17115/The Eye of Arkach

The Eye of Arkach
Date of Scene:	06 February 2024
Location:	Vacant Lot -- Queens
Synopsis:	Daimon Hellstrom and Phoebe Beacon stumble upon one another on an investigation -- turns out they both have an 'Eye' for trouble.
Cast of Characters:	Phoebe Beacon, Daimon Hellstrom

---

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    It is a deceptively sunny February afternoon in Queens, New York. The sky has some whispy clouds, there's a chill wind that causes the temperature to drop down to the high thirties, and the lot was covered in bits of ice, little puddles of gasoline-tainted water with its typical rainbow swirls and abandoned cars, sitting and waiting endlessly for rust to take them. A couple of wooden fences, some half-standing, separate the lot into rough quarters. Spraypaint on them with stars and swirls are done in a dark rust red, just a touch too orange to be blood.

    This is where a cafe-racer motorcycle is parked, the leather backpack that carried her investigation materials untethered and applied to her back as she tucks her hair into a knit cap with a bright orange pompom on it.

    The place feels 'off'. Like a hot pepper that's just too far gone to the ripe side to be correct but still retains its searing hotness.

    The reports said that a couple of unhoused had turned up here, injured and babbling about visions of the world's demise and the End of Ages. Too many for it to be drug induced, so Phoebe BEacon had gathered her go-bag and came out to investigate.

Daimon Hellstrom has posed:
Phoebe used her motorcycle to get here. How did Daimon Hellstrom? Well, if you ask him (and you shouldn't), he'll tell you he walked. Which is true, in the sense that it's not really a lie, but it omits a fair amount.

Daimon is dressed in a black three-piece suit, with a red shirt underneath. No necktie, the collar button undone. The brisk February air doesn't seem to bother him that much. His hands are in his pockets as he unhurriedly ambles toward the same house that Phoebe is surveying.

Daimon stops just short of the stoop, and eyes Phoebe up and down. "You know," he says, his voice indifferent in the way that only the most insufferable brats' voices are, "if you're looking for... I don't know, what do people do now, meth? Fentanyl? Snorting aquarium gravel...? Well, whatever it is you're here to buy, I'd maybe hold off a bit. I've got some business inside to handle."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe pauses, looks down to her jeans and bicycle boots, her jacket and her backpack, and she shrugs as she turns her look to Daimon, and draws her eyebrows up.

    "Looking more for what caused a couple of people to go all Book of Revelations on the medical techs." she replies in a friendly tone of voice as she looks at the three-piece suit.

    "Not afraid that you're going to get dust or worse on your trousers?" she asks, purposefully keeping her voice light and friendly as she holds onto her bag, and goes to make her way into the vacant lot.

Daimon Hellstrom has posed:
Daimon stares at Phoebe for what probably feels like a long time. Like he's trying to read something written on the inside of her bones. His crimson irises might make this seem a little weird.

Then he looks down at himself. "It'll be okay." He takes his hands out of his pockets. "These are my least favorite trousers." Then, without waiting for Phoebe, he starts walking up the stoop, toward the front door.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe stares mildly back at Daimon. She seems nonpulsed by the staring, the eye color, the fact that the stranger seems to be trying to stare into her very soul, which is broken and bleeding into the astral like oil rising from a long-sunken ship, though bandaged over. And when he starts up the stoop, she tongues her own cheek, and then follows suit.

    "Then you must know that it's going to be a mess probably in the next fifteen to twenty minutes." she states coming up to share a stair with Daimon, and she looks up to the door. Unassuming, dark red with a touch of purple to it, like an old wine stain.

    A pair of concrete figures stare down, almost human in appearance if you ignore the fact that they have cloven hooves for hands and feet, and tiny horns hidden beneath the cherubic curls of their hair.

    The door latch lifts itself open as the duo approach, opening to a dark stairwell leading upwards, and a hallway leading to rooms on the first floor.

    The dark wood floor is scuffed with the passage of time and feet. There are holes leading down to whatever basement is below the main floor. It smells musty, like old laundry, and something with a bit of pungent herbalness to it.

    A broken mirror lays on the floor, shattered into long, knife-like shards that reflect the ceiling above them.

Daimon Hellstrom has posed:
"Oh, it's always a mess," Daimon says, with an air of complete nonchalance. "When people fuck around with things they shouldn't, that is."

When the door latch opens, Daimon wrinkles his nose, as if in distaste. Once they're inside, he says to Phoebe: "Step back." This is so that he can reach out toward nothing in particular...

...and when his fingers close, they close around a burning trident that's suddenly appeared in his hand. "Hellfire. It'll burn your soul worse than your skin." At least he's nice enough to warn Phoebe...?

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Tell me about it. No one ever listens to the addage of 'don't summon anything bigger than your head'." Phoebe states, and she looks over to the Hellfire trident. Her nose wrinkles slightly, and she automatically leans away from the weapon.

    "Soul's damaged enough." she comments breezily, and she stretches her fingers.

    Hellfire, why'd it have to be Hellfire? What can't it be like 'Ninth Level Ice' but no.

    Phoebe's arm is at her side, and there's a slight glow, like the tinkling of silver bells from her as she tests the waters herself.

    From the shattered mirror, several shards show an emerald green eye, with yellow flame, looking to the two, and then disappearing. The house seems to give a low shudder as the Hellfire trident is summoned into existence.

Daimon Hellstrom has posed:
Daimon uses the trident like a tiki torch. It's a good source of light -- and it's also a deterrent to anything that might leap out of a dark corner towards the pair. He casts a sidelong glance at Phoebe, watching the glow of her arm for a moment, before his eyes turn toward the shattered mirror.

"Daimon Hellstrom, by the way. Son of Satan." The name is actually a known one in occult circles, though mostly as an expert and academic of sorts, rather than a superhero or cult leader. "Well. One of the archdemons that people chalk up to being Satan. You probably know how it is."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Pleasure, Phoebe, part-time exorcist." Phoebe introduces herself neatly, and she draws her left hand out. There is a white magical circle ingrained in her skin, providing additional light and kept low, below Daimon's elbow.

    "I don't actually. I was an apprentice to a famous asshole and exorcist before they found out it was a demon wearing a skinsuit. I'm sure it was a confusing time for everyone, regarding your parent." she replies agreeably.

    Something in the kitchen clatters down. A pot, something large and hollow strikes the floor ahead of the duo.

    Phoebe's eyes narrow, and she sweeps in, low to the ground with that little light of hers glowing merily at her palm, coming to a stop outside the kitchen door.

Daimon Hellstrom has posed:
"Only part-time?" Daimon asks, glancing down at the circle etched into her skin. "There's good money in exorcism these days. And the people who pay the most are the ones who aren't even possessed. You just need to talk them down from a manic episode or whatever."

Daimon doesn't sweep towards the kitchen. He just... walks. Like he's out for a stroll in this creepy, possibly possessed house. "Anyway, 'apprentice to a famous asshole' means you were apprentice to someone who knew what they were doing." He keeps his trident facing forward, like a SWAT cop walking gun-barrel first. "All the truly skilled ones are their own variety of asshole. You'll become one, too, if you stick around long enough. Maybe not the same /kind/ as your former teacher, but..."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "I'm a busy girl, Daimon -- *can* I call you Daimon or do you prefer something else?" Phoebe replies quietly, as her eyes dart around the kitchen, and she gives a slight stare ahead. "Well, yeah, turns out he was a demon wearing a skinsuit of an asshole. Identity theft is no joke, Daimon." Phoebe replies, with humor in her voice, and as Daimon mozies his way into the kitchen, Phoebe steps forward and then is blown back against the oven door, hard enough to crack the glass in the View Window.

    As Daimon rounds the corner and steps into the kitchen, there is, in fact, a figure present!

    Well. Part of a figure.

    If you had your money on 'big green floating eye' ding ding, winner winner, demon dinner!

    The eye is supported by tendrils below it, like overgrown lower eyelashes, drifting and sweeping across the floor. Above the eye is a crown with three points, and a central gem.

    FOOLISH WHELPS WHO HAVE TRESSPASSED ON THE GREAT EYE OF THE SIXTH LAYER, HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT MY DOINGS! the eye bellows out, TO WHOM DO I OWE THE PLEASURE OF DRIVING YOU TO MADNESS OR RIPPING YOUR BODIES TO SHREDS, RENDING YOUR FLESH TO FEED THE LIMITLESS HORDES OF THE INFERNO?!

T"... Jiminey Crickets, he's dramatic." Phoebe whispers.

Daimon Hellstrom has posed:
    "Daimon is fine," says Mr. Hellstrom. He pauses in his advance before entering the kitchen. "If you were learning your tricks from a demon, Phoebe, then I'm fairly certain you got a better education than most apprentices. Though I'm sure the tuition was a bitch and a half."
    When the eye thing bellows, and Phoebe whispers, Daimon murmurs to her: "They all are. At least their grammar and syntax is modern enough."
    Then the Son of Satan fixes his gaze on the eye. "Daimon Hellstrom. Son of Marduk Kurios, Archdemon of Hell. I think you'll find me a tough swallow." He may or may not be saying that just to amuse Phoebe. "Your doings are causing trouble for the rest of us."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Yeah, I know, theatrics." Phoebe wheezes. She might have been trying to supress a laugh before she draws herself up "If we become friends maybe I'll share over coffee sometime." she murmurs, and she brings her hand up again, the light at her palm forming the shape of a sword, as she breathes out. Her rib snaps back into place and heals, and her iries now have a thin ring of rose-gold around them. She doesn't introduce herself.

    "DAAAAIMOOOooonn... Hell... oh bother. Oh dear. Well, that changes things, doesn't it?" the eyeball asks, and it appears to be a little bit nervous.

    "Well I'm not doing anything too out of the ordinary. You know, offering contracts for services rendered, imbuing the masses with tastes of madness, you know how it is, yes?" it asks, "You... weren't sent up to shut me down, were you? I thought I was doing so well!"

Daimon Hellstrom has posed:
    Daimon glances over at Phoebe, sidelong. The look on his face is 'do you see what kind of shit I have to deal with?' Sure, he has a cool hellfire trident, but who knows if the rest of his birthright is really worth the hassle.
    "Oh bother," Daimon repeats toward the eyeball-creature. "First of all. No one /sends/ me."
    Daimon reaffirms his grip on his trident. "Second. Even if I /did/ condone this whole contract business -- which I don't -- it's penny-ante stuff, and you're doing a sloppy job of it, at that." He gestures to Phoebe with his free hand. "You got on a local supernatural's radar. And let's say you eat her, consign her to Hell, whatever. It's a guarantee that she's got friends who will look into why she's suddenly gone. And soon enough you'll have someone like Stephen Strange knocking at your door, disrupting your /entire/ food chain."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... this is literally the third time Dr. Strange has been invoked in my presence in the last week." PHoebe states with a very dry expression, and she gives the 'ugh' face that truly only teenagers have ever mastered. She has eight days left to use it as a teenager.

    "Actually I really did come here to send -- I'm sorry, what was your name?" she asks the eyeball, rolling her hand at the wrist with a 'keep it going' motion as she looks to the eye, and looks to Daimon.

    "FOOLISH MORTAL! YOU GAZE UPON THE GREATNESS OF ARKACH THE -- oh, bother. You needed my name to banish, didn't you?"

    Phoebe looks to Daimon, and then shrugs her shoulders.

Daimon Hellstrom has posed:
    "Yeah, well, he's Sorcerer Supreme. Top cop of this realm, as far as situations like this are concerned." Daimon has his own version of resting bitch face, which comes from having been a moody demonic teenager who's grown up into a moody demonic adult.
    "Oh." Daimon lets out a sigh. "I recognize you now. Arkach the All-Seeing, Eye of the Barbarous Plains of Nop'hath, Curse-Bringer of the Ninth Era of Zamshir. Shouldn't you be in some kind of ninth-circle retirement community by now? You've only been at this, what, eight thousand years? Nine?" Daimon's eye-roll is audible.
    He motions toward Phoebe, as if to say, 'there you go.'

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "OH! DAIMON HELLSTROM, SON OF MARDUK KURIOUS KNOWS WHO I AM! You know my work?! Did you see the bit about helping to bring about a plague through rural villages of ancient Hungary and they blamed it all on this trio of redheads! Oh that was so much FUN! and--"

    While Arkach the All-Seeing, Eye of the Barbarous Plains of Nop'hath, Curse-Bringer of the Ninth Era of Zamshir (who definitely took credit for work that wasn't his for about three hundred years while he was obsessed with what developed into nettie pots) claps tendrils and shivers horridly in delight that his work was so well known, Phoebe was preparing.

    The sword's gone, and instead she had been working her fingertips to trace against the air, rose-gold magic trailing behind them as she forms a banishing circle, and then speaks. Her words are Old, and Latin, but don't call upon Saint Michael as the Catholic rite would. Sometimes you have to work around the hard parts.

    "FOOL!" Arkach bellows out. BETRAYER! TRAITOR! IMPUDENT WHELP! WAIT UNTIL I TELL YOUR FATHER!! the demon's tendrils reach up and around, grabbing tables, chairs, random kitchen implents -- INCLUDING the kitchen sink, and begins to lob them at the young exorcist to try and break her concentration while screaming obsenities at Daimon.

Daimon Hellstrom has posed:
    "I'm a redhead," Daimon says, audibly annoyed.
    Daimon steps forward to protect Phoebe. He of all people knows that an exorcism can be easily disrupted by getting a concussion from a thrown chair. He spears the table with his trident and then turns it in its path, to smack away the chairs (and some of the kitchen implements. The sink, meanwhile, hits Daimon right in the breadbasket, making him stagger. "Ooof!"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    YOU DON"T COUNT! Arkach bellows out.

    The Sink, having won Round One, comes back for Round 2 with an improvied haymaker created using a wet sponge and a variety of spoons all bending in the shape of a loose fist to try and get Hellstrom out of the way of the exorcist as she works. It even tries to spray Hellstrom down with water. Where is it getting the water? Don't ask, it's New York.

    Meanwhile, a plane opens to the side of the eye, and begins to slowly draw it towards the horizon.

    Phoebe's language switches from Latin to Middle Egyptian, and then, mid-way through she calls out: "Try to interrupt him! He's gotten everything tied up in knots and he is being DIFFICULT."

Daimon Hellstrom has posed:
    It being New York means that Daimon is mostly just lucky that the demon doesn't pull a gelatinous, un-disolved glob of vegetable oil and bacon grease out of the plumbing.
    The water spraying at Daimon turns into steam when it hits his burning trident. The spoon-first socks him in the jaw, but then he slaps it away with the tridents' prongs.
    "Difficult? /I'm/ difficult. He's just a pest." With that, Daimon rears back with his trident, and casts a bolt of hellfire out from it, seeking to try and nail poor Arkach right in the pupil.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "DON'T YOU DARE!" the eyeball screeches. Hellfire arches. Green fire arcs from below -- and slowly is overpowered by Daimon's fire, pushing back against it until the fire strikes Arkach in the pupil. The eye closes. There is a keening wail that sounds like metal ripping apart accompanied by the expell of gas from a school of vandals the day after Chili Night with extra beans.

    And the eye is consumed by the event horizon of Phoebe's banishing spell work with cries of 'no no no!' -- and then it's gone.

    The sink, the chairs, a variety of knives and a cast iron chicken statue fall around the duo.

    "... well." Phoebe whispers, "... that was exciting."

Daimon Hellstrom has posed:
    Daimon's suit didn't get all dusty, but he /is/ wet from the impromptu steam bath. "Tt," Daimon says, as his trident disappears into the nowhere from whence it came. He looks down at himself. "You know, steam rooms are nice, but not when fully dressed."
    Fortunately, it's only a bit of demonic magic and Daimon is dry again, a little ripple of flame washing over him harmlessly. "Can't go around soaking wet in this weather," he sighs.
    "That was good work, Phoebe. I'd buy you a drink, but I'm guessing you don't have a fake ID handy."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "No, I don't have a fake ID handy..." Phoebe states as she rises up, and brushes herself off.

    "I have six." she adds, with a little humor to her voice, her eyes having returned to their normal dark coffee with just the slightest notes of red.

    "And no dust on your trousers. You good after being smacked around by the sink?"

Daimon Hellstrom has posed:
    "Yeah," Daimon says. "Knocked the breath out of me, but that's it." He looks around at their surroundings, as if expecting the ceiling to peel back and reveal another monster.
    "Let's go grab that drink before someone decides to come check out what all the noise was." He motions for Phoebe to follow. "It's Queens, so prepare for disappointment, mind."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Not my usual haunts." Phoebe admits, and she motions for Daimon to lead the way as she brushes her hands over the remaiing tendrils of her own Light, and breathes out through her palms as if to warm her h ands.

    "All the places I know aren't fancy as a head's up."

Daimon Hellstrom has posed:
    "I'll live," says Daimon, as if Phoebe was putting some kind of terrible imposition on him by not hanging out at fancy enough establishments. It's such a hassle, being Daimon.