4795/Silence of the Class

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Silence of the Class
Date of Scene: 19 January 2021
Location: Washington Square Park
Synopsis: Professor Gottfried Brant keels over after an ominous Latin chant. What caused Kasios to stab him and Meggan to fight with shock? Find out next time...
Cast of Characters: Meggan Puceanu, Kasios




Meggan Puceanu has posed:
New York University bubbles away in the early afternoon. A bulk of undergrad classes in full swing mean a ready turnover of the student population, some scurrying through the chilly greens off to Greenwich or East Village's many eateries. Restaurants and cafes do a roaring business on limited student funds! Others rush back, satiated and full, to sit through another seminar or try to parse out the mysteries of science in the lab. Even though the clocks accusingly warn the start of classes fifteen minutes prior, there's still a healthy number of students with nowhere to be, not much to do, and plenty to procrastinate on.

Beside the main academic hall, a few windows are cracked open despite the chill. Bits of conversation mingle with the music, and a busker practices his latest work on a guitar on a bench to a small crowd of appreciative souls. Meggan is one of them: golden-haired, in an oversized coat, wearing a men's tie with a t-shirt and jeans. Bit of an avant garde look but most of them are pretty avant garde. There's an air of killing time, waiting on something.

A muted chirp bubbles up from her phone, one of those instantly recognizable StarkPhone warnings. Or the knockoff used elsewhere. Clearly it pulls her attention away and she drags it out, checking the glass. "Oh! Bother, I've got somewhere to be, Aidan. Keep up the lovely work. That chord will come round in no time!" From the exclamations of her bright voice, she doesn't belong to these shores natively. A confusing mingling of English with something more musical, definitively more north and west in the isles, lends a lovely resonance to the ears.

She scarpers down the wide, salted path cutting back to the nearby bank of offices, not entirely watching where she goes. Meanwhile the phone chimes melodically in hopes of catching her attention about an upcoming study session. The double doors inside aren't so far.

One pushes open, a tired man shuffling out. Sweating heavily from his high pate and down the sides of his face, he's florid around the collar, clutching a tablet in his hands. The screen is smeared and dripping with coffee, still dragging the recharging cord. It slaps his legs and he barely notices. "Caro autem infirma. Et adipem adolevit igni carnes reducere possit velut ferrum. In ossibus ignem sacrum trinum pasci," he mumbles. Blood starts running from one nostril. It trickles down, fat and red, in a flow he barely bothers wiping away.

Kasios has posed:
Kasios has been wandering about the city of New York in an attempt to truly understand his environment that he's been sent to protect and serve as a diplomat to. He's dressed in a nice dark suit with a simple tie around his neck. Though he seemingly has no weapons on him, no doubt he's become quite good at hiding them.

His attention shifts as he walks into a nearby bank to examine the place, when suddenly he notices a tired man shuffling out into the open, when he's suddenly speaking latin as he mumbles, apparently bleeding out of his nostril.

With eyes narrowed, he speaks to the man. "What are you doing?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
New York University's position right up against Washington Square Park, one of the hotspots for socializing, might definitely attract tourists or those trying to really get the vibe of the city. It's not Times Square, more authentic than that. Here young people go about their lives. Revolutionary ideas have been sparked for the better part of three hundred years. Quick for someone to get a pulse on moods about social changes, laws, or just the coolest trend by wandering around in a circle, listening, absorbing it all. In short, it's a pretty friendly spot.

Meggan steps back from a couple twisted together, arm in arm, wrapped up in their own self-important ideals. They scowl at her as she swings away, that tie twirling with her, deliberately contrarian about lying flat. Two steps back and she should be clear, there's nothing in the way. But her smile freezes and her eyes go wide, the jingle from her pocket finally silenced. A stagger to her steps could just be tripping on an icy patch of the pathway, and in fairness, footing is treacherous. Pretty bad for anyone not watching, or ignoring the ice-free sections. Maybe she doesn't. Zipping about on the balls of her feet is begging for a spill.

"Bloody hell," comes to her lips as she squints, expression pinched like she's just had a brain freeze. No slurpee in sight, though.

The professor isn't any better. He pretty much seems prepared to keep trudging, staring down at the tablet, repeating the Latin as it crumbles. Another streak of red beads up at his eye, coursing slowly down his cheek. The dribble from his nose thickens, clotting. It's all Greek--err, Latin--to the passing students. A few stop and stare. One might even think about filming but he gets his camera up just in time to be punched in the arm.

"Chrissake, what's wrong with you? Let's get inside and ask for help," his friend scolds.

The professor barely looks at Kasios or anything else. He gulps breath that wheezes up, bubbling, a sickeningly wet sound. "Locuti sunt nomina arcanum tredecim contritio et caro tua erunt ultra. Percussum est cinis de quo in fortitudinem meam." Every sound is choked, gurgling, before he topples forward at Kasios.

Kasios has posed:
Kasios looks at The man and his eyes narrow as he pulls a knife from his sleeve and throws it at the Professor's shoulder in an attempt to force him to stop his chant. He seems largely unaware of Meggan's own troubles, but he tries further to seal the distance between himself and the professor. To the Professor's friend, Kasios looks upon him. "You should leave." He tells him in warning.

"What are you doing!?" He questions the Professor further. "What fowl magic is this?" He growls in preparation as he questions the Professor who may be under some sort of spell or other darkness.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
As oratory goes, Professor Gottfried "Freddy" Brant makes a poor example by mumbling the Latin. Facedown as he's unable to catch himself, he convulses on the ground with a blade sticking out of his shoulder. A fresh bloody bloom appears around his coat, causing not a few screams from bystanders. He isn't chanting so much as shaping the language in his light German accent.

The iPad in his hands slews to the side, dropped onto the ground where the coffee-slick screen splatters a few drops into the salted snow. The screen cracks down the corner, a jagged spiderweb forming. But it's still visible if Kasios cares to look that way, something that looks more like a quick screenshot with plain text along the bottom. Definitely Latin there, the letters smart and crisp in the black font. It stares up at the sky, innocuous, the sort of thing a student is easily bound to pick up knowing just about Millennial and Zoomer in the area treasures their devices and calculates the pain of a screen replacement.

The two students concerned by the man's bloody appearance are shooed off by Kasios, since his demeanor and clear suit scream 'bureaucrat' more than anything else. They shoot a frightened and dirty look alike, heading fast for the front door.

Meggan backs away, since most of them are in the same boat. Students are most definitely not interested in staying too close. "Stop," she calls out through gritted teeth, recoiling on herself. "You're hurting him, you're making it hurt so much!"

The professor tries to speak, but the bloody phlegm and bubbles welling up with every breath suggest that's just not a random nosebleed on his part. More blood runs from his other tearduct, drooling hot and red down his cheek to match the original track. More of the blood is spat out and he looks down at his neat shirt and then the man in horror. A dull blink shows, the quickened terror snaking past the doldrums. "St-st-st..." Hard to spit the words out, forced by biting his tongue. "Studying. Ask-k-k-ed t-t-to transss.." On the last, the bubbling sibilance forms into a sick, wet cough that convulses his body. This isn't normal, of course. ""Percussum est cinis de quo in fortitudinem meam. In mente quale suum a sacro proposito devinctionibus perfici: Contritio autem Apollyon urbium, prævaricator moenia..."

Kasios has posed:
Whatever magic this is, its dark and intended to hurt.

But it seems that Kasios's attempts to stop this man are in vain, as his attention shifts to Meggan. "You have any suggestions?" He calls to her then, before he approaches, the man and attempts to grab him by the shoulders. "Stop reading it! Now!" He demands, taking the knife from his shoulder.

While Kasios may be a resident of Bana Mighdall, he's not the most knowledgeable of magic or magic practices, but he knows black magic when he sees it. Furthermore, he knows exactly what the professor is saying.

Which makes this all the more disturbing for what this Professor is trying to breathe to life.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The professor is merely trying to breathe, curled on his side. Gottfried spasms once and again, harder, a seizure that clearly shakes his whole body. Trying to pull the knife from the older man's shoulder is no difficulty for Kasios, though drawing the blade out leaves it smeared in blood and prone to earning more screams.

The few remaining students nearby scatter. Meggan isn't fully among them, her fingers to her scalp as she buries her nails in. It just mostly looks like a gesture of pain or horror, maybe something both. "Ambulance? Call 999?" That's 911, in normal nomenclature. "He's afraid, he hurts, this is not right. He isn't doing this, it's the thing in..."

Gottfried shrieks in a gurgle. The blood running around him ripples and the reflection in the pool shows a strange shape, shadowy and gnarled.

The tablet starts to spark, its cracked screen going dark. The man is rigid as a board, no longer speaking, no longer doing anything but fighting to breathe at all.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
~ The Invocation, From the Latin ~
The flesh is weak. Reduce the flesh to fat in the fire and it can be made as strong as steel. The fire must be fed by men's bones in a sacred trine. Speak the thirteen secret names of Ruin and your flesh will be no more. From ash comes strength when beaten into the soul. The mind gains its purpose from the sacred incantation: Ruin, Destroyer of Cities, Breaker of Walls, The Sunderer, Betrayer, Selfish One, the Lord of Cutting Swords.

Kasios has posed:
Kasios narrows his eyes as he watches Meggan seemingly be in pain, though he watches as the man seems to go rigid and stiff with no movement supporting his actions! With a look of surprise to his face, Kasios knows that this is not quite over yet, his expression stiffening. "Ruin?" He questions further, before he attemtps to shake the man from his trance.

Then he looks upon the pool of blood as it shows a strange shape. "I assume he's the one he attempted to summon." He comments as he rises to his feet, fists clenched.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The frightened look in those wide, fading eyes of rheumy blue lock to Kasios. Through gurgling, a distant sound: "Don't say..."

Gottfried's body jerks out of the hardened lassitude. His nails rake at his the ground, his face, leaving savage cuts on the skin. Then he collapses, the seizures crashing in waves for a good several seconds. His limpness is almost odd, a discarded ragdoll left behind by some terrible, defiant child. Perhaps worse.

The blonde English girl drops back to a wall, sinking to it. The bench is forgotten as she stares through her fingers, tearing herself out of a seductive, awful spiral. It's hard to say what compels her more to watch: Kasios, the fallen professor.

"He's summoning something?" A look passes over her face. "What is he summoning? A... I don't understand him, what he was saying."