7202/1000 Faces: The Sound of His Wings

1000 Faces: The Sound of His Wings
Date of Scene:	03 August 2021
Location:	Paris, France
Synopsis:	Arawn is barred from claiming the nightmare-wracked Parisians... for now.
Cast of Characters:	Jane Foster, Thor, John Constantine, Morrigan MacIntyre, Brunnhilde, Hope Svelgate, Phoebe Beacon
Tinyplot:	1000 Faces of Death

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Jane Foster has posed:
Sometime past 2:00 AM and Paris is quieter than at any time since the War. The City of Light holds her breath in the eerie, mist-wreathed silence.

The southern arrondissements contain world-famous landmarks like the Pantheon, the famed Les Invalides museum, that point A-frame tower. Lights glimmer over the famous Latin Quarter. Signs blaze. No one moves except the occasional ambulance howling for the Right Bank, sirens oddly muffled on a damp, misty night that washes everything in a dim, wet shroud.

Exhausted emergency personnel and nurses stand huddled together in clumps. The source of their misery is anywhere to be found. Drivers slump over the wheels of cars at intersections choked by traffic. Fans churn in apartments populated by seniors to child fallen at their desks, the kitchen table, a couch. Even the homeless aren't immune, curled up on the wet grass or sprawled over benches.

They do not awaken. No amount of shouting or slapping rouses them. More cunning use of medications don't provide the quick fix to startle them back. Inspectors hauling out complex equipment to read for carbon monoxide or something, anything, have lost expressions.

Beneath the Left Bank neighbourhoods, six million of Paris' interred dead stacked row and row shudder. Bones dance. Trickling rivulets of water, the drowned tributaries of the Seine, slosh and flow rust-red. Centuries of stony sleep are vexed to nightmare, not by rocking cradle.

By thirteen voices who will not be silent.

Thor has posed:
It was an extraordinary occurrence that the God of Thunder would be anywhere near this place. For some reason though, Thor was walking amongst the first responders and emergency personnel, sharing what little comfort he could providee in this sad situation. It was the least he could do to help those in pain, as he senses the pall cast over this great city.

John Constantine has posed:
    Through an elaborate and time consuming spell laide on world maps spread out over the back room of the Laughing Magician, John Constantine gets his warning in the form of Chas calling out from the back - it was his turn on watch duty - "John! It's Paris!"

    The rest of it is just a hop skip, Phoebe in tow, through the House of Mystery with a quick 'you know where I need to be' thought at the wretched pile of sticks in between.

    ...and where he needs to be is where he and Phoebe wind up in the 14th Arrondissement.

    He immediately drops invisibility in the form of an illusion over the both of them, along with a silence spell, both old hat to him, both should be easypeasy. "Don't move further than five feet from me," he whispers to the little glow worm at his side. Why's he whispering under a spell of silence? Well, because that's just what people do when Creepy Shit is taking place, it's a given.

    From his trench pocket, he pulls the same vial of foul smelling gunk he used in Prague and spreads a bit beneath his own eyes before offering the vial to Phoebe. "It'll open your eyes wide, so be prepared for anything you might see." To the astral and to magical energies that is, without much effort. The effects only last half an hour tops, but it'll give them both a peek.

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Morrigan survived Etrigan! This was a plus or maybe that meant that he had one person he wouldn't gut if he was out. The world may never know. She'd been trying to sit down and relax when there was a literal disturbance in the force. Madison would be so proud of her for thinking that. Strange was probably somewhere having stroke though given the information provided. She was a bit out of sorts with how much energy was going to be gathered for this...and she wasn't sure if calling in Etrigan was a good idea.

Then the messenger dropped dead. "Oh fuck." she mutters to herself. "I'll take care of it, you need to get going." the shadow of Riordan stated before they crouched to gather the dead.

Morrigan had stepped through a portal fairly quickly to the destination and she gives a sigh, "I always wanted to see Paris." she murmurs to herself. Then she looks around to see who all might have gathered already. And how many might already be dead.

Brunnhilde has posed:
The uneasy dead call to Brunnhilde. Six million souls stir in agony. This should not be. But the disturbance is on the other side of the globe. A vague somewhere. She calls out to Heimdall, "Show me."

Then the scene in Paris opens before her eyes. The catacombs awaken, tearing the bones away from their final rest. She decides that it's worth the risk of the many eyes of Nine Realms. And so she is there.

She arrives near Thor. But before stepping out of the shadows to join him, she stops to acquire a bottle of wine. It would be a waste of Paris, otherwise. "Bit of a mess, tonight, isn't it?"

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Unlike the God of Thunder it is no coincidence that She Who Reaps, Lady Death, walks among the fallen seemingly lifeless forms of Paris. Veiled by an illusion of her once mortal self 'Hope' she strides through the mist and fog.

Tonight she does not wait, drawn as she is by the air that veritably crackles with necromantic energy. The energy, the power, of a major necromantic ritual is palpable to her senses. Striding through a final bank of fog, 'Hope' vanishes and Lady Death stands before the entrance to the Parisian Catacombs staring straight at their blood scrawled warning that herein lies the Empire of the Dead.

Without hesitation she challenges the doorway before her to open, whether it chooses to open easily or meets inhuman strength, she cares not which. Tonight an Empire falls.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe is following behind John, this time wearing a dark hoodie in spite of the summer's supposed heat -- but the hoodie has pockets. Her messenger bag slung over her side, and when she ends up in Paris, close to John, she breathes out.

    It was... heavy. She blinks a moment, rubbing the back of her hand over her eyes as she keeps to John's side, staying close -- though she stumbles slightly. She had licked her lips momentarily, and she accepts the vial from John and -- WHEW. That would nearly wake anyone up from a dead sleep. Her stomach gives a lurch, but she gives a nod, and tilting it to a fingertip she rubs the gunk under her eyes, then hands it back to John.

    "... just not spiders." she mutters. Might have been a prayer, might have been an errant wish.

    But she stays close to John, invisible and silent.

Jane Foster has posed:
Normally anyone appearing in a street would attract attention. There are simply too few awake people scattered over too wide an area to really notice unless someone goes out of their way to be obvious. The Bifrost crashing down in a rainbow torrent of energy might do it, for a given shock value. Even those mighty colours in light are bedimmed, no longer quite so bright in the curling mist that swallows shapes beyond a few meters.

At the entrance to the catacombs, seven great roads converge into a star. It's all overseen by a decapitated lion statue bearing long scores in its bronzed facade: less claw, more hoof. Here at the Square de l'Abbe-Migne, site of a long-ago church, is the only official entrance to the Catacombs of Paris. Other mystic sigils hide in graffiti in back alleys or buildings around Paris, glowing a hot, searing red to any with the Sight to spot them.

Graffiti spilled over the square's columns reads: Arrete, c'est ici l'empire de la mort!

The chattering of bones is already audible below the locked gates, nestled in a building meant to handle the many curious tourists and Parisians who want to go crawl through hundreds of miles of underground tunnels. Lady Death rips it off its hinges, sounding an alarm, but it's not particularly well-guarded to reach the main route underground. They may not want to go.

Underfoot, the wind blows with ululating horns and shifting blocks, a pandaemonium hiss that erupts through grates and might knock over a smaller person. It won't hurt Thor but it will make any but a true immortal feel nauseous to the pit of their stomach.

Thor has posed:
Thor senses Lady Death's presence, and squints to try and see her. However, she is swift and silent, heading to the catacombs while Thor remains above, as though waiting for something...

"Gagh! Lady Brunnhilde! You scared me almost unto Hela's realm!" Thor's eyes fall upon the Valkyrie, calmer than his voice would reveal. "A mess indeed! I know not what we are facing, but I can feel the darkness in the city. It is good to have you by my side, whatever is to come!"

The wind! The sounds! It was a torrent! Thor girds himself against it, and offers a hand to Valkyrie if she needs his help.

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Morrigan's the one to arrive mostly by herself it seems. While the doctor in her wants to help the unconscious, she's drawn to the mystical with a stronger pull. She reaches the others in little time and there's a nod of greeting but the pleasantries are short given the circumstances. The master of the mystic arts lets her usual demeanor bleed away as she lets that neon violet energy start to build up. The black tendrils that have been making an appearance the last few months are back as well, but she pays them no mind.

"It's a very large necromantic ritual. Which I'm guessing some of our group already puzzled out. I know the other Masters are losing their minds right now. Got here as fast as I could." she offers to the others.

John Constantine has posed:
    John snags Phoebe by the hand and just starts moving, through the horns of winds, through a few stumbles, through feeling like he wants to vomit, he can't control it, but John can open himself to it, the little nudges, the little urges that tell him to go north instead of east, turn left instead of right. Tonight he's open as he tugs the teenager along with him.

    He does his best to keep his lanky strides short enough that she can actually keep up without stumbling, but there's an urgency in the Wave he's allowed hims to be caught in, so it's a struggle to slow down in the rush of it.

    It'll get'm there, in time, to the entrance to those catacombs and to Lady Death. "Well, guess it is that bad," he mutters. It's like than not that she'll see through his spell, hear through it too. Seven entrances, seven choices, is there a right or wrong or are they all ... right or wrong depending on perception? He waits to see if there's a niggle, an urge, a tug down any of them.

Brunnhilde has posed:
Brunnhilde places a hand on Thor's shoulder, using his bulk to to steady herself against the wind. She almost chokes on cool earthy damp that carries the scent of death. "A strange Death stalks this place," she almost shouts into his ear, hoping to be heard over the roar of necromantic energy. She takes a pull from her bottle of wine. "It's thattaway," she gestures to the west, into the dark of the the catacombs.

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Metal gates are mortal contrivances not things which pose a hindrance to Death. The alarms that sound are ignored, if anything the White Witch pays more attention to the clattering of bones. The city is already dying, the mortal authorities have no men to spare.

There is a momentary pause as Lady Death senses the presence of others. Of course the Asgardians would come and the magi, this isn't exactly a subtle happening after all. She isn't waiting around though.

Drawing the Chaos-forged blade Apocalpyse, she descends into the tunnels, the weapon casting flickering orange and blue light about as she goes. At the first fork Lady Death summons the fiery blue light of the Energy Arcane into her other hand, willing forth a wisp, a hunting hound of sorts to light the way through the twisting tunnels, setting it upon the heart of this potent necromantic ritual. Following it, she forks westward deeper into the depths.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "This place isn't making it easy to--" Phoebe comments, cutting off a moment before she trips, hitching a breath as a deep wave of nausea overtakes her, reaching out to grip the elbow of John's Trenchcoat. She brings her focus back to herself as her eyes turn to a grate in the pavement and she sees skulls. She clasps her hand tight to John as she turns to follow him, focusing on the back of his head. She increases her stride to keep up with him, the shorter teen not having much trouble matching him. She focuses her own power, trying to push outward from her stomach to ease her nausea as they come to the entrance of the famous Catacombs, marking where the gate has been riped from its hinges

    "... oh. Her again." Phoebe murmurs weakly. and she swallows down a thick lump in her throat, and as everyone else ventures Westward, she looks to join, releasing his hand, and gives a nod.

    "I'm with you." she states, stretching her fingers and ready to move.

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Morrigan gives a look around the place and then she realizes that the conga line is going to head down into the catacombs. Excellent choice. "It's definitely coming from the more westerly parts." the Irish woman offers as she conjures a light to make it easier for the group to see. "Might be easier for those with eyes that aren't adjusted for the darkness we're about to attend." she states.

Then she quietly sticks herself at the back of the group to defend there should they be ambushed.

Jane Foster has posed:
Hard to credit the locals eating pastries and sipping coffee in streetside cafes with the phantasmogoric horrors that rest beyond the famous entrance arch into the catacombs. Blood, wet and rusty, rolls down from the carved stone plinth. Passing through the open arch displays an unlit world carved in a blasphemous take on modern art. Those bones represent living, breathing people with their own hopes and dreams, families and friends, entombed here. High walls built from rattling bones curve into stygian shadows, punctuated by rows of yellowed skulls that leer and grin.

Switchbacks and dead-ends present themselves practically from the get-go, no obvious branch clear. Brackish water spills across the floor, calf-high on a person, a faint current in spots. It makes being quiet near to impossible, and the wavelets heave back and forth as the shaking in the ground strengthens.

The skulls jaws, where they have them, grind side to side, snapping out the somnolent, rolling melody that makes it hard to concentrate if heard for any length of time.

"I hear the sons of the city, my daughters' calls,
Two worlds and in-between,
Be no more divided from me, tear down the walls,
Mine is the empire, mine is the key."

Spend a minute listening, and sleep comes creeping in to claim another victim. Apocalypse's light sends red gleams through empty eye sockets, and abruptly a wall collapses to block their progress.

A sinkhole opens under Brunnhilde, water pouring beneath her in a waterfall as she is sent tumbling into the night.

Thor has posed:
Thor feels Brunnhilde's hand on his shoulder, and is comforted. "Yes. Death is everywhere. I can sense it as well." Looking towards where she points, Thor nods and moves in that direction. A grim look of determination on his face. "I sense...darkness as well. Something in the fabric of reality is...wrong."

Then, something happens which shocks the God of Thunder! Brunnhilde disappears into a sinkhole! "No!" Reaching for her, Thor was then surprised by the massive limestone block hurtling out of nowhere towards himself, and another being present, Morrigan!

Grasping his hammer on his belt, he swiftly throws it at this deadly "not the fruit" limestone and shouts, "Though shalt not endure!"

John Constantine has posed:
    "Just stay close," John mutters. He's really not fond of the whole letting go of hands, makes it more difficult to keep track of the girl. It's not the first time that a strange 'fatherly' sort of protective instinct kicked him in the teeth regarding Phoebe, won't be the last. He chooses to ignore the feeling itself, it's foreign and weird and he'd make a *terrible* dad. If he wouldn't be, she wouldn't be *here*.

    He lets that Wave pull him westward, his spells still in place around the two of them, even more so than trying to keep up with Lady Death.

    Instinct kicks in and he tries to reach out to jerk Phoebe in close, his intent to cover her with his ownself when rocks start flying. He never gets there, Fate has a different plan for the Laughing Magician. He takes a step back to avoid a hunk of limestone that would have splattered his brains for sure. He spends a second, on the edge of that sinkhole, arms failing to regain his balance before the spot he's standing on crumbles and sends him down into the pit with Brunnhilde.

    "BOLOCKS!" is the last thing he says before the ground gives way beneath him.

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Morrigan's eyes wing upward when there's a big chunk of limestone that has her name on it. Then Thor hammers it into itty bitty pieces. Giving her a gritty limestone shower. "Well, it's better than dead. Thank you, Thor." she states as she rises from the crouch. Then she notices that John shouted and there was a sinkhole where a Valkyrie was. "We losing numbers quickly." she frowns at that.

But did they need to jump into the holes or find another path?

Brunnhilde has posed:
Brunnhilde lands with an oof! On top of a pile of bones, of course. They wiggle underneath her, trying to reform into their bodies. And from the darkness around her comes the chattering of more. Skeletons shamble towards her. Drawing her sword, she cuts them down. But the strange death animation keeps them reforming and coming at her.

"Stay dead! why don't you?" she snarls, shattering another skull.

"Lots of skeletons down here," she shouts up the sinkhole. "Lots and lots!"

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Glowing white eyes lit by the fiery blue power of the Energy Arcane flash in the direction of the talking skull and she curses under her breath in medieval Swedish accented with some particularly colorful words from the demonic tongue that she picked up in Hell. Her glare shifts to the crumbled wall and yet, down, down is where she wants go. It also wouldn't do to just abandon a valkyrie, proven warriors, and explaining it to her valkyrie half-sisters would be a headache.

With all of that in mind, Lady Death turns sharply with a flourish of her black and red cape to look in the direction of the others for the first time, those not down the hole anyway, and without hesitation just leaps into the yawning chasm, not even bothering to slow her descent with the Energy Arcane.

Slamming into the bottom, crushing one bonesnake in the process, and kicking up dust and bone with her landing; the battle is joined. "You would attack She Who Reaps? Queen of All that is Dead and Dying?!" Lady Death snarls at the sight of the hostile dead.

Raising her sword high she shouts <<Servera din Drottning!!!>> The words have the power of an incantation. <<Bekampa!>> The last command is uttered through gritted teeth and an expression twisted like she is in pain, maybe she can feel pain afterall, as the massive amounts of death energies flowing through the place now flow through her and she fights to rest control of the Dead from their current master.

In the end Lady Death spits a glob of reddish black ichor and whipes her mouth with her non-sword hand as a number of the skeletal creatures turn upon their peers!

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe was more concerned that John would get hurt because of her, and she had curled her hand into a loose fist as they traveled through. She mumbled a song in counter-point to the skulls, trying to balance their wods with a mumbled song. Unfortunately it's the Song That Gets On Everybody's Nerves. And it goes something like this...

    Then the wall started coming down. She had grasped a moment at the back of his trench when the ground begins to give way beneath them.

    She raises her left hand, the ring forming at her palm as a few skulls and limestone chunks bounce off a very dimly lit shield that forms as she tries to protect John protecting her as the calf-high water nearly robs her footing from her, and she slips down and into the water, the rushing of the brackish muck heading to the sinkhole. She's pretty sure she swallowed some. It's not helping the nausea.

    She surfaces with a gasp -- and as John cries out, Phoebe dives for him with a thick "no no no No NO -- which ends up with Phoebe also falling into the hole.

    There's an "AEEEEE!" sound as she drops, bumping and bruising down the tunnel, though the darkness lights up as she holds a bright bit of light in her hand, holding it up as the teen is sent careening through a boney plinith of femus and ribs, and manages to skid to a stop.

    "... not liking being in the dark so much --" she looks to Lady Death and Brunhilde, and then to John.

Jane Foster has posed:
On the main level... The ragged sinkhole leads down into the bowels of Paris, cradled in the arms of the Seine. Water trickles past, sloshing as the ground shudders palpably. The very earth itself is being torn to pieces around Thor and Morrigan, heaving like a great humpbacked beast.

Footing becomes an issue without something to cling to, and more dust trickles down from the ceiling of the uneven tunnels. Mortaring from the mid-18th century when some Louis or another was king isn't made for the abuses, and more of those limestone blocks come dislodged along the chamber. Larger ones weighing twenty to forty tonnes land at disturbing intervals. Bone walls some dislodged and send slews of plague victim femurs and bourgeoisie tibias and skulls down to bury those who remain above.

Thor has posed:
"You are welcome milady!" Thor says to Morrigan with a large smile. His eyes follow Mo's and Thor's smile turns into a frown. "Indeed." Mo was right. As John disappears following Brunnhilde, Thor suddenly feels strange. At a loss for words.

"I do not know if we should follow or find another path? What are your thoughts?" His eyes find Mo's.

Thor waits, helplessly, from the surface. He could blast his way in, but brute force never turns out the way you expect. Thor clenches his fists off and on.

John Constantine has posed:
    John lands a bit behind Brunnhilde and in front of Phoebe's arrival, flat on his back with a femur poking suggestively between his sprawled legs. He's not quite so quick to recover, wind's knocked out for a second, a beat, he's squishy! "Bloody Hell," he breathes out once he's able.

    He shoves himself to his feet, trying not to trip up on the bones beneath those feet, moving as they are, he's quick to snatch any part of Phoebe he can get to and drag her close to him. "The bloody hell was *that*, you should have stayed up there!" With the likes of Lady Death and Thor to keep her safe! But then one of them... is done here.

    A quick assessment tells him two things. A: He's royally and completely boned if he doesn't think fast. B - He can't see jack or shit useful. C - okay, three things. B needs to be handled immediately, and it is by Phoebe's arrival.

    It spares him the indignation of calling on his own light spell, Latin, something about illumination and light - redundant and too Harry Potter-ish for his liking.

    With the spreading light from Phoebe, he's more able to assess the situation. "There!" he points to the other side of the room, way over there, through bones still and animated. "Get us through that wall!"

    Then he backs himself right up to big blonde woman, literally back toward hers. Constantine has your back Brunny - does that make you feel any better? It likely shouldn't! His first move isn't his typical Hellfire, no... the energy he tosses out is a force blast, meant to shove the bones *immediately* on top of them back before he takes his next step; the signature move when he's forced to toss around raw power. Hellfire dances on his hands and he just starts lobbing the shit, tossing it out in fireballs and shoving it out in focused streams at anything bone and moving, method of delivery dependent on target and distance. He'll even turn from time to time to fling flames around Brunnhilde if she seems overwhelmed from their front.

    The thing about Hellfire is that John has a little more control over it than just normal flame; control over the after, in how it burns, how long it burns. It's a living part of him, something that comes *from* him rather than something he conjures. Makes not frying friends a little easier. It also makes the use of it a little more tiring than the conjuring of the others.

Jane Foster has posed:
In the Ossuary Amphitheatre, another mortal crashes into the black night punctuated by dim shreds of greenish-grey light signalling active magic. In the Ossuary, there are bones packed almost to the ribbed ceiling, in rows and heaps so high they practically require someone to swim through them. Floating in place and snapped like waves or acting independently, they lash out through the magic animating them.

Though Phoebe lands better by far than John or Brunnhilde did, it also happens to be close enough for something in likeness of Cerberoi-snake turning three heads her way and snapping those great yellowing teeth. Despair and terror leach through any attack made against the Aesir goddess in the thick of it. John's just about flooded under another crashing tide that sends him to the wall, as filmy spirits scream and wail in their torment. Or rage. Maybe they hate music.

The battlecry from the offended psychopomp receives a deep, howling chorus where another side of the catacombs at a deeper level collapses. Her shout sends the flashes of energy to a brightness even a total arcane dunce without an iota of talent could see, and then it is so much worse. As above, so below: shapes stream past, caught in muddled tides, wrapped back and forth, astral constructs being tuged and dragged. The death energy thickens and reverses course in a current through the white-skinned woman like she's rather been electrocuted, and several of the animated bone-constructs around her convulse and shake as her will is exerted against another's nearby.

Softly, between screams and howls, the sounds of beating wings...

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Morrigan looks around her and something that she missed finally clicks into place. Causing her generally smiling face to frown for the moment. This was unfortunate. She gives a look across to Thor and she gives a nod, "I'm going to head down. It's going to get ugly really fast. And this is all going to come down on top of this place at this point. So I'd move as well." she suggests to him. With that, Morrigan makes sure the coast is clear before casting a spell and jumping down, landing on her feet. "Shit!" she hisses as she hears the wings incoming.

Brunnhilde has posed:
The bone dust from the shattered enemies around Brunnhilde swirl menacingly in the air. Beginning to re-form into new and awful shapes, dust packed densely next to dust. Almost solid. But Brunnhilde can't be bothered with dust. "Stay dead," she yells smashing though another skeleton. "Stay dead!"

Thor has posed:
As Morrigan "jumps" down into the darkness, Thor turns, sniffs, and twirls his hammer in his right hand. Sensing the oncoming darkness, he braces himself for a long night. "I can hear you, Aidoneus." Thor spits on the ground, and shakes his head. "Your wings still make that petulent sound. What business do you have here on this mortal plane? The Odinson demands you speak!"

Of course Thor can sense the power Lady Death is using, and that that kind of power would bring a smorgasbord of angry deities that delve into death and darkness, including a certain Greek one.

Calling out to his allies, using his inherent abilities, Thor says, "Beware the Dark One. He comes on broken wings of death my friends!"

Hope Svelgate has posed:
The pain, the delicious pain, Lady Death seems to drink it in, her expression becoming nigh manic as she does. Some might call her a masochist, but the pain, the din of battle, they are some of the few things that can still make her feel almost alive within her Hell twisted inhuman body. She laughs out loud even as her body spasms, as Apocalypse drinks, nigh gorges itself on the overabundant Death energy, the blue glow of the Energy Arcane around the blade getting brighter and brighter, a nimbus of the pure light of souls.

<<Ga framat!>> She commands the dead who have become loyal to her, ordering them to advance on their former comrades. "Forward!" She shouts for Asgardian and Magi benefit as well. Still a woman of few words.

In her other hand, Lady Death draws the rune-forged Uru blade Scynister. Focusing the Energy Arcane through it, what was once a shortsword becomes a wicked looking scythe. The weapon is raised high as the dead soldiers are urged forward, and then thrown. The mystic scythe glows with the Energy Arcane as it spins through the air, guided and controled by Lady Death's power as it cuts through the skeletal foes like the Reaper's own combine harvester.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe solves B.

    Phoebe solves B by loosening herself. John hadn't seen her in a physical fight, and in the dark, surrounded by death and despair, she calls upon her Light. She glows simly in the reflection of JOhn's Hellfire and the sword of the apocalypse and the power of Brunhilde, but she is Light. She is Hope. As the three-headed snake turns her way she raises her left arm again, the dimly lit circle of a shield with its rotating sigils on it catches the teeth of the beast -- to her surprise!! -- and with her other hand she's summoned her light staff.

    The ever-present aura is in full effect as she slips away slightly from John. She moves with the comfort of someone well-trained in martial prowess as she knocks her staff through the trio of toothed skulls, and then up and through the ribs of another skeletal horror, her weapon lighting the ossuary with intensity, making the shadows dance in macabre patterns against the water around them as she beats her way to the wall, feeling Lady Death's power and the beating of wings against her aura of Light, but she fights with spirit!

Jane Foster has posed:
In the Ossuary Amphitheatre, mayhem rather breaks out as two separate powers clash. Lady Death hauls on the storm of energy bleeding through the miles upon miles of corridors laden with the death. For the catacombs of Paris truly are an empire of death, their autocratic monarch no more about to relinquish his authority than John would stop wearing trenchcoats or Thor would agree to live as a toy poodle for a century.

Plants burst forth from the stony ground awash in water, at least where the flame-tossed bones and rattling monstrosities collapsing and forming in waves with the divine tug-of-war between Lady Death and her deific opponent keeps rising in numbers. The ground shakes. Skulls shake. The space behind someone's eyelids trembles with three words broadcast not so much as spoken, though they are said. <<I think not.>>

All Paris echoes the defiance. The Eiffel Tower hums with it. Bells in a dozen churches ring with denial, delivered in the ancient tongue of Gaul and the Brittonic tribes. The implacable hiss comes forth from a good many skulls not already fallen away from his control. Shadows coalesce at the far end of the amphitheatre behind the blood-fed ward, cunningly stitched and stabbed into the bedrock and the ribbed roof. A net spreading wide as Morrigan can see it, and Brunnhilde wades through in every moment.

Arawn really isn't too interested in giving up what is his, a shadow in deeper shadow flooded through the back end of the amphitheatre. He lifts a hand, and the screaming currents of life energy ablaze with someone or another's hellfire create a shockwave blasting backwards to knock them all about. Why not?

John Constantine has posed:
    Tossed about like a rag doll by the Lord of death in the corner, John hits a wall, slides down it and comes right back to his feet.

    He's a master at binding things, magical energies, demons, all sorts and manner Bad Things, but doing such to a God? That isn't something in his extended wheelhouse. Rituals take too long and he hasn't the materials for on anyway, even if he *could* find on that would work.

    Any means to the right end, right?

    "Bloody Hell," he mutters in a way, that, if anyon could hear him would know he means to do something Not Smart.

    When he raise his hands toward the shadow in the back of the room, it's not Hellfire that comes forth from them. No, this time it's lightning that dances there before striking out toward Arawn. He throws everything he has into that attack, blast after blast, strike after strike; his on goal is to distract the God long enough for Lady Death to gain an upper hand and hold it in the battle.

    It'll go on until he's stopped and he's pretty sure he'll be stopped. Bloody Hell is right, innit?

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Morrigan's descent down is into CHAOS! The master mystic lands with a bit of a sigh as she looks over things. "Now would be a good time to be able to wield God like power, right?" she mutters to herself. She was a few rungs lower on the power scale though. For now at least. The women doesn't hesitate to join the fray, her magic easily followed by the violet energy and black mist that flows from her hands and crashes into skeletons that are trying their best to attack anything and everything possible. She's not without her own injuries though as one of the skeletons gets a good hit in on her.

Brunnhilde has posed:
Even in the dark and the damp, surrounded by decay, centuries old rot cloying her breath, the sprouting greenery brings the scent of the woods. Brunnhilde hears the scampering of fleeting shadows in the distance. Those who run, the prey.

She once hunted boar in the forests of Asgard. She knows that just because they run does not mean that they will not be deadly when they stand to fight. She takes a long swig from her wine bottle and then gives chase.

Ghostly shadows dart before her. Still she tries to cut them down. Her blade passes through the shape before her as if it were a mist. But as the gurgling figure is rent asunder a shadowy stag leaps past her blade and vanishes in the distance.

"Aaaagh," she grumbles. "Doesn't anything that's dead want to *stay* dead around here?" She begins to hum lightly, a lullaby. "Dum duh duh, dum duhduh, time to die now little deer friend..." as she stalks through the dark, listening for the scurry of ghosts fleeling before her.

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Lady Death takes the shockwave head blasting backward into one of the walls, as the skeletal minions are sent hurtling to the four winds. She lingers there for a moment, laughing, yes laughing, still wearing that manic grin of hers, as she pushes herself out of the cracked wall fulling consumed, invigorated, by battle lust.

<<Do you know what they call me in Hell Arawn? The Usurper!>> She lets the All Speak do the translating. <<Because I took my domains by force. Old Hell Lords? Old Gods? They can all fuck right off. She taught me one thing, and it's time you learn it. If everyone dies, there is no more Empire of the Dead, Death itself ceases to have meaning. I don't know what the fuck you think you're doing and I don't care..>> There may have been more but she can hardly hold herself back. Actions speak louder than words as she lunges across the intervening space almost faster than mortal eyes can track, the scythe spinning back to her hand, Apocalypse and its ever increasing glow held high as she means to strike down Celtic Death for his perceived transgessions.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe was doing allright. Her blood rang in her ears and she was fighting off the tiredness that came from the song of the dead around her as she struggled to keep up, to keep her head up under the weight of all the Death.

    And then she's thrown. She gives a sharp cry, her head snapping back sharply before she slides down the wall, the breath knocked out of her.

    She grits her teeth, and she pushes herself back up, just in time to stumble forward, light her staff again, and grit through the pain of her healing slower than usual. Every nerve was on fire, and from her bag she produced a trio of completely mundane throwing knives and she slings them, one after another at Death, and she struggles to remain upright.

Jane Foster has posed:
A godlike power would be useful. Unfortunately, the ozone-shriek of lightning and the scything spark of midnight breaking through cracks in the ribbed roof of the Ossuary answers perhaps that Thor's hail was not met entirely by friendly means.

The black-winged son of Nyx has an opinion, and his feathers reap their fare share of the pooling energy that holds Paris in horrific thrall. Thanatos, the brother of Sleep and brother to Dream, gives that smile that has seen so many gently eased into his care. And he drops half the bloody arrondissement on them both with a storm of black flechettes shot from those wings, sending smoke and dust. Bones go sluicing on dark water through cracks, and the Ossuary dome begins to buckle as the ancient design isn't made for two higher powers going at it.

Down below, things aren't improving: the very real risk of them all being buried alive in the depths of the city only increases as lightning wreaks havoc through the bowl-shaped depression. Bones obliterated by hellfire and constant attacks certainly don't seem to keep them in short supply, what with a few hundred thousand bodies to pick and choose from. It's a bone gangsta's paradise as explosions rock the ossified fragments sent scattering into human flesh not impervious to scratches and cuts.

The Aesir fighting with that flashing blade in hand seems to be handing another effect of disconnecting another sort of power. She faces strikes from sharp claws and curling, wicked appendages through the shadows, and the marks they leave are icy cold scars rather than anything cutting flesh. Away leaps a stag, a ghost collapsing into a disturbingly agile wildcat of the Scottish highlands. Another takes furious wing, screeching in scolding abandon.

The living scream their lamentations, sorrow writhing through the attenuated bands of energy reaped from dreams unable to awaken. Horrified faces gibber in hopeless babble, scraps of French and Spanish, Flemish and German, and other languages besides. Pleas that aren't likely heard by any but those down here, Phoebe present to hear the wails of no-let-me-go, why-did-I-leave-her, mama-I-never-meant-it-that-way, that-stupid-cesspool-why-do-I-stay? Regrets in a lifetime soar on a wave.

And yet there is wrath, heaps of it, shattering barriers and pulling down an easy answer. Arawn flings back pain in devious abandon, and a man standing on the temple of the dead in a country his own has plenty of energy to spare. But reaping scythes and bloody banishment of one cultist after another proves an irritation too far.

<<You betray your role, woman. I'll enjoy your head in the trees.>>

He recoils back into the blackened corridors of a graffiti-marred exit to the Ossuary, the paint crumbling into dust. And above, the black-winged angel of death /hisses/.

John Constantine has posed:
    "Going now, that would be the smart choice!" John calls out as Arawn actually retreats. He hand't expected that to work not one bit, it was sort of a Hail Mary. He's a little battered, a little bruised, but all things considered? Well, he's doing pretty good. Better than the last half dozen times coming face to face with bad, Big and little.

    Of those present, Phoebe is his main concern. He snatches her by the hand, dragging if he must, until they make it to the tunnel they slid down. "Up, you go, luv." It's a choice made in the moment, hopefully guided by Synchronicity, to send her up first.

    Since the Wretched HOUSE is no good here.

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Arawn retreats and there's a bit of a kick to another skeleton before the Morrigan starts to realize that they are going to be in BIG trouble if they don't get out of here. She directs her power towards opening a portal to get the hell out of here. "John, Phoebe, this way! That way is not going to be fun. And this will get you guys clear of the incoming collapse." she shouts to the Laughing Magician and his counterpart.

"Anyone else that wants out of this literal Hell Hole feel free to come this way!" she calls to the others as she waves them towards their escape route.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    She didn't want to hear. She couldn't hear, the wails of the dead, and the seventeen-year-old reaches her limit. She falls down to her knees, coughing violently, blood speckling bone. That aura around her dims and retracts, but she keeps a spark of light in her left hand to light the chamber around, picked up by John by the other hand, which grips at his weakly as she follows him, then pulls him.

    "IT's going to collapse." she states, "They're begging not to go." she explains, and she coughs again, and pushes John towards the portal.

Brunnhilde has posed:
Brunnhilde picks up a skull and places it on an already shifting bier. Giving it a little pat, she whispers "Stay dead, now. It's nicer that way."

Then, after draining the wine bottle and casting it aside, she stumbles through the slowly collapsing catacombs in search of Thor.

Hope Svelgate has posed:
<<My role?! Fuck your roles. I choose my own fate, carve my own path and She doesn't seem to have a problem with it.>> Fury burns within Lady Death's eyes at the suggestion that she be bound by some predetermined role. But she does not chase Arawn when he retreats.

Instead there is still another presence, the one Thor shouted warnings about. Spinning around her eyes narrow further at the sight of the wings, a being reminiscent of angels, becoming burning slits as she raises her glowing blade and points it at him. <<What are /you/ doing here!>> There is a small voice in the back of her head noting she might have been wrong about Arawn, it is however drowned out by the battle lust as she whirls as if on the attack still pointing her sword up at Thanatos.

Swirling energy blue and orange gathers around the blade as Lady Death seems poised to attack Thanatos even as the cavern begins coming down around them.

As the collapse escalates however with several massive chunks of rock impacting the ground around Lady Death as the entire ceiling begins to cave in, even she manages to tear herself out of her heated battle lust when one fragment of a pillar impacts her directly knocking her back and snapping her out of it. Much as she would /love/ to fight Thanatos even Lady Death can be convinced it is time to go it seems.

Amidst the rubble raining down her sword is raised high and another of those slashes in the fabric of space like the one she made in John's bar is rent open before she steps through to the Arc D'Triomphe and its Tomb of the Unknown Soldier beyond.