taa, and cannot be comprehended by the human mind. I am more than happy to recite it for you, though the full listing will take approximately two hundred and ninety four years, ninety seven days, thirteen hours, twelve minutes, and eight and seven quarters seconds from beginning to end. I suggest that before we start you get a drink of water. It will have to last awhile."
    Presuming they are, in fact, Demonic Health Inspectors Talia looks unnautral enough she could actually pull it off. Time to see if she can make the other person blink in the staredown.

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Megan Gwynn frowns, folding her arms, not liking those black eyes, or those....Gills? "Uh..." she tries to push her way in, "Youre not quite..Human, are you?" she clenches her hands into fists, peering towards the kitchen, "Sorry but we don't have time for a warrant.." magenta eyes narrow, glowing dangerously as she summons her dagger, "So you'd better let us pass if you don't want to get hurt."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia rolls her eyes at Talia. "But seriously," she says gesturing towards the kitchen. "All we want to do is to check it out and make sure it's safe for the denizens of this plane." She steps aside to let Megan bully her way in. "If you've got nothing to hide, then there shouldn't be any problem, yes?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    The person in the room blinks. And then blinks sideways. Everyone there seems to be quite serious as one states they have a warrant that would take almost three hundred years to recite, the other one didn't have time for a warrant but DID have a knife, and the other one was --

    "Hey. Aren't you an author lady?" comes a moment of recognition when the gills flare out again at Lydia.

    But the kniiife.

    It sighs. And they turn around and take a few steps back.

    "I don't want any trouble. I have paperwork for what I'm doing!" they protest loudly, but they try to put enough room between the malevolent magenta magician and themselves -- at least keeping out of the strike zone!

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Talia al Ghul would tap her fingers on her shoulder. "Your cooperation is /appreciated/. But not required. I will note that while I can't speak for them /I/ am more than content with ensuring that if there are issues they are resolved. Promptly." Yes scary stabby lady. At the back and forth eyes at the knife..

The katana is drawn. The very, very big katana that is layered with cold iron and seems like it should weigh about as much as a broadsword.
    "I'm sure that you'll want to keep us appreciated."

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Megan Gwynn does enjoy waving her dagger around, but once she forces her way in, she lowers her weapon - but doesn't put it away. "We'll be the judge of that!" she smirks as she moves towards the kitchen, peering around. "And we're just trying to put out fires, soooo..Relax! I'm sure it was just a misunderstanding, you found a new magic trick or something, right? But tuff like portals can be dangerous if you do t know what you're doing.."she peers around, trying to find the source of the hell portal.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia just blinks disbelievingly at the guy. Who knew a netherworld denizen would be a fan of lesbian supernatural romance stories? "I... yes," she says, taken off guard. "Amongst other things."

    She reaches out to take him by the elbow and lead him further from the door, still talking. "Have you read any of my books? I'm working on a new one. A mix of cyberpunk and supernatural. It's not a genre I see a lot of and I thought I'd give my hand at writing it." Her goal is simple. Keep talking to him and keep him engaged so the others can do their job.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Hey you're the ones who are running in here fully armed and brandishing weapons at me!" the gillperson states, the gills flaring up again. It's a fear response. "And you come into my apartment and start saying it's a misundertanding, next thing you know I'm being dismissed and it's not any fun!" they complaign as the group prowls around. They breathe out in a huff, and motion to their bookshelf, which has a number of supernatural romance workings on it.

    "I too yearn!" they say, all four hands curling. "Like a feline yowling at an uncaring moon! A touch, a caress, a CONNECTION! But no -- cruel existence -- eight thousand years and not once has anyone ever said they loved me -- no it's always 'do this Garbarion' or 'fork that Garbarion' and never 'Garbarion would you like to go out to dinner?'"

    They sniff indignantly.

    "What even IS love?"

    "Baby don't hurt me." the fridge states.

    "Don't hurt me." a cabinet sings.

    "No more." the Dishwasher adds, in deep bass.

    Balm looks mildly peturbed at all this.

    And oh yeah, there is indeed a red swirling malevolent-feeling portal in the middle of the kitchen that definitely leads to somewhere Not Good.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Talia al Ghul looks over at everything nonchalantly. "Ah, how droll. If you have that degree of need for association.." She would look over at Megan with a 'teleport this into the center of a volcano' expression. Her intent might not be exactly that, but Megan had probably over the years run into a lot of people that made similar requests of her, spoken or not. And Talia definitely thinks that putting all of this into one is the best way to go about things. Well, other than the gill-person.

    They get dumped in ACE Chemical Factory.

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Megan Gwynn shakes her head, "Not what I mean..I meant, I'm sure you only meant to practice some harmless magic without realizing exactly wat you're dealing with." she smirks and shrugs, looking at her dagger that glows a warm hot pink as she looks around, "Besides, these weapons are for whatever evil you unwittingly unleashed.."

And then the gill creature starts complaining about being unloved..And furniture starts talking.

"Uhh.." she glances around in confusion. "Are you all hearing this? What the heck, the appliances are possessed? What exactly did you do?" she spins on gilly rather annoyed.

But it's the swirly whirly that has the majority of her attention and she steps towards the portal frowning.

"Okaay, we just need to figure out the particular incantation to close this thing.." she ponders, twirling her dagger in her hands, "Okay, before I try any incantations that might backfire, try the simplest route.." she steps cautiously closer, poking her dagger into the portal as close as she can get without talking in..If it's made of magic, she should be able to negate the magic with her soul dagger, effectively shutting down the spell...If she is lucky..

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "Hey, I understand," Lydia says soothingly, resting a hand on Garbarion's shoulder. "It took me a while to find love, myself. I've found that if you relax, and be yourself, the one for you will make themselves known. Besides," she says with a dismissive wave of the hand, "Don't believe everything you read in the books. The reality rarely lives up to the fiction. It takes time."

    "Have you tried Bumble?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe is hovering between the livingroom, where Lydia is comforting Garbarion, and the kitchen where Talia is suggesting that everything get dropped into a chemical vat or volcano with her expression. She disapproves.

    Megan goes to try and start taking on the portal, trying to change it, take down the spell with her dagger. She's able to feel the malevolence start to rise up, as if like a snake to take a bit eout of her arm --

    "Oh I couldn't possibly go on Bumble. They keep rejecting my picture as AI art! I PROMISE I LOOK LIKE--" the gills flare up again, and Garbarion pauses, and then gives a harsh URK! sound, and wheels around --

    "No no no no noonono!!" they squeal out, leaping and diving for the portal!

    "You can't do thaaa---"

    And the wail is cut off suddenly. Gambarion, the portal, and the fridge, dish washer and the singing cabinet have all appeared to have vanished with the portal.

    Indeed, Love will not harm Garbarion further in this year... but at least there's only like, fifteen days left in it.

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Megan Gwynn yelps as she feels something vicious on the other side. "Youch!" and she pulls her hands back quickly. "Okaaay, maybe a binding spell could work.." she's better with her books but maybe she can use a similar spell that makes her own portals open and close..

But before she can, gill-Err, Garbarion runs into the portal and vanishes from sight!

"...We'll that was anticlimactic...Now what?" she sighs and yawns, wondering if it's time to call it a night.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia sighs, pinching her nose. "Poor guy," she says walking into the kitchen. "Some people will do anything for love. They can be the really dangerous types."

    She puts her hands on her hips and surveys the room. "Well. Looks like our job here is done. Anybody up for some coffee?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe rubs the back of her neck as she looks around.

    "PRetty sure they *did* have every book you've published." she states in observation, and then looks at a display in her mask's HUD.

    "I could go for a coffee. We can go to my apartment. Curio's near by here now." she suggests, "Or--" she regards Megan and Talia "... steal Gary's." she ventures. "Provided the coffee maker doesn't start singing."