2699/Ice Palace: Feel my Power Grow

From Heroes Assemble MUSH
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Ice Palace: Feel my Power Grow
Date of Scene: 30 July 2020
Location: Woodlawn Cemetery
Synopsis: Magical heroes defend an ice cottage from attack by skeletons!
Cast of Characters: Loki, John Constantine, Nessa Donovan, Sera




Loki has posed:
It had seemed as if the ice magic was staying to the area of the 'Ice Palace' in the Bronx, but that is no longer the case. For well over a month, the Ice Palace originally had been a very interesting magical location, safe enough. Until the skeletons started showing up. Since then, it's been cordoned off by SHIELD, everyone kept away from the dangerous magical denizens therein. But something's shifted.

It's raining. Long patches of water running through the city have suddenly begun to assist with the movement of some of the ice. The palace seems to have lost mass: ice is torn off in chunks, and those chunks are on the move, able to float and mingle with the rain.

More specifically, the ice has drifted and focused into the area of the Bronx's Woodlawn Cemetary, unnaturally clustering there. Five looming skeletons have been drawn along with these icy patches, breaking their previous slumber in the ice palace. They've broken the 'line' of SHIELD, lumbering down the street away from the Ice Palace, in a slow march towards the Cemetary. Each skeleton, easily eight feet in height, carries a massive icy axe; their bodies gleam with a chilly, unnatural quality and blue glow.

John Constantine has posed:
"Bunch of plodding sods," Constantine says to himself. "Bunch of soldiers gone to take a piss, thinking they're gonna hedge up a sodding army of skeletons." The little monologue's part of a long and mumbling series of profane statements about the skeletons, SHIELD, and Americans in general, all from the dry safety of an overhang near a mausoleum. John seems to be one of the few people without the good sense to turn and run from the undead monsters.

He's slouched lazily against a pillar with one ankle crossed over the other. The last gasps of an expended cigarette prompt a change in posture and he shoves off the pillar with one hand. The dead cigarette's flicked into the grass and he fishes a new one from a crumpled pack of smokes. A snap of his lighter cups fire in his palm and he stokes the fresh one to life.

John gets about two good puffs off it and a gust of wind sprays water right onto the freshly lit smoke. The embers die with an anemic *poof* of sizzling air.

"Bollocks," he remarks to no one in particular, and tosses that cigarette aside as well.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
There's a certain sense of security that comes from having /some/ idea of what you're working with. The skeletons are a familiar foe, so the fact that they're lurking around and heading towards the cemetary is no surprise to Nessa. The rain doesn't seem to bother her, as she finds a spot to stand where she can at least pause for a moment to get a better sense of the magic nearby. There was supposed to be something else icy around her. Other than her.

"I certainly hope this doesn't require actual physical digging of some kind," she mutters.

Sera has posed:
The last time Sera was at this ice castle, she witnessed a carefully constructed play seemingly for the sole purpose of making a young child cry. Her view of the thing has been tainted somewhat from this. Instead of a fun ice sculpture and some fun ice guards with a bad temper, it was a wicked stage for a broader production than she could see yet. As an avid writer of tragedy herself, she now finds it something of a study.

The rain didn't mind her much, she rather like the change of temperament. Though, her drenched clothing did cling to her tighter than might be appropriate. Jeans, boots, t-shirt which says "As above, same below" on it in bold red letters across her chest. A black leather jacket she won at poker and her long black hair matted against her neck and back.

Her eyes rest on the precession of ice warriors making their way in to the cemetery and shakes her head, walking up to Nessa and saying, "Not unless we wanted to get in to the underneath area the curator of this construct wants us to explore." Her eyes shift to John and she smirks, "Hey it's that guy again, the one who swears a lot."

Loki has posed:
Nessa had been aware that there's supposed to be another ice location that exists near Woodlawn. It is, in fact, within Woodlawn Cemetary - it's just that the place is enormous, at 400 acres. It's one of the biggest cemetaries in New York, as a national landmark. Tree-lined roads lead through rolling hills to memorials and sites. It is dotted with all manner of various buildings, sculptures, gravestone locations.... and an unnaturally strong, pulse of magic at one of the lower points of the whole of Woodlawn.

There, hidden in a mild weave of magic, is a second ice building. This one is more of an ice cottage, not so much a palace, and is easy to overlook if one lacks some kind of magical sight ... AND is looking for it. It just asks to blend in.

The skeletons haven't gotten the memo about the site blending in, though, they are headed towards it, and the ice flutters through the ground around them like spiderwebs into the soil and across the pavement in areas.

Nothing around the skeletons has erupted from the ground: it is more like a very eerie pilgrimage, as if the skeletons were only lacking a giant magical coffin for their procession.

John Constantine has posed:
John doesn't see the two women. If he does, he doesn't acknowledge them. The magus breaks from his cover and turns his coat collar up around his neck. He shrugs into the garment, letting rain bead off the coat in chaotic rivulets.

He sets up a parallel track with the skeletons, lingering back a few yards behind their rearmost number. They don't *seem* terribly intelligent, but then again-- why risk it?

Though aside from the skeletons, it's a relatively average rainy day in the cemetary. One more guy in a black suit and overcoat doesn't really stand out.

Once they close in on the cottage, John starts acting a little oddly. The blonde fellow stays well back from the cottage, at some invisible limit that might trigger his presence as aggression. He sniffs trees. Crushes a funeral flower in his palm and looks at it carefully. He even stoops and pinchs a little fresh-dug gravesoil between his fingers, tastes it, and spits it to the side.

But why he's doing all that is anyone's guess.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
The rain doesn't seem to be too much of a hindrance to Nessa, her hair held back at the nape of her neck with a hairtie. No braid for her. The bookbag at her side is thankfully waterproof, and she adjusts the strap as she looks over to Sera. "I did a research, trying to figure out if all of this is connected somehow, life having a way of twisting in on itself and on. Sorcerer Vega's got a handful of other students. I don't know what the scoop is on all of them, but they've been hiding out at other 'ice places' around the city. They may know what's going on... or potentially be the cause of it, sometimes these things sneak up on you."

Her gaze shifts from Sera to John and back. "So we're taking a little visit to see what we can find and hopefully not discover anything like what's at the ice palace." So, she's more than happy to make her way towards the cottage. When John starts his... activity... she cocks her head to the side. Magic, certainly, but not what she's familiar with. "It's not likely that Sorcerer Vega's students know we're coming, of any of them are in there." She approaches, but stops a good six feet away. She doesn't knock, but she raises her voice in hopes that anyone inside the structure can hear. "Is anyone home?"

Sera has posed:
Woodland Cemetery. Ugh. How she hates this place. It gives her the squikiest vibes of anywhere in the city. It's not that here lay the dead en masse. No that's fine. It's the dang statues. They're everywhere. Angels looking mournfully over the deceased, some in positions of prayer. It's home. It's how she started life, an anchorite praying over the those angels fallen in battle, to keep their spirit alive with magic and memory. Every inch of her shivers, but not from the cold.

"Why couldn't this be in some stinky fish monger back alley or down in a dank stanky sewer.. why does it always have to be this cemetery, this //exact// cemetery," she comments to Nessa as her eyes follow the direction of the skeletons and finally as they rush toward it, refocus on the second ice structure. "Oh hello. Why are you hiding?"

She smirks, "Yes, well, if the narrative is to be believed, the ice palace was infected with something dark and evil blah blah blah and now the armies of darkness are venturing forth to fight the one true hopes that can stop it. At least, that's how I'd write it. Oh but they'd miss the true hero, following a prophecy set forth with a loop hole that means the chosen one will slip under the radar. Hm, may be I should write a book about this. I could call it.. Ice Wars: a New Hope." As Nessa calls out to those in the structure she cannot... just cannot help herself, "Show yourself," she calls out too.

Loki has posed:
"Go away," calls out a female voice from inside the cottage. She does not want to build a snowman, Nessa. Geez. So pushy.

The skeletons are continuing their path towards the cottage, but since nobody is actively doing anything to them, they simply are walking. They seem to be somewhat restricted to their icy zone they are traveling in: it's like a flowing edge, spines like snowflake patterns that spread out over the grass and pavement, giving the skeletons their creepy frozen ground to walk on, to allow them to approach. The group has maybe five minutes before the skeletons are directly on the cottage, at their lumbering rate. One of them does twist, to survey behind them, perhaps sensing John, but it doesn't actually do anything yet, beyond to look with ghastly eye-holes.

John Constantine has posed:
It does take John a few minutes to catch up with the women. What he's doing out in the periphery of the cottage is anyone's guess; he even seems to disappear entirely from view for a brief stretch here and there.

"'scuse me laides, coming through. Oye!" John steps up to the door through Nessa and Sera's personal space, with little regard for either, and bangs on the door with a closed fist. "Open the bloody door!" he hollers. John kicks it hard with his toe a few times, making it rattle in the frame.

"Listen, you poncy git! There's near a half a dozen cryofiends who'll be bangin' down the door in two shakes. So unarse your loveseat and open the bloomin' door!"

He stops and looks Sera over with an appreciative up-and-down. "Love the threads darling, but the shirt's a bit cliche, innit?"

He turns back to the door and hammers it with his foot again.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
Nessa's darting out of the way the second John even comes slightly into her personal space. "Boy, it's sure great that these skeletons aren't attracted to loud sounds, right Sera?" She comments, tone thick with sarcasm. But instead of letting him be in charge of diplomacy, she tries again on her own. "He's right about the ice skeletons. I don't know if they're targeting you or the house, though. I'm Nessa. Something happened to Sorcerer Vega. Tristan said there were more students and I wanted to see that everyone was alright... and to perhaps see if I could find any information that might help us stop what's going on."

She glances over her shoulder in the direction of the ice skeletons. "But we need to move /now/."

Sera has posed:
Asgardians are built like bricks to humans, Angels even more so. When John makes his push through, she barely moves. Well, she moves more for the compliment though, "Thanks. It's meant to be cliche. I am making a whole collection of them. My favourite so far is Acute Angle." She doesn't seem as concerned as Nessa and she explains why, "Well yes, but you have to keep in mind if this were a good story, the author would have to prove the situation is dangerous and dire by killing off a very competent adversary to the evil one."

She motions to the ice cabin, "And thus we have the lady inside there who is probably exceptional with ice magic. She may even be the best according to certain circles. You have to set up a good sense of doom and gloom and loss of hope for the second act, that's just good story telling."

She calls in to the ice cabin, "Did you hear that? you're going to die for the narrative if you don't let the audience save you." She looks back toward the slowly approaching ice skeletons. "I suppose we could go fight them too, but I bet she'd come rushing out to fight along side us valiantly. Hey John, isn't it?, is it too dark to place bets on whether she lives or dies?"

Loki has posed:
"I," says a feminine voice from above the doorframe. A glance up will reveal a strange little disembodied eyeball, blue. It's talking? It's magic, don't question it too much. "Am defending this spot until my master returns! Find somewhere else to bang your----"

The eyeball trails off, and gets a good look at the skeletons.

After another moment of consideration, the door pops open and the eyeball winks out. Inside the cottage is a mixture of things if one was going to sit around and do some spells with a few friends. Books, comfy fluffy cushions, some bunks in the back, magical tapestries here and there. At least one has a big symbol on it, with candles arranged below on a shelf. Other things include a cauldron, a long table and a whole shelf of plants and bottled items. Normal magical hidey-hole things.

The owner of the blue eyeball is present, a brunette likely in her low or mid twenties with an intricate arcane tattoo on her upper chest across her collarbones. "What happened to Sorceror Vega? Why did you three bring skeletons here?!" she asks quickly. Then... Sera says some crazy stuff. "What are you talking about? Take your skeletons and leave."

John Constantine has posed:
"You want a sure win, bet on me," John bids Sera. "You want to gamble, put a quid down on anyone else's lives. Yours included." The hammering continues until the door swings open, and he at least waits for the girls to go through before he follows suite.

"Oh bloody ****ing hell, Zelda?!" John demands of the witch. "I should have known you'd be mixed up with this nonsense!" he accuses the woman. "I thought you had better sense than plonking a bloody magnet in the middle of a graveyard."

"We've got... maybe a minute until the cryofiends are on us. They're here to rip the copper out the walls luv," he tells the witch. John casts around for something, finds a bucket, and starts loading it with anything remotely incendiary. "Here, help me find inflammables," John requests of Nessa. "Nail polish, liquor, that sort of thing, eh? C'mon, sharpish now! We've not much time. Blimey, Zelda, tell me you've at least got a bottle of kerosene or gas lying about the place."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"Those aren't ours or I would happily shoo them away. Sorcerer Vega disappeared after fighting a significantly larger one. We aren't sure if whatever's corrupting the ice at the palace has taken him or..." Nessa shrugs a little bit, looking warily in the direction of skeletons. "The point being, we either need to fight those, hide inside and hope they can't get in, or get the heck out of here right now." There is the itch to ask questions though. "Why did he ask you to defend this place?"

John's mention of flammable things gets a bit of a laugh. "Well, I certainly don't have anything like that on my person and I honestly doubt an ice cottage is going to have any of that. If you're worried about stalling for time, I can get them to stand still and Sera was pretty good at distracting them. We could give that a shot again. I think the more important thing is /why/ they want to come here, though."

Sera has posed:
Sera makes her way in to the ice cottage and looks around at the place with a touch of wonder. "You said there were several of these Nessa? Very cool." She waggles an eyebrow, "Eh? EH? Come on.." She sighs and then can't help but laugh as John begins looking for flammable things. "You're right, let's destroy this place before the skeletons can," she says sarcastically to John's brilliant plan.

She grins to the brunette, "Don't mind me, I like to talk things through, it calms the nerves and usually when I investigate weird stuff, I have a big Asgardian in the way of dangerous things. I'm Sera and I promise they're not my ice skeletons. Though, I did manage to charm one briefly recently.. but that's another story."

She hmms thoughtfully at Nessa's suggestions. "Yeah, I can do that. We can give them a good show." Her eyes begin to glow white as she readies herself for magic. "I'm up for singing in the rain."

Loki has posed:
"He didn't ask me to; someone should, though..." Zelda answers Nessa, finding her question a little easier to respond to than Constantine's assault of far more aggressive ones. "Don't you dare burn my Zinklin bulbs! Do you know how long these take to even germinate?" She says, dodging forwards to try to defend the poor grass-like looking plants. Obviously they are very flammable. "There's a bunch of supplies for the cauldron," she grants to Constantine. There IS a magic fire burning under there. It's certainly a start.

Outside, there's a sudden pulse of sound, an explosive fire trap was set off by one of the skeletons, and there's a roar, a howl of rushing cold air as the skeletons react to it, drenching it with cones of freezing mist ejected from their faces. It did delay them, and one of them has collapsed outside on the trap.

Sera said a magic word. "An Asgardian? Which one? Is it a god, or a goddess?" Zelda asks. "Could you summon them? Would they listen to your prayers?"

John Constantine has posed:
"Bloody codswalloping *hell*, are you ninnies in a knitting club?" John demands of the three women, aghast. "There's a malignant force creeping down on this cottage and the cryofiends are escorting it. That's one down," he says as the explosion and shrieks sound off. "Might stop the others, but it won't stop the cold Creep coming here," he says.

John's pouring, mashing, and mixing things into a bucket. It doesn't look remotely magical. In fact, it smells of eye-watering solvents and there isn't a lick of magic coming from the magus. The last thing to go in is a seaweed bulb, which he punctures with a thumbnail before sealing it in the bin.

"This'll slow the spread down but we'll need to tend the fiends yet," he explains. "And either bugger out of here with whatever you're guarding, Zel, or blink all four of us out the back."

He opens the door, winds up a big underhand pitch, and slings the bucket across the graveyard. It hits near the feet of the closest fiend. The contents are quite unremarkable-- nothing magical or mystical in their current configuration.

However, when the next fire trap John had set goes off, the pyroclastic reaction is a LOT more energetic, thanks to some basic chemical alchemy.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
One glove comes off, then the other, and Nessa puts them carefully away. Whatever she was about to say has been silenced in one fiery glance as she turns away from the trio around her. She moves to the door, hands held out in the direction of the skeletons. Ice begins to build up, starting from a good chunk below the earth and upwards to fix them to their locations, as she had done at the ice palace before, but the earth being an anchor to keep ice from slipping against ice. Her attention goes briefly back inside to make certain there's some kind of plan in place, but she lingers by the door.

Sera has posed:
Sera's left eye twitches ever so slightly, "//Pray// to the Asgardians? They used to pray to us! I can do you one better than summoning Angela, you don't need an Asgardian, you have me, I'm an Angel. You can //pray to me// later." She smirks and the light leaps from her eyes as two brilliant magical wings explode from her back. She curls them at the tips and says, "Be right back, got some skeletons to destroy.."

It pains her to admit it, but tactically the best thing to do right now would be phone Thor and have him end the storm, thus ending the advance of the ice pathway and destroying all the skeletons at once. Hey, she is pretty sure she used to know how to control the weather too. If she had the time she could figure it out.. but for now it's plain old battle magic.

"Better than a knitting club, we're a book club." She points a finger at him, "And we drink lots of wine and spirits." She begins to sing and the air shimmers near her hands as a whip of white glowing magic and a sword of similar construct appear in her left and right hand.

Sera goes back out in to the rain and points her sword at the first of the skeletons, "You. You're the guinea pig." She steps away from the cottage and twirls the whip of light through the air and strikes at the skeleton, trying to get it entangled so she can yank it with a grunt straight on to her sword.

Loki has posed:
"No," Zelda says, glancing at her knitting in the corner, blushing. ...Angel? "Respectfully -- an angel would not demand tribute."

Outside, the mess from the bucket and the second fire trap have explosive results, taking out another skeleton and disarming another. Sera's whip grabs into the front one, recently disarmed, allowing Sera to have her way with it.

The two behind them actually stop, now, and blanket their disarmed buddy with extreme freezing air, trying to get Sera with it as well, to freeze her solid. It turns all of the rain into hail, which batters all around them on the pavement and grass! During this, Nessa also attacks, trying to stick them down; she's able to slow them all and deter them. It guards Sera from them, but they seem to start to gain some intelligence. They wait a moment, and then slog to rip free: instead of going forward as expected, they don't; they move to change their path. Not directly towards the cottage, but in a sweeping arc away from it laterally, perhaps to avoid any other traps that may have been set directly between them and their goal. They also split up: one to the left way, and the other on the right, as the cold begins to branch: it sticks with them, creeping like distended fingertips reeeeeaching for the cottage.

Zelda has picked up some of her most precious books and put them into a bag, and her prized plants in a pot. "I can reshape the wall, we can just get out. There's a magical well under us maintaining this place, but I'm not strong enough to remove it," Zelda explains, while starting to weave some ice magic to create a door in the back of the cottage, next to some bookshelves. She may be the only one left to USE the door, since the others all rushed out to fight.

John Constantine has posed:
"Bloody hell," John says again. Someone mentions drinking, and almost reflexively he produces a flask from his pocket and takes a nip of what smells like well-aged scotch. "Right then. Zelda, out the back and scarper," he bids the woman with a twist of his thumb. "This smells like old elemental magic. Wherever you go, set some wards. None of that 'kindly coven' threefold shite either, they intend you harm unless you harm 'em first and proper. Keep yer head down until I get a handle on this situation."

John starts rolling up his sleeves, looking around.

"Oye! Book clubbers!" John calls out front. "Need a few minutes to sniff about and find something, be a love and hold the hordes off for me?"

"Well, well, where would I put a well..."

John walks around the ice cottage. No visible basement. But then again, where magic's concerned, the metaphorical's as valid as the literal. His eye falls on a still pool of glacier-clear water in a shallow pan with no visible bottom. Fingertips skim over the surface and immediately frost with ice.

"Bugger!" John hisses, and squeezes the mild frostbite away with his other hand. "Right, it's gonna be like that, eh?" He picks up a cistern of regular water from a table and starts muttering an incantation over it, all the while giving the fathomless pan an irritated sidelong look.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"Holding off hordes is something we can certainly do," Nessa replies, her gaze scanning over the skeletons. The hail seems an annoyance more than anything, though she's glad that it's not raining any harder than it was. Big chunks of hail would be painful, regardless of ice resistance. She looks to Sera. "You take right, I'll take left?" She suggests, then begins to move a little more in the direction of the leftmost skeleton. With her hands out, she begins to arc a wall around the cottage, starting in the direction the skeleton is going in. The spikey palisade of ice will either cause it to move all the way around as she extends it further, or it will be forced to climb over the top... a top with complicated spikes of ice to slow it down or potentially even catch it.

"You know, it figures that this all has to be ice. It couldn't just be water, or plants, or something I could just freeze..."

Sera has posed:
Sera mutters to herself, "Shows how much you know about angels." As the skeleton is yanked away from its troupe she says, "Ain't nothing for nothing in this world or the next," to it with her sword slicing down through its skull and then ribcage through its icy enchanted heart. The magical sword passes out cleanly in time for her to recognise the sudden dagger like hail. She twirls the whip up and sings out with her alien song in to the icy cold air. Her throat feeling instantly parched as it transforms in to a shield. She coughs a few times and gulps to try and warm her throat up.

She deftly hides behind it as the hail clips every part of her body not protected, making harsh little cuts everywhere. The magical wings curl about her body and take several strikes from the hail and they shimmer at points and then their spell is broken, the wings evaporating in sparkling points of light around her.

"Aahg! Gah! Sheesh. I promise I wouldn't die again so soon, but okay!," she calls back to John. With a shiver she draws back around, watching them advance in an arc from their current path, "Hey you guys have grown some more brains since we last met. You remember me right? I sing to you, it sounds lovely, you like it. Ahh screw it, let's be goddess damned heroes. Nessa cover me from their ice breath."

She pushes shield and sword forward and charges in to the group from the right, dropping in to a slide at the last minute on her knees across the icy ground they're making trying to cut through their legs. Her shield goes over her head like a hat to protect from their axes. Her knees are not going to be thanking her later.

Loki has posed:
Nessa's skeleton is getting a workout, trying to decide the best way to go about traversing the obstacle course she is making for it. It chose to neither climb nor go around; but to bash the hell out of it with axe. In huge cleaving arcs, the skeleton assaults Nessa's wall structure!

Sera's skeleton is a quick fighter, stepping back and aside, bringing axe down to directly try to parry her. It's stronger.... perhaps something is directly staring at them. Maybe Sera has gotten the attention of whatever drives the skeletons and told them to split up? She does land a hit to the left knee of the skeleton, and it claws at her with free hand as it twists, trying to recover and swing the axe in a whirling arc, using it's own weird momentum from losing a knee: like a very creepy marionette.

Inside, Zelda has gotten her things together, but looks at Constantine. "No, let me help you," she insists instead, attempting to garland him with some woven herb tiara. It smells of honeysuckle.

Loki has posed:
That dark icy patch under everything is easy to overlook. It's slinking towards the front door now, little feathery fingers like a giant white cornflake sneaking into the front door.....

John Constantine has posed:
"Bloody hedge witches--!" John sputters, and tries to duck away from Zelda. He ends up with a lopsided garland on his head anyway. "Woman, I'm doing something that takes some focus here! Out the back before I punt you in the arse!"

Johns' head twists towards the creeping darkness, and he digs around in his pockets to find something. "I just had it-- aha!" The flask comes out and is uncapped with one hand. John swishes the scotch around in his mouth, grabs a candle and sputters the liquor like a firebreather might.

Except no firebreather produced a flame of such heat and scale, enough to melt the inside of the cottage walls and chase the path of the creeping cold back out into the graveyard itself.

John coughs hard as the flames sputter out and dips his hand into the pitcher. Out it comes with a gauntlet of clear blue ice around it. This time, when he dips his hand into the empty cistern, he's able to immerse to his forearm.

And comes up with a heart carved of ice. It beats subtly in his grip.

"Okay, time to wrap it up gels!" he calls out to the women. "If either of you's got a petrol bomb in your pocket, now would be a good time to use it!" John wraps the icy heart up in a long fold of cloth and tucks it under his arm, backing steadily towards the escape Zelda had wrought.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"Good choice," Nessa tells the skeleton. Even as he hacks at it, she does her best to build the ice bits chopped out back up. But Sera's also mentioning protection from the cold breath. The best way she can think of is just to physically stand in front and use a combination of ice and her own body to keep it from hitting Sera. When John calls for a potential bomb, she's laughing again. "That's the /last/ thing I'd keep in my pocket, my thing is kind of ice. Just saying!" This sort of fight has been incredibly tricky for her to fight, all things considered. Ice versus ice. But it does look like they're trying to head out. "Sera, we've got to move. Seems we got whatever we were looking for?" She's honestly unsure at this point.

Sera has posed:
Sera spins around on the ice up on to her boots and ducks behind her magical shield just in time as the big axe comes at her in a whirling arc. The magic shimmers and almost breaks like her wings, though this one is designed for kinetics, unlike the wings. She coughs again and clears her throat as she pushes the shield against the arm wielding the axe, making it harder for him to wield it.

Though, the sharp claws cut in to her upper arm and she begins to sing, starting with a bit of a cry of pain. Her otherworldly song is another that Nessa has heard before, when she cut the "Sorcerer Vega" fake from the ice in the ice palace, mixed with another song. The light from her sword flows in to the shield buffing it as her hand begins to glow a brilliant white in heat.

"Kali Maaaa," she begins to chant with a wicked grin on her face. The ice skeleton might be none the wiser as she presses her burning hand against its icy chest, "Kali Maaaa!" the ice sizzling as her fingers press in to its magical construct.. "Kali MAAA!" she says as the heat spreads through its body from the inside. No cool beating heart will be pulled out though, probably just a wet sizzling hot hand.

Her darkened blood lust has her laugh at Nessa's suggestion, "You think we're done? no one has died yet, that's hardly a story." She pulls herself away from the skeleton and makes a quick retreat with aches and spots of red over her jeans and t-shirt where the claws and hail got her.

Loki has posed:
"It's a /heart/?" Zelda asks, surprised, watching Constantine wrap it. She's really not good at the whole 'leaving' thing. Maybe she's just loyal to her friend Constantine. "I know Sorcerer Vega has a dark past, but.... I thought that was over," She says quietly aside to him, but finally gets her butt in gear and goes out the back before he can actually kick her in the arse or anywhere else, disappearing into a shimmering protective ward that she casts. She'll be okay.

In the yard, the skeleton still trying to get at Nessa stops, and suddenly topples. The ice under it has stopped bothering to give it any energy, it does one last surge to attempt to get at Constantine and the heart! A ripping howl of icy wind, wordless, reaching out to try to grasp at him, one last effort to claw at the prize before it escapes out that back door...! It might catch a little onto Constantine, but if he's swift, it may only be glancing, and magical protection may blunt the worst of what that ghostly hand just tried to inflict on the 'thief' that stole it's heart.

John Constantine has posed:
There's a time for fancy speeches and fast spellcasting, and a time to beat feet, and John is definitely of one mind on this issue. John flings fire at the grasping claws-- not well-aimed or deliberate, just enough to buy him some spare seconsd.

He whirls and places a hand on the portal. "Porta stin sfaeliea, porta sefilo," he whispers in some ancient language. The portal's lights flicker and change, and Constantine shoulders his way through the rippling rainbow lights just as those claws rake against the tails of his duster.

He lands hard on the other side and gestures curtly at the hole in reality. "Kleismo, kleisimio, diakop!" he shouts. The portal roars with arcane energies and cuts off with a hollow gulping of air.

John breathes a sigh of releif and goes limp, still cradling the icy heart under his arm.

The sky overhead is still clouded and rainy. Furthur evidence of his trip can be found in raindrops splattering his face.

"Hope those birds had the sense to scarper," he remarks to no one in particular, and heaves to his feet to figure out where he is-- then starts stumbling down the narrow alley, drained by the exertion of so much spellcasting in such a little time.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"If you want a story, stop worrying about the present and worry about the future where the whole city isn't cased in corrupted ice. Way more impressive," Nessa directs towards Sera. But with the skeleton topples, she turns her attention back towards Zelda. "Tristan doesn't seem to think Sorcerer Vega is very fond of anything particularly dark. I really hope he's right and that this isn't..." She shakes her head, a glance given to her bookbag briefly, frowning the slightest bit before she looks back at Zelda. "... who does he serve? Vega, I mean. I was told he served someone."

She's confident Sera will finish off the de-energized skeleton, her gaze going to John as soon as he disappears through a portal. "Really? Now we'll never see that thing again." She means the icy heart, not John. Or maybe both.

Sera has posed:
Sera flicks her now wet hand as the skeleton dissolves before her. She looks down at it sizzling in the rain as the heat drains away from it. "I don't get it." She looks up in to the sky, water hitting her face in a pitter patter, "No one died. It makes no sense. Unless.. unless we were meant to win this round." She walks over to the last skeleton and crunches a firm boot down on it, grinding it in to the ground.

"Oh, I get the feeling we'll be seeing again. Also that thing again. After all, I still have that one from the ice palace stowed in my freezer." She gives a small shrug to Nessa and winces a little. "Those skeletons are getting smarter, better tactics. By the end of this they might be quite dangerous. Then we really will have to call in the rest of the Infinity Watch. You know, may be we should let them know what happened here tonight. It does seem to be getting a little more dire than just a pretty ice palace." She runs a hand over her rain slicked hair, flicking off a layer of the water as quickly as it is replaced by more. "...I think I need to go remember some fire spells."

Loki has posed:
Zelda kind of shrugs at Nessa's question, seeming to be trying to decide if she'll go back into the cottage, but decides not to.

The frozen ground is still there; it looks a lot like a reaching skeletal arm, the frosty pattern burned into the grass and shimmering on rock and paved areas. Dormant? Maybe. Hard to know for sure.