6527/Hunting the Cult: The Rage Spirit

Hunting the Cult: The Rage Spirit
Date of Scene:	11 June 2021
Location:	Condemned Building - The Glades
Synopsis:	Vin, Sif, Thea and Abcde join forces to liberate one of Thea's mutant friends that had been possessed. In the process they discover it's a rage spirit and a fight occurs! Teamwork prevails though and the spirit gets vanquished.
Cast of Characters:	Thea Queen, Vintridr, Sif, Abcde Prescelta

---

Thea Queen has posed:
It's only been a few days since they captured Quilly, aka the rather large mutant with quills all over his body that thought the Asgardians would make nice pincushions. It was a trap left by Al-Fidr, Thea having discovered he had fled to Egypt already, along with the rest of his ensemble. And before they could even think about pursuing they still had another problem to handle....

Quilly used to be a mutant living underneath the Verdant, the club Thea is building up, they had met others of Team Arrow in the past and while their first meeting had been a touch violent they had made their peace and things had been going well since then. But now? It's as if he had been possessed or mind controlled. There were moments of clarity but more often than not the man was violent and wanting to break out of the rather secure room they put them in.

Thea had invited the Asgardians over for a talk, and with indication that there was someone coming to help with it. "So, I have been using some of my contacts, and the ones with Team Arrow to see what we can discover. I got in touch with a Coven that will send someone to help. Magic really isn't my specialty." Thea is standing in the middle of the room, arms folded, dressed in the red and black leathers, hood up and covering her face.

"Lets not spill out my real name out to them though! I can just be ..., Hood." not Speedy. She really needs to have that nickname changed or something. Is there a guild for it?!

Vintridr has posed:
    "I suppose 'Queen' would be a poor choice of moniker if you wish your identity to remain unknown," Vin chuckles. "Should we likewise conceal ours?"

    She seems less concerned about the prospect than one might expect -- but then, she's been holding a silent vigil by the unconscious mutant since he was brought in, wearing full - if light - armour. Even now as she lightly teases Thea she doesn't look or move away; she's clearly guarding him as long as is necessary.

Sif has posed:
For her part Sif vanished, upon delivery, in a rainbow puff, returning in about half an hour in full regalia as Sif, Lady of War, choosing to arm herself this time with a smallsword at her waist and a long spear paired with a large round shield. Upon her return (quite a bit cleaner than before, with bloodstains washed away and most of the wounds now almost gone) she signed to Vin. "If you would clean up, I will take watch until your return. My brother will transport you should you choose this."

Taking up a watchful stance near the unconscious one, she stands statue-still, waiting for whatever surprise is coming. And practicing calling Thea "Hood" under her breath.

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    There's a knock at the door. It's Abcde, the help. Wearing a heavy looking backpack, her own simple civilian style hoodie and jeans, a wand hanging from her belt and an old looking broom in her left hand. Her hair looks a touch wind swept. She knocks again.

    "Hello, is this the place for the thing that what needed help with?" To be fair, no one gave Abcde any real specifics or code words to use. She does crouch down and try and peer through a key hole, if there is such a thing. She knocks again.

    "My name is Abcde. I'm a witch," she says. That'll surely do the trick. If you ask a coven for a witch, you'd expect a witch to turn up right? The family business is booming and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Especially since they don't charge.

Thea Queen has posed:
"That would be up to you." About revealing their own identities or not. "I just ..., cannot do so." and not exactly because of *her* but of others that could be affected by it, like her brother, or Diggle. But then there's a ring on the door, she nodding enthusiastically as Sif is practicing her name. "Hood, hood, hood.." she says helpfully.

Then it's time to go open the door for their guest. It's a pretty rundown house in the middle of the Glades in Starling City. Bit of a dangerous neighborhood but it's one of those houses that one would go by without giving it a second look. Which makes it a perfect safehouse for Team Arrow!

"Welcome." Hood says, opening the door and a faint smile creasing up her expression. Thin chin and lips, the top part of her face covered. "Glad you could join us, Abcde." she gestures for her to come in and visible inside are the two Asgardians along with an unconscious man. Mutant most likely considering his more porcupine appearance.

"I am Hood, these are my companions who helped me with this." a gesture to the man on the bed. "We believe him to have been magically affected somehow. He is ..., aggressive."

Vintridr has posed:
    Vin looks the young woman over before nodding gravely. "I am known as Cloud-rider," she informs her, giving one of her lesser epithets, then indicates the still sleeping man. "We encountered him while on an investigation. He attacked on sight and fought without regard for pain or threats. I believe the popular metaphor is 'Like a man possessed' -- and there may be truth to that."

    She looks back down at him. "In battle, certain reactions are instinctive, all but impossible to control. A feint for the eyes, or some similarly vulnerable area, would be flinched from, or at least guarded against until one is sure it wasn't a feint -- unless one's instincts are no longer in control. Berserk, possessed, drugged or controlled - whichever it was, his will wasn't his own."

Sif has posed:
"I am the Lady Sif of Asgard, known also as Goddess of War among several other epithets, usually spoken in dread by my enemies," Sif says affably to the witch. "And I concur with V... ah 'Cloud-Rider'. This one was ensorcelled into baresark frenzy. His eyes were empty and he did not feel pain, making him very difficult to control."

Beat.

"He ruined my Midgard-made outfit entirely which is why I now appear in full regalia which his paltry spines will not mar."

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    Abcde lowers her hood as she enters the rundown house. Her eyes fall on the unconscious porcupine of a man and she tilts her head, "So this isn't about all the stabbies sticking out of him?" Her eyes cast around the room. Tough crowd. She unslings the bag from her back and says, "Well.. I suppose we'd best start with identifying exactly what the cause is."

    "There's no point doing an exorcism on someone who isn't possessed after all. If we're lucky it's a simply compulsion spell.. a very basic kind of mind control. Forces the mind to focus on one thing and one thing only. Like rage. Or may be there's something like a rage spirit riding him. It'd help if you could tell me how long he's been like this and what you believe to be the source of his condition?"

    Out comes regular kitchen salt from her bag and she starts to draw a circle around the bed with a two foot gap. Juuuust in case it is the worst kind of possession. "The kind of thing a stage magician pretending to be a mentalist might accidentally do," she says. She pauses and looks at the clothing the two Asgardians are wearing, then looks back to Thea.

    "So.. Hood, not the Red Arrow?," she asks. Then looks back to Sif, "And you're Lady Sif of Asgard." She then peers a little at Vintridr, "Also Asgard?" Her eyebrows raise. This is a first. Aliens. Legit aliens in a run down house in Starling City's dive hole neighbourhood.

Thea Queen has posed:
"I was sort of fond of that outfit..." But Thea is perhaps happier that it was destroyed. Because yes, it needed help! And those shades, eeeeee. A glance to Vin after as she introduces herself as Cloud-Rider, grinning a little at her before she sobers up and nods in agreement to the two Asgardians assessment on what went on with Quilly.

She turns back to Abcde, smirking at the comment about the stabbies. Oh look, a funny witch! Better than the ones with warts and evil cackles.

"I don't know exactly how long. A few days at most." She imagines, resting one hand on her hip and approaching to look as the witch goes about spreading the salt around. "But as they said, he didn't seen normal. His method of fighting was .., careless about his own condition. Berserking? Or maybe something .., riding him who wouldn't really care much?"

She approaches, lifting the man's sleeve a bit. "He also had this." she shows the wrist. A tattoo is there, black colored. It shows a grinning face, almost like an idol. But it appears corrupted somehow. Though it could very well be a focus of power.

She looks up, glancing at Vin and Sif. "We found others with this symbol. We think there may be a cult operating here. Based on Egypt."

The mention about the names has her smile faintly. "Maybe I should upgrade from Hood to Red Arrow. But so far Hood will suffice."

Vintridr has posed:
    Vintridr neither confirms nor denies Abcde's question, then nods with Thea's comment. "As we intend to root this cult out, knowing what they did to him - and whether and how he can be saved - will be of great help; I doubt very much that he was the only such berserker they have."

Sif has posed:
"So, sorceress of Midgard, can you fathom the forces involved in this? I would prefer not to have to call in the magi of Asgard because ..." Sif makes a wry face. "... Well let's say that there's some rivalry involved that would put me into an uncomfortable amount of debt and leave it at that. And with the Younger Prince off in his little travels, I can't ask for his help either."

She mimes wrapping something around her little finger while speaking that last sentence.

"But yes, knowing how to end this curse would be a great boon unto us. I would reward you handsomely if you wish such."

Please don't let it be an Oprah-style 'and you get a chariot and YOU get a chariot and ...'

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    The circle of salt complete she puts it back in to her bag and hmms. She takes a long look at the tattoo'd symbol on his wrist. But it's not until Egypt is mentioned that she quirks an eyebrow back up.

    Back to her backpack, she takes out an old diary in leather. She sits down next to the bed and starts to flick through the pages, clearly looking for something. "You mentioned Egypt and cult in the same word which conjures up oooh so many possibilities. Not to mention that tattoo is ringing a bell in my head."

    One leg folds over the other and she moves from page to page intently until she finds what she's looking for. A drawing of the same mark and some Italian and Latin written on the page with it. Her expression darkens a touch.

    "Hm," is what she says about that and shuts the book abruptly. "Well I think you're all very right, Mr. Stabby here is quite likely under the sway of magic. Given you keep mentioning berserking and rage, the odds are it's not in his mind but in his spirit."

    She smiles to Sif and says, "I have a lot of things we can try.. so let's try annoy a spirit first and foremost. Just... be ready. Spirits can be tricky things to deal with when they want to be. And the coven does not do this work for reward, it is our sacred responsibility."

    "Hm. It's a funny thing you know? rage is said to have come from the moon and thus is susceptible to silver, except back in the old days silver was a vast set of metals that all looked similar," she says and takes from her back a small vial of mercury. "Mercury is where the flames and heat comes from. The planet closest to the sun. Where sol stores her rage."

    She unstops the vial and lets a small bit of mercury drip out on to the tattoo. She puts the stopper back in and her hands begin to glow with magical blue energy. She doesn't draw her wand yet, there's no need. "equitem ipsum revelare," she says.

Thea Queen has posed:
Thea casts a look over at Sif and the talk about other Asgardian sorcerers, "Yea, no need to disturb them..." more than Thea already has! Not that she'd mind Loki around, but if they are talking about dangerous magics.., well..! "Though wait .., who do you have wrapped around your little finger..?" she looks extremely amused for a moment before Abcde then goes and starts figuring out what's going on. She readies her bow, setting it with an arrow.

"So if they are possessed and you draw the spirit out.., how do we hurt it? Mercury? Silver?" She asks.

The answer will have to come later though as when Abcde finishes dripping the mercury on the tatoo there's a loud hiss that comes from it, almost as if it was burning the skin beneath. Which it is! Quilly lets out a howl of pain, eyes suddenly opening up. He thrashes in place but soon enough a mist starts being drawn out of him, dark red, forming into a translucent shape at first that turns solid.

It charges out directly at the two Asgardians, but that salt around it slows it for a moment, enough for them to be able to react! Slowed but not stopped as it starts to go past.

"Defend yourselves!" Thea lets out an arrow that embeds itself in the creature. It roars but doesn't stop.

Vintridr has posed:
    "That often depends entirely on the nature of the creature we'll end up fighting," Vintridr replies, keeping vigilant watch on the witch and her patient. "Very few creatures are /truly/ invulnerable, given sufficient quanties of harm, but it is as she says -- spirits, especially ones hailing from Midgard, tend to be weak to both mercury and silver."

    She flashes another minute smile as she continues. "... But of the two, silver is much easier to fashion into a weap--" She falls silent immediately when the screaming starts, tensing slightly with one hand on her weapon. As a result, by the time the spirit gains a solid form she's already on her feet -- and by the time it finishes breaching the salt barrier, Vin barrels into its side with a full-bore shield bash, aiming to knock it off its feet, away from Thea and into Sif's melee range.

Sif has posed:
Spirit tries to get the drop on two prepared Asgardian warriors with one and a half millenia of combat in aggregate between them. Spirit gets disappointed.

While Vintridr knocks the creature into Sif's shield, Sif's spear is already down and sweeping forward in a vicious stab which is followed through by Sif's very own shield bash. Blue eyes, hard as stone populate a face as hard as with a small leap and twist of her arm she tries to force the creature down to the grown, transfixed by her spear for another, full-strength bash of the shield with her entire body weight behind it.

"Valkyrior to me!" she calls out, invoking the sisterhood the pair share to get Vintridr near for support and added weapons play. "Tear this into pieces!" she adds, keeping the creature pinned, if possible to give her compatriot a clear line for further attack.

All hints of the earlier affability are gone. Sif is now in battle and that smile on her face is not one of greeting any more than the smile of a wolf would be. A glint, in fact, that she is well known for among Asgardians is beginning to show in the corners of her eyes.

She's liking this. Perhaps a bit too much.

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    Hindsight is twenty twenty. She probably should have prepared them better to fight this thing if it really was in there. There was still a good chance there wasn't a rage spirit riding this person. Alas, it was.. and she mislead them by explaining theory not practical.

    "Silver will only make it stronger, use glass!," she shouts loudly and digs in to her bag for her ritual knife. Sanctified and ready, that tattoo is a magical hot bed of corruption. "Keep it busy!," she says and drips mercury over the sharp edge of her blade. "I'm sorry Mr. Porcupine this is going to hurt a lot," she says and then moves in on his arm, digging the knife in to his flesh to cut away the tattoo from his person.

    "Hood, I also need a bowl. Any bowl!," she says. This tattoo needs to be burned good and proper if they're to rid themselves fully of this rage spirit. She can feel her blood boiling with anger already just being near the thing.

Thea Queen has posed:
The spirit is strong, powerful, even if the two Asgardians do make a good job of restraining it. Still it doesn't seem to be slowing at those blows from their weapons. For sure that it gets stabbed with that spear, then shield bashed, being thrown back over and over by the assault. But it's as if the impacts did not hurt. It continues to attempt to slash with it's claws even as Vin and Sif work in keeping it pinned with their fabled teamwork.

As for Thea, she jumps back at one particularly nasty slash coming her way, nodding her thanks at Vin as she interposes between them. And ..., glass is it? And a bowl? She moves quickly, right into the kitchen. They do keep some food and water here, along with necessary utensils to prepare such food! So a bowl is quickly fetched, along with the sound of something made of glass breaking in the kitchen. She comes out, tossing the bowl towards Abcde.

"Catch!" On her other hand are shards of broken glass. And hey, do you know what she is good at besides bow and sword? Throwing! Not like her brother but .., her target is static. Just make sure not to hit any of the Asgardians....

One of the shards flies real close to Sif's arm, then another, both embedding themselves into the creature. It lets out a scream of pain and again tries to hit the two Asgardians.

"Seems to be working! How long are you going to take with whatever you are doing!" this to Abcde. Quilly is lying quietly now, unmoving, the tattoo slowly burning away.

Vintridr has posed:
    "Easier said than done!" Vintridr calls back to the witch's admonishment even as she ducks away from one claw swipe and bats a second away with her shield. She, too, can feel the rage boiling from the spirit, and like calls to like, and she answers its roars with a snarl of her own.

    So tempting, when blood flows this hot, to just let go and allow the battle-rage to take her where it wills...

    She grits her teeth and tries to focus. This isn't the time or place, and rage will only feed this monster further, and there are too many innocents who could come to harm if she were to lose herself....

    "You said to use glass, witch," she calls out with barely a growl in her voice as she waits for Sif to get its attention, then flanks it and slashes at its tendons, aiming to disable what can't be killed right now. "Will ice work as well?"

Sif has posed:
"Don't speed yourself on my account," Sif seethes, her lips pulled back into a rictus grin of raw, feral joy. "This is a good, enjoyable workout!" She lets go the spear to draw the sword for the close-in work, letting the point worry the creature's insides as it flailed and lunged.

The blade whirls and slices and stabs seemingly at random as movements drilled over hundreds of years flip the blade around in her hand. In counterpoint her shield just keeps up a basic bash and hold pattern: boringly predictable, but too powerful to do much about. "This is a feisty one, is it n..." she starts to say to Vintridr when, against all odds, a claw makes it past her defences, latching into her bare leg and penetrating deeply, pulling Sif forward with a small cry of angry pain.

Then a larger cry. Of angry pain. More on the angry side.

Those eyes start to glaze over as Sif falls under the creature's spell of wrath mixing together with her own little proclivity toward berserk rage seen in battle after battle where even allies steered clear of her when under its spell. All defence is abandoned for only the joy of the attack, holding back nothing of her literally awesome strength as she tries to rend the creatures by blade, boot, and shield's edge.

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    "Not long!," she says as she catches the bowl. She slaps the square cut of skin in to the bowl and sets it on the floor. A glare is thrown to Vintridr, apologies can come later, "No! I said Glass! not bloody ice."

    Her attention is drawn back to the bowl and she speaks the words, "fluminibus et cessabit púeros iram extinguere," as her hands light up with mystical blue energy again. This time she does draw her wand. The blue lights shoot down the wand and blast against the skin and tattoo in the bowl.

    It doesn't erupt in to flame, quite the opposite.. it drenches wetly and melts in to a fine ooze that fizzles in to nothingness like an acid. "It's no longer anchored. Kill it!," she says with annoyance in her voice. The anger from the spirits presence is really getting to her.

Thea Queen has posed:
From her position a bit afar Thea is able to survey the chaotic battlefield. The two Asgardians fighting their own bloodlust. Abcde finishing her ritual. The glass shards on it's skin, but still not enough.

So she takes on a larger shard of that broken glass bottle, armored glove squeezing around it's edges and she lets out a sigh.

"Here we go.." a look to the Asgardians and she runs forward, "Sif!" a battle cry out of her lips at seeing her friend being wounded. She looks at Vin, "I am distracting it. Drive it home after I do so!" she jumping towards the creature in a lunge, driving the large shard right down on it's neck. Dark ichor starts pouring out. Bottled rage that it has been harnessing from the various people here, and from Quilly. It *does* help in dissipating some of those darker thoughts as that particular magic starts to fade. But some may be too beyond recovery through this method...

Not that Thea noti ces it because she gets a swipe on her midsection from the creature with it's backhand, sending her flying and crashing against one of the walls.

It also leaves the creature open and vulnerable to properly applied punishment though!

Vintridr has posed:
Freya watch over fools and heroes. Vin forces herself to disregard Thea for now, and instead lunges into the opening she sacrificed herself to create.

     She moves with it as it turns, staying on its outer flank, and in an unguarded moment leaps for its back, bringing an armored fist down on the glass shard, driving it deep into its neck, cutting through where the jugulars would be located in a normal living being...

Sif has posed:
Sif, not having that glass so well at hand just acts as she did before: as an anchor. Only this time she's an anchor that is in the throes of rage, trying to use her bare hands, now, to just reach inside the wounds she's caused and tear the creature apart piece by piece. As the glass penetrates and the creature weakens, gobbets of whatever stuff it is made of start to get torn from it and cast to the ground while Sif screams in anger to reach for another and another and another until there's either nothing left or the rage leaves her.

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    Abcde slips to her knees and takes a moment to calm herself now that the spirit is vanguished.. a puddle of black ickler, its form no longer supported by the magic that bound it to Mr. Prickles. She spies a bowl in her bag and chuckles, "Hey I had one after all." She lifts it out to show Thea.

    Her eyes widen, "Oh sheeesh you're going to need stitches. And also we need to talk about this cult. They're in to some really dark stuff. Really really bad stuff. The was the emblem of the Khushu Idol. Dark dark sacrificial magic."

    "Get yourself.. sorted.. then get in touch so we can talk about these people your friend here got mixed up with."

Thea Queen has posed:
As Vin and Sif work on the creature, one by stabbing it down with the shard embedded in it and the other just ripping it apart the creature does indeed cease to exist shortly after. It's as if they were tearing through both the creature's rage and their own for that bloodlust leaves them perhaps faster than it normally does when they get into the throes of it. Dark magics...

The creature lets out one last roar but it's presence fully fades. And was the room that bright just a moment ago? It is now. Quilly is breathing heavily on the bed, but he is still breathing even he has gone back to unconsciousness. As for Thea, she drags herself off the ground thanking all the Saints for that protective armor she has. As it stands *maybe* it will only be bruised and hurting for a week or two. Ugh...

"She is still on her knees but her concern for the others is evident. "Are you all well? Sif. Cloud." she slowly gets up, nodding to Abcde. "Thank you for your help. We will indeed keep in touch, we should talk soon about this, and what we can do to stop them."

It was time to bring the fight to the Cult!