6831/Battle Can Be An Art

Battle Can Be An Art
Date of Scene:	07 July 2021
Location:	Central Park
Synopsis:	No description
Cast of Characters:	Sif, Kelda Stormrider

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Sif has posed:
The first hint of trouble comes from the doors of the Metropolitan Museum as a man runs out, pale as a ghost, sweating in fear. The balding 40-something year old is not the kind you'd generally expect to be running, what with the bulging belly, the three piece suit, and other such signs of 'not a jock' being in the forefront.

This attracts the attention of the black-haired, burgundy jeans-clad woman sitting at a bench and unpacking her plastic bags filled to the brim with hot dogs. (Evidence suggests the hot dog vendor she bought what appears to be at least two dozen hot dogs from is the one staring, slack-jawed, at her as she unpacks and prepares to eat them.) One bite into the first dog--a footlong that she's got half taken in a single bite--and the man running out catches her attention. Shrugging she chews as the man runs down the steps to the sidewalk before letting out a strangled scream.

At about the same time as the scream (and the second, finishing bite of the hot dog) the door the man ran out shatters with a stone statue of what appears to be a Cambodian Brahma lurches out, staggering forward on its footless legs, four handless arms gesticulating, four faces staring into cardinal directions.

One of the faces locks onto the fleeing man and the statue starts lurching toward the man.

Sif sighs as she stares at her satchel of hot dogs and shakes her head. "Always something interferes," she mutters. Hastily she packs the hot dogs away in her pack, slings that over her shoulder and starts running toward the scene. In the opposite direction of the crowd, which is generally rushing away.

In through the shattered ruins of the door, more things can be seen moving around, like art works come to life.

Kelda Stormrider has posed:
Rather than a hot dog, Kelda herself was on the hunt for a cinnamon-spiced pretzel. Soft, gooey, a confection worth seeking out, she remembers a certain stand in Central Park with a long-vaunted history of selling the pastries. The warm weather has cemented the stand's presence nearby to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Along the pathway, the tall and pale-blonde Asgardian Mage approaches with the intent to procure a pretzel.

Certainly not to pick a fight with suddenly-ensorcelled statuary.

But beggars can't be choosers. Kelda in her navy-blue leggings tucked into cavalry boots and flowing pale-blue cardigan draped overtop her white blouse comes to a halt and stares at the stone statue attempting to smash-spider-crawl after the unfortunate man. But is that --

"Lady Sif!" the Mage calls even as she gestures off to one side to summon her spear to hand. "What know you of this mess?!"

Sif has posed:
"Lady Kelda!" Sif replies as she hears her name called out and seeks its source. "I did not know you were in Midgard! Well met, but ill-timed!"

Sif's charging advance is not even slowed down as she communicates, though her eye takes in Kelda's garb (non-martial) and arrival of Kelda's spear (with approval) as she prepares herself with resources to command through the conflict. This will be a short one, though. Mere stone, animate or not, is a simple leap and smash away. A mace would be nice, but challenges are fun as well.

Especially trivial ones like this one.

"I know nothing of this," she calls out as she prepares her final sprinting charge, "but hold a moment and I will cease it and we can catch u..."

The final word, spoken as Sif launches herself into the air, is cut off by a sudden change in Sif's fortunes. The face that pointed her way when she charged spotted, of course, the only person running toward the statue, and, upon her leap, a casually contemptuous arm brush turns out to be backed by more strength that she'd apparently expected.

And more speed.

Her body smashes into the ground. Literally. Into the ground, a good 20cm, leaving an imprint in the spalling stones of the staircase now shattering under her mass and impetus.

Through the ruined doorway exit two more statues, one bronze and looking like it halfway melted before being put on its plinth, the other brass and ... dancing.

The latter seems harmless. But the first was one that seemed easy to defeat and look what that brought Sif.

Kelda Stormrider has posed:
"Lady Sif?!"

Kelda flinches to see the sudden redirection of her fellow Asgardian's entrance into the fray. Her glacial-blues flick back to the statues continuing to spill out through the museum's entrance doors. If one can't stop the flood of startling animation, one can certainly slow it down. A point of her spear and sudden scream of air hyperchilled as a beam of ice spreads a thick wall across the entrance and down the immediate area of the steps surrounding it. It won't stop everything from coming out, but it will slow things down -- and a lack of friction in combination of steps might prove devastating to anything slipping and tripping down the stairs.

She then bolts to the immediate area of Sif's crater. "Perhaps an attack not from on high?" she asks in dry humor, knowing her fellow Asgardian is tougher than nails. A well-manicured hand is offered out for a wrist-clasp up and out of the crater if needed.

Sif has posed:
If Sif's reddened face is anything to go by, there's a hot fury building up in the face of this humiliating pratfall. Overconfidence has its price and the price was paid in full. Accepting the wrist-clasp, but more from comaraderie than from need, Sif hauls herself, largely, to her feet as the statue starts lurching in the pair's direction.

There's no thanks offered. None is needed. Or, perhaps, there is too much anger burning.

Those eyes.

It's the latter.

What started off as a little lark has become a deadly serious tactical situation and the mind of the Goddess of War is working on it. One statue, proven threat. Two statues of unknown threat. Frozen-shut doors behind which are more statues causing unknown harm to unknown peoples. Steps are frozen and slick, causing the other to freed statues to have trouble, specifically the dancer to slip and fall continuously. (The other one has wide feet and is being careful. As it, too, approaches the pair, lending it a hostile air.)

"I will tie the three down here, Lady Kelda. There's magic afoot and I know little of that." Unspoken: I wish to know less. "The source of this curious uprising must be found. Can I leave that in your capable hands?"

The four-faced god reaches the pair first and Sif reacts to its attempt to sweep the pair aside by slipping to ground and viciously kicking its legs from under it. The kick shatters the right leg to the knee, breaking off a part of this priceless work of art. The statue falls over, unbroken.

"I am now prepared and will have no further troubles from these."

Kelda Stormrider has posed:
Kelda's spear shimmers readied to deal with the four-faced statue as it closes space between them, but Sif has things well in hand. The Mage's attention shifts from the fallen threat to the front doors and their gleaming state.

"Yes, I suspect it to be within. The walling of ice is only temporary; it will fall as I enter. I wished to give you you time to prepare. Woe betide them now." She has no smile for the Goddess of War given the tense and troubling situation, but a curt nod? This and the promise of, "I shall return forthwith with answers and a resolution within."

With a skater's sense of grace upon the ice, she mounts the stairs and manages to side-step any and all statues struggling upon the slippery surface. As stated, the Mage simply lifts a hand and a parting of the wall covering the front doors splits. Immediately, trapped museum-goers start to spill out. Another quick gesture and Kelda has turned the exit into a redirected slide off to one side of the steps. It might be a bit cold on the derriere to travel, but it'll dump escapees away from Sif's melee zone. Expanding the ice a little more to step within, Kelda immediately grimaces.

That...is a very big T-rex skeleton stomping its way towards the entrance, empty jaws agape but for many, many conical teeth.

Sif has posed:
When you boil it down, almost everything Sif knows about melee combat ("pick a weapon you think you know and I'll show you how to use it properly") can be summarized by a single, pithy phrase: hit things with other things. Nothing quite shows this as elegantly as how she deals with the one-legged statue.

As Kelda gracefully makes her way up the stairs past the lurching, slipping statues, Sif, behind her, is picking up the fallen four-faced statue by its remaining leg and whirling it over her head in more and more rapidly-spinning circles. Building the slide coincides with her own more careful rise as the statue in her hand desperately flails in its losing war with inertia and centripetal acceleration.

Stepping within the cursed museum is paired with the odd clang of stone hitting bronze with great force, the additional sound of stone shattering into pebbles and chunks, and the resounding clang a few moments later of bronze striking ... it sounds like asphalt? ... a long ways away.

It takes an Asgardian to make line drives of multi-ton statuary.

Sif's booted feet can be heard making their (careful) way up the stairs to reach the dancing statue as she tries to figure out what its deal is.

Inside the museum, the scene is one of pandemonium as figures peel themselves from paintings to stalk the halls and statuary removes itself from its plinths to move around with whatever means it has at its disposal.

One of the more disturbing ones is a statue head, body long absent, that is moving itself by use of an extended tongue wrapping around things.

Most moving artworks don't seem to be aggressive, more confused or living out snippets of what implied life they have form their poses in the original works.

Some, however, come from hostile such implied lives and are hunting people (and other artworks) in the hall.

Like the T-Rex now spotting Kelda and opening its jaws in a silent roar before lunging at her to snap her up.

Kelda Stormrider has posed:
"Retreat! Out the front! Please, do not linger!" Kelda's voice rises above the ambient chaos if only because she's got Asgardian lungs backing her up. She can only hope the patrons hear her and heed her in the middle of this mess.

The T-rex roars and lunges and the Mage darts to one side; displaced air is cool around her by proxy of her element as the ginormous jaws close with an audible slam of molded faux-bone. She follows her dodge with a swing-for-the-stands swipe of her spear. Its unbreakable tip rings like stressed crystal chimes as it swats the gigantic dinosaur skeleton's head to one side. The floor beneath the skeleton's talon-thick feet trembles as it side-steps to shake away imaginary canary birds from about its skull.

Kelda tries dancing away to put space between herself and the epic recasting, only to find herself suddenly devoid of air in her lungs. A paw of stone paws belonging to one of the museum's many stone sphinx statues knocks her solidly to the floor. She's certainly wishing for her Asgardian armor about now as she rolls to her back and bench-presses her spear up to shove against the sphinx's swiping paws, blunt as they are. No claws are needed for skull trauma, after all.

"Lady SIF?!" the call rings out. A Mage without space to cast is in some form of trouble.

Sif has posed:
Sif's solution becomes evident as the dancer smashes through ice, glass door, and fake skeleton in a dazzling display of what a flat trajectory truly is. Faux-bones scatter. Bronze head buries into marble cladding of a pillar. The dancing statue stiffens, then drops, beheaded, impact, microscopic flaws, and its own weight conspiring to destroy it.

"I am here, Lady Kelda!" Sif's voice says brusquely, stiffly, as if the effort of lifting a large statue is taking too much out of her to waste on courtly talk. "Tell me what you need of me and I will do it." This isn't her first rodeo with mages in the field of conflict. She already has an idea of what Kelda might like, something she gets to work on by playing a game she's just invented called "bowling for artworks".

The sphinx she pulled off Kelda goes flying down a relatively sparsely-populated segment of the hallway, giving Kelda room to dance in her casting as Sif watches to keep her clear of anything incoming.

Like the bizarre bird sculptures now bearing down on the pair.

Kelda Stormrider has posed:
Both the sphinx and Kelda pause in their scuffling to watch the consequential destruction of the T-Rex gearing up for another thunderous approach. The Mage blinks; the sphinx makes a grinding grunt and goes back to attempting to paw the Asgardian's face clear off.

And then, the sphinx discovers what it's like to fly without wings: ending in a sudden stop. Kelda rolls to find her feet and straightens in time to watch Sif get to work at keeping the artworks from infringing on their personal spaces.

"You do it already and well!" Sif is reassurred as the Goddess of Blizzards spins in place, senses on alert. "Do not let them close while I attempt to sense what is causing this quandary!"

She thinks she might have it already. There's a discordance down one of the hallways and it sounds like...music? Atonal music.

Polka music...?

Sif has posed:
"That's all you mages ever ask for," Sif grumbles as she gets to work. "I need to start carrying my axes around in public," she says, continuing to grumble as she looks around for ... there. That should do it.

Bird statue in hand gets flung into glass door, behind which lies coiled a fire hose. One leap later and Sif is pulling out the hose in a single yank that undoes the whole hose, letting it spill into a big pile on the ground. This becomes a new weapon, thrown like a bolo to wrap around and entangle limbs, protrusions and anything that a mobile statue might have that could catch.

Then, with a grin, she turns on the water, holding on to the spraying end.

"They are temporarily immobilized!" she calls out as the rushing water does exactly that, causing all kinds of bizarre artworks to fall over as they try to assess their newfound status as mummies wrapped by absurdly thick bandages.

Kelda Stormrider has posed:
"Well done once more!" Kelda calls out over the sounds of struggling statuary and soggy artwork and the several-gallon rush of the hose. "I believe I hear what is causing this catastrophe! It is down this hallway here, music!" It is music, joyful and easy to pick out through the chaos once one finds the thread.

Stepping over fallen benches and missing stone limbs and fluttering tapestries acting the part of half-drowned moths, the Mage makes her way down the broad hallway to where one of the exhibits sports several displays of American musical instruments --

-- including a jukebox playing //all by itself//. Kelda narrows her eyes at it. "Lady Sif! Care to stop the music?" she shouts down the hallway, most definitely pulling on several pop culture references in the process.

Sif has posed:
The hose doesn't really stand up to the assault of so many strange materials, some sharp, though ample for holding things in place, it fountains like crazy, causing even more collateral damage than had already been caused by two Asgardians out for play.

It also caused Sif, dressed in Midgard casual, to have her crop top cling in an unseemly fashion. Most ignoble, that, looking more like a bar wench than a Lady of the Court.

Sighing at the indignity, however, she steps through the tangle of hoses and struggling statuary and other artworks, ignoring any that don't get in reach of a booted foot which will otherwise shatter, flatten, or snap whatever is foolish enough to get in reach.

"What manner of sorcery is that thing?" she asks, staring at the jukebox as it plays. "It plays music of interest, but it brings things to life. What is the best way to..."

A fist plunges into the front of the machine as she takes a quick guess.

"...cease its endless..."

The fist grabs whatever it can in its harsh grasp and yanks, hard, gutting the machine.

"...prattling tunes?"

Sif looks over at Kelda, holding aloft machine guts, crunched together in an iron fist. "Is this enough?"

Kelda Stormrider has posed:
By the time hose-soaked Sif strides down the hallway, the Asgardian Mage dealing with the polka-spewing jukebox has swatted away two smaller statues (with beautiful chiming rings of her spear) and frozen one intrepid (conveniently dampened) tapestry to a mist-leaking slab on the museum floor.

Kelda opens her mouth to explain the safest manner of disabling a magically-inclined machine when there goes Sif's hand.

Into the jukebox.

And out of the jukebox.

With the jukebox's innards.

The glowing half-moon of the display's cheery front flickers out as it warbles away into a sullen silence. Immediately, the effect can be felt, as surely as flipping on a light switch: the music's impetus of driving beat, gone, leaves the artwork and statues confused as if awakening from a daydream -- or starting to fall back into stupor again.

Kelda sighs. "That will end the prattle," she observes in dry humor. "I believe..." A brief pause and momentarily disconnected scan of her eyes around them, as if she were seeing more than the standard visual field. "Yes, there is no more enchantment to be had."