7304/1000 Faces: The Sound of His Wings - Op. 2

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1000 Faces: The Sound of His Wings - Op. 2
Date of Scene: 10 August 2021
Location: Paris, France
Synopsis: Stephen Strange faces off against two vying gods of Death, and when he overextends himself, has a come-to-Three-sus moment.
Cast of Characters: Jane Foster, Hela, Stephen Strange
Tinyplot: 1000 Faces of Death


Hela has posed:
Paris after dark stays awake and alive. It should be electric, humming in the summer humidity. Instead, it's grey and wet. Mist rolls through the Left Bank south of the Seine River. Wetness beads on the still buildings that fill the 14th arrondissement and its neighbours. Famous names abound: the Latin Quarter, Montparnasse. Usually they should be crawling with commercial traffic delivering goods or night busses. Crowds of tourists goggling at landmarks or crawling between the clubs are absent, replaced by the occasional police officer struggling to stay awake.

Emergency vehicles are still a common presence as ambulances feed unconscious victims here or there, but the non-responsive residents far outnumber the available helpers. How do you help thousands of people who simply won't wake up?

The difficulty to their response is the ground screaming. Torn chunks of cobblestones surrounding the entrance to the Paris Catacombs mark the heaving backbone of a great, unseen force. Roads ripple like an undersea serpent. Humps of asphalt and broken pipes send sprays of brackish water, while whole buildings threaten to collapse into sinkholes opening up to the buried chambers and lengthy tunnels hollowed out below the City of Light. Pandemonium wails stream out from the breached grates and holes in the ground leading to blackened tubes where once the dead maintained a vigil alone.

Six million dead lie entombed in the city's 200 miles or so of tunnels. How many lie unconscious through the whispering tolls of bells and the wailing murmurs audible only to the sensitive? It's a bitter music of chanting from dead voices. Enormous pools of energy tinted by death lie heavily over whole districts, though whirlpools mark a conflict. A necromancer tries to wrest control from a god's share.

Another god slides through the field, reaping power, and the arcane seas foment rage.

Stephen Strange has posed:
Cities truly never sleep. New York, Paris, London...there is always life and vibrancy *somewhere*. Always at least someone awake, be it for business or pleasure. The mortal world never, ever, truly sleeps and there are people that are fully aware of that fact. People willing to be on call, to awake when the need arises and provide care, be it a fire fighter, emergency medical technician, or doctor. Even that lowly IT person, awake to prevent the flow of information from stopping. There is always someone awake, ready to serve.

Including one Doctor Stephen Strange. Though, his practice is a little more esoteric than simply medical needs.

It was the London sanctum that sounded the alarm. For Paris, so close (relatively speaking), to be experiencing such an event...surely that warranted attention. And, despite being an ocean away, the extreme level of the disturbance....it required the mystical protector of this realm. The chosen of the Vishanti.

He didn't really feel like sleeping anyways.

A golden circle forms close to Montparnasse, eldritch sparks orbiting faster and faster around a central point, until a portal forms. And, through it walks the Sorcerer Supreme of the Earth realm. Clad in the familiar blue, with that immediately recognizable red cloak upon his shoulders. It would seem that Strange has decided that this...this needed a personal touch.

The Doctor is on the case.

Hela has posed:
No city ever sleeps. But Paris does. Large portions of its slumbering population do not dream as cities under night do. They don't think of fantasies or heroics in the sky, their sleeping minds processing information or embarking on flights of fancy. There simply is no activity at all except what is necessary for the lower cognitive functions to carry on. They breathe and their bodies function, at some level.

But even the responders called by accidents in the street are still fighting the languor and the torpor. There is death here, not in the ancient 18th century tunnels or the much older ones whittled away beneath Parisian cafes and exquisitely expensive flats. In the car accidents that struck pedestrians. In the fall that broke a hip or a neck. But most are oblivious, drunk too deep of Sleep's waters, and found a cousin to Death. They are slumped in their cars, collapsed in their rooms, teetered over on benches.

So peaceful. The world around them is not.

Hela has posed:
The vicissitudes inflicted on the Seine's bank gouges out deep holes and twisting the paved streets into something perilous enough for junior rock scrambling competitions. A few vehicles are tossed aside, their occupants blissfully unaware. Others are crushed, buried, entombed fresh as the ground spasms and bones come tumbling upward on a geyser-like burst. Shadows spring to the surface, proud horns of a stag, the low, creeping form of a wolf. They turn and dive below, drawn by the mobile eye of a maelstrom.

Another statue collapses. The lurid red sigils visible to a mystic burn: "The kingdom of death is mine." Ancient Brittonic, but that doesn't much matter with the black feathers slammed into the bronze equestrian deep enough to leave only their death-saturated pinions quivering. Arcane energies ripple, hauled down in a great waterfall from ground level. But to the seasoned eye of a Doctor like that, it's not death alone.

Something has pulled the living energies of a city into the battle, pulled them thin as candy floss, and spread them throughout. It's a ghastly ritual, however jarred, but not broken enough to give those lives back. Whatever is battling isn't at ground level.

Stephen Strange has posed:
A frown slowly creeps into view upon Strange's mien, should there be anyone actually awake to notice. This is worse than expected. Those grey eyes flicker, catching the red sigils so bright and angry. The dark feathers are also noted, though, as the shadows before, those eyes are drawn downwards.

It does not take much to know that the true show is still below. The buckling of the very earth is proof enough for that.

As Strange approaches, slowly walking towards the shadows...towards the danger....his fingers twitch. Drawing arcane symbols in the air, the spectral ghosts of their form lingering in the too still Parisian night. They are wards...any basic mage could tell as such...but more so than that. They remain, a shield against the torpor of unbidden sleep, and spread slowly. A bubble of sanctuary amidst the chaos. Perhaps Stephen is establishing a safeguard, a place to retreat to.

For...he does seem intent to get down to the bottom of the situation. Even if it means going underground.

Hela has posed:
Dark feathers resonate power. The sigils are older, scrawled all over buildings far and wide through London, Edinburgh, and now Paris. Not a mystic worth their sensitivity who can't notice them, though French or the ancestor of Welsh might be hard to translate.

Another crunch and a lorry falls into a spreading whole that hungrily gnaws at the foundations of nearby flats worth more than Strange probably made at the height of his career. Opulence pays in this neighbourhood of Russian oligarchs and oil barons. One of those multimillion dollar apartments begins its slow crash.

The entrance to the catacombs stands at the center of seven converging streets. A handsome building was once there, now in ruins. The gates inside have been ripped from their hinges with great force, the front doors thrown out into the street. From there the chanting and the wailing grow louder, though the death energy fountains up wherever the underground and open air meet. It's not the only place to reach the catacombs, merely the best known to the public, and completely and utterly devastated in every way.

If anyone went through there without an exit plan, they're dead or buried under countless tons of rubble.

Stephen Strange has posed:
As Strange approaches, old texts present themselves in his memory. Of his countless researches, which one of the so-called gods would be behind this? Many death gods. So, so many.

And, for not the first time, nor shall it be the last...Strange finds himself wishing he studied more.

Still. One thing is certain. The catacombs is the target. It is there that he must go.

It is dangerous. Stephen knows this. But...he must see if there is any life here that can be saved. For a moment...and only a moment, he allows himself to access the astral, opening that mind's eye to see what can be taken in. Not only for the lives that might be there...but also to get a sense of where he must go.

Only for a second. Too much and he risks other hazards.

Hela has posed:
So many death gods, but not so many brave enough to carve their path across Europe. Further down the road, a beheaded bronze lion keeping an eye over the concentrated starbursts of avenues and lanes lies scored by hooves, deep scratches ripping through its body.

In the Astral... Tossing his sight or self to perceive the other layer of reality is like stepping out into a raging gale. Buffetting forces would toss Stephen aside were he not made of doughty stuff, rooted to the earth. Heavier than most, for his shell is that of a trinity, not a single being. And those gods do not share, do they? Roaring wind blows around, cold and weighty, smelling heavily of pine woods and brackish water. Petrichor might lie thick there between the sun-dried stone, wine and olives, poured out in the conflict. Between is Lady Death's own resonance, weakening, a shattered crater somewhere about a half-mile away.

Bits of lightning, since withered, but present. A thunder god answered that call, somewhere, but it too has been erased from the broken rainbow of the Bifrost that left its tattooed knotwork both on the ground a short distance away and here in the Astral far sharper. The two death storms whirl around one another, pulling up the layered, stratified energy that has precipitated here since the 12th century. There should be quiet reflection, the stillness and stasis of time ending for the living. It's not true at all here, rivers and surging waves that would pull him into the storm.

And among him, the damned in their dreams, being pulled apart, swallowed and devoured and stripped like bark from a tree for purposes to animate the dead bones down below.

Stephen Strange has posed:
No.

The singular word manifests into being as Stephen peruses the astral landscape. It is not supposed to be so chaotic. These storms should not be. And...the fact that the tell-tale signs of not just any thunder god...but Thor himself, judging from the knotwork, tried his hand at stopping this. And another...unsuccessful.

No...

This is not going to stand. This is not going to remain. Not if Strange has any breath left in his body.

"No!"

The hands snap up, the ruined fingers somehow defying their physical limitations as they carve glowing sigils before him. Feet leave the ground as the Sorcerer approaches one of the maelstroms...those glowing runes before him as he adds to it, constructing a wide glowing shield.

And...words flow from Strange. "By the power of the Three who are One, I command this aberration of the natural order be stopped. I hold the light of the Vishanti. I am their servant...

"...and I. Will. Not. Fail."

With that, that large mystical shield of light, glowing in brillance, slides in place, seeking to cut off the flow of the living to that of the long-since dead. The purpose is to deny the fuel that whatever deathmonger is feeding on. Disrupt the flow...and the storm should weaken...which then may be brought under control...

Hela has posed:
No, said the healer. So often, it matters not.

Best efforts come to nothing. Weeping medics can apply every medication at their disposal and not wake the pregnant mother slipped from consciousness. Firefighters with a lack of alternatives charge the pads to shock a patient awake against their better judgment. A man slaps his sleeping brother, pleading to a god that won't hear.

So often, nothing.

No, the most powerful denial of child or mage, could change the world. Their own hubris is the stuff of madness and folly, reality slapping them rudely in the face every damn time.

The single candle he raises in a storm should be so easily snuffed out. Wind pours back through his soul, the dead and the living colliding on their slipstreams, one purely of resonant power saturated into the city for centuries. The other, its living children, fading, screaming, bombarding him within a sacred circle with all their hopes and fears, their dreams and idle mental meanderings of a sleeping mind. Thousands babble in his ears and churn around him, clawing at his chest and their own heads in ashen attempts to render whatever somnolent, disorderly delirium their tormented brains create.

Thousands, condemned to sleep, drawn to mere shades of themselves, to feed a deific grasp for authority. Black wings flash somewhere below as the black-winged Death who stalked Achaean shores levels the stags and Unseelie spectres dancing through shadows, cutting at his own Lampedusan nymphs. The unwaking living are pulled to him and through, around, a storm of horrific making.

What has he done?

Hela has posed:
Beyond. Between. Being.

For an instant, an act cleaves him between the second and the next breath, a space yawning wider than the gulf between galaxies. A pitiless shimmer in the flamebath of life around him, a city of light strung out in the immense, unseen currents that shape reality around and beyond him.

There is a man, a twinkling of nothing.

Three occupy so great a presence in the stygian night limned by his glittering shield, they might as well not exist at all. Too great are they to be other than masters of their domain. Voices of three in his head. Around him. Beyond him. All at once:

<<It is not enough. A wasted life to stake claim to so great a space.>> Him, the vizier.

<<You would not leave him bereft, would You? It is the deed that counts.>>

<<A waste of Our servant!>>

<<When have We ever found fault with audacity?>> The feminine presence raises an inquiry, and the halted second halves in anticipation shivering hard.

<<Rather glad he had the balls at all to-->>

A bass growl contains amusement and primordial elements barely kept in check.

<<Must You be so crude? How Mother ever tolerates that uncouth, foul nature, I will never understand. Why must audacity be encouraged when it produces such waste?>>

<<Get your nose down a few notches, boy. Hello, Strange.>> The green-eyed tiger turns that vast snowy head his way. <<That make me the deciding vote, does it? Sell me a story. It's been too long since anyone bothered with a story.>>

Where stardust churned, the titans become threefold, familiar, a woman shifting from pale nebulous light to an owl and back. <<You cannot survive stretching your hand so far, Doctor. Your light would extinguish before the rite or the dawn.>>

<<Boy's not wrong. You might bring down the deer but fall to the hunting pack. You haven't the strength to stand against the alpha wolf. Could, though. My story?}>>

<<Hoggoth, you're a fool.>>

Stephen Strange has posed:
Well...that was unexpected.

Or, rather, it was, but perhaps Stephen was hoping that what he was going was going to be just within the limits of his power. It would seem that he was perhaps a little too ambitious. Hence the Three making their presence known.

Of course, Strange knew the moment his consciousness was pulled away as to the reason why. Just as he knew the voices and who they belonged to. Oshtur, the Grey Goddess of Balance and Order. Hoggoth the Hoary, Lord of Hosts. And, of course, Agamotto, the Light of Truth. And...apparently, a bit rigid in thinking. Strange knows it is Agamotto that is decrying that more is needed. It...is expected. It is often as such. But the third...Hoggoth. He is the one that Strange needs to win over. And...He wants a story.

So, a story it shall be.

Hela has posed:
The three are silent, for it is the call of their chosen to answer. The aid he seeks is not proffered by interruption.

Stephen Strange has posed:
But first, greetings are in order. "Salutations, oh great and powerful Vishanti. Forgive the impetuousness of your humble servant. As you doubtlessly are already aware, there is a great disturbance in the natural order of the realm you have chosen me to defend. A powerful force that neither Asgardian might nor mystical prowess have been able to quell. It has come to your servant to attempt to rectify. To restore the balance, if you will. I wish to seal this wound. And...I fear I may not be able to do so without your divine guidance."

Yes, it is stating the obvious. Considering that the Three pulled Strange off to the side for a little pep talk, Strange is painfully aware that he almost certainly made a mistake. Bit off too much than what he can chew. But, he *is* Their chosen servant. They surely know what he is like and moreso, what he is willing to do to bring balance...to save lives....to protect his home. And now? He is willing to place himself out there.

He is willing to tell a story.

Stephen Strange has posed:
"In another time, another place, there lived a young boy. This boy came from humble origins. A simple family, with the father a mechanic by trade and his mother a waitress. Now, this boy was rather innocent, as most are, bright for his age, certainly, but also naive to the ways of the world. He was truly an innocent."

Strange pauses for a moment, as if to gather his thoughts...then he continues. "Now, this boy...James, we will call him, was very loving. He loved his father and mother very much. He was sent to spend some time with his grandparents, while his own parents went on a trip, riding in a transport across the country. And...it was while spending time with his grandparents that James waited patiently for his mother and father to return home. For they told him that they will both return to him, safe and sound."

"A week had past...and James' father returned to him. But....not his mother. When James asked about his mother, he was informed that a terrible accident had befallen the transport that his parents were a part of and, in the midst of this accident, his mother was trapped and could not be freed. And this crushed little James. It sent him on a downward spiral, to the point where he blamed himself for what was perceived to be a random act of fate. 'If only I said something' James would lament. 'If only I stopped them from going. If I had said something, she would still be here now.'. This continued for many years, all the while James kept searching for answers. If he just could have changed one thing. Just one thing...then the world would be better. The world would be perfect."

Hela has posed:
Salutations from the three in one receive their varied responses. The great, hoary tigrine head of the elder male god tilts, his eyes flashing with all the fire of yellow supergiant suns. Had he paws visible, he might lower the noble feline countenance to rest upon them, an act only an idiot would presume declaws the threat he presents. For the Lord of Hosts commands the myriad and the multitude, even here.

Agamotto's stony expression brooks no warmth, but he slightly nods in acknowledgment of his rightful due. Beside him, Oshtur shifts from a silver falcon back to a woman of starry eyes in her middle years, relentlessly transformed by time.

<<We have never found fault in your perspicacious nature. Do not believe this a rebuke of your work.>> The goddess' thoughts project a maternal warmth.

<<Or approval. We come to the cusp of a precipice before any took note of the knotted and snarled pattern in the rightful order.>> Agamotto narrows his glowing eyes. The sting of his wrath is not delivered with wind or wave, but pitiless eyes. <<We would have anticipated more.>>

<<Killjoys. I want my story. Go brood in the corner until it's your turn.>> Hoggoth is undeterred by poor manners or form, teeth showing through sharply curled lips.

<<Your intention is in the right place, doctor of bodies and minds. Examine your purpose deeper as you would a patient.>> Gentle guidance from the grey one, before falling silent. Her love for her son and her partner won't tolerate any less.

Stephen Strange has posed:
Another break...then the story continues.

"One day, Death took notice of this poor lost soul and approached James. Death said, 'I can see how much you miss your mother. I will make you a deal. I will bring her back to you, safe and whole, but...in exchange, you must choose someone to replace her. For there must be balance, you see.' And...at first, James was elated. He would get to be with his mother again! His father will back with the person he loves...their family will be perfect once more! But, as James thought beyond himself...beyond his own limited view, he began to despair.

'Who am I to take away someone's loved one?!' James thought long and hard. 'I don't want someone else to go through what I have. It...it isn't my right to play with the lives of others like that. I...I just can't!' With that, James turned away from Death, shaking his head. 'No. I...I don't want this. I don't want to destroy the lives of others just so I can have one person back. I...I will not take you up on your offer.' Upon hearing this, Death nodded, placing a hand upon Jame's shoulder. 'Your mother was right about you. She told me that you would see the right path...that I only take those when it is time to do so. She said you would understand.'"

"And, with that, Death stepped aside, revealing that James' mother was standing behind him. And...tears started to flow from the boy's eyes. And yet, James did not rush to embrace his mother. With voice wrought with emotion bittersweet, he exclaimed, 'I...knew. Somehow, I always knew it was meant to be. I...I am so sorry. I need to let you go.' And....his mother responded, as tears fell from her own blue eyes. 'I am so proud of you, my dear sweet boy. I knew you would understand. I knew you would see. I love you so very much. Know this and I will never be far.' And...with that, the two turned and departed, leaving Death to stand alone, before he continued on with his tasks.

For James finally came to see that Death, truly, does not take pleasure in the tasks to be performed. There is no malice involved...no ill will. No seeking power or dominion. It is simply part of the cycle, as it should be. James was offered the power of Death...to judge as Death would judge, and found that no one truly has the right to do so."

"Except Death itself."

Strange stops speaking, his eyes shifting to take in the aspect of Hoggoth. The story has been given, with Strange's intent included. The death gods are not Death itself (Herself?). They do not have the right to upset the balance so. This is the lesson they need to learn.

Hela has posed:
They wouldn't have chosen him if they expected minced words. Long periods of silence belong more to the realm of Strange's immediate predecessor, alternating with loquacious mystics and curt inventors too busy to worry about lesser matters. The Vishanti in that space have no reason to rush and yet the very invocation made by the man spending his life's fire to push back the ocean with no more than a bucket and a net would put a lie to that.

Strange harnesses the powers of the taleteller to entertain a vast audience with vast antiquity at their collective claws and fingertips. Hoggoth hardly blinks when considering the purpose behind the words and the cadence used to form them, picking out music where breaths join percussive heartbeats. Agamotto shoots a direct look, sharp to the point of bluntness.

The boy who may never have been trudges through that space, a child echoed in sparks that gather on owl feathers delivered into an outstretched palm. <<Would only such wisdom prevail commonly among humanity, they would thrive and find themselves much less troubled in present days.>>

<<Open your eyes.>>

<<A perfectly nice tale of huntsmen taking down wicked Tatars or a clever monkey would have sufficed nearly as well. Monkeys have a way of becoming awfully uppity after that one story, and they have never forgotten a bit of fleeting fame.>> Hoggoth's jaw works. He might be contemplating his supper. <<Bit on the nose but that's to be expected. Once you have a cub or two, that habit goes right quick. Just you wait and see. Might try it.>>

Oshtur shifts into a crone who doesn't so much cackle as laugh softly. <<If you survive first.>>

<<My favour for a story. Two to one settles that.>> Hoggoth yawns, all fang and curling tongue, and peers down at Stephen Strange as the focus of that realm narrows yet further. <<Death does not stand alone. Death does not seek for what they have taken. Death cannot be offered what they have decreed should be. They tolerate no other dominion but their own and changing the story that came before to a new ending has consequences, Stephen Vincent Strange.>>

<<Beyond Our purview to change now,>> Oshtur adds. <<No longer do the walls contain their bacchanale. Conditions deteriorate at an accelerated pace.>>

<<As I expected you would see.>> Agamotto's tone is stern and distant to his mother's smile.

<<Not all is yet lost. Consider the patient.>>

<<Damn bothersome, rewriting a good tale with that remade nonsense they keep flogging everywhere as superior to the rest.>> Hoggoth grumbles, gravity quakes between dark matter and charging elephants. <<No upsetting the alpha when his fangs are in your throat. What will you do when you return?>> He seems to expect 'curl up and die' is not an option.

<<Agamotto has taken the changes hard.>> Oshtur shakes her head. Agamotto probably bites back something about being mommed.

Stephen Strange has posed:
"Yes, well, I thought it appropriate to relate the story to the matter at hand." At least Strange has sense to admit what he was doing. It isn't like he is going to be able to fool the Lord of Hosts, at any rate. "As for any offspring...that will be a matter for further along, should that be written in my future." Strange is not going to discount the notion. However...it is a kin to the parents asking why they don't have any grandchildren. And...it is at an inopportune time.

Not that Strange will bring that particular point up.

However...more to the matter at hand.

Stephen listens as the Three offer guidance, each in their own way. While Oshtur and Hoggoth share in their own particular manner, Agamotto just chides. Strange probably should have known better. He certainly should have seen. But...he isn't going to acknowledge that in front of Agamotto. Because...Agamotto should already see that Strange gets the point as well. And both are too stubborn to acknowledge in front of the other.

Perhaps the reason why Agamotto tolerates Strange.

"I see." The deteriorating conditions was certainly observable, the moment he step foot into Paris. Even more so once he traversed the Astral. "Presently, they seek to claim the souls of the living to fight whatever wars they are waging. The brief glimpse within presented in-fighting...a power play for territory."

With a pause, Stephen turns to the feline aspect of Hoggoth. "I mean to restore the tale. To tell it as it should be and not as what others deign it should be."

Hela has posed:
Agamotto is the taskmaster, logical and erudite. Oshtur the center, holding them with wisdom and warmth. Hoggoth, earthy and primal, delivers the reflex and impulse from nature. Together they forge a trinity already waning in their size and presence, relinquishing little by little their servant back to the plane he serves them on.

<<You'll find they pull you down fast when you try to change what Death would make endless and always. The story echoes backward and forward. They won't be the only ones opposing you.>> Hoggoth's warning finds him prowling through the misty gloom on two legs and four, a man and the multitude of monsters, dissipating into green bubbles against the roughly churned river that would belong well in the depths of the Congo or the Amazon Forests. His form is many and singular, coming undone.

Oshtur follows, taking wing, her pinions reaching the edges of a sky washed in dark clouds that weep over blazing landmarks reduced in their state. The Pantheon and the towers of the Left Bank turn into a blur of neon and pallid lights as distortions whorl and twist, even Stephen rendered in grainy overtones. <<I have faith in your desire to restore rather than maim. The illness arrayed against you is the symptom, but mind the cause.>>

Which leaves the first of the line, standing in the diminished realm that proves thinner than paper and glass walls around them. Agamotto is the silent one, cocking an eyebrow. Any words are thus to be said now, or forever may Stephen hold his peace if he plays his cards awry.

Stephen Strange has posed:
Assistance from the Father and the Mother is gladly taken. Each receives due attention, with Strange offering platitudes of appreciation, both in word and deed. It is not often than the Three choose to speak...and to know that at least two of them are at least moderately pleased with their chosen servant is truly lifting.

It isn't often that one is allowed to speak with elder gods.

However, the Son remains stalwart, his silent reproach of the situation speaking volumes where words would fail. Stephen regards him properly, with hands pressed together, bowing in respect. As Stephen looks up, he sees the cocked eyebrow. And...if for a moment, Strange tries to maintain his composure. Until, finally, he relents. "Yes, I know. I should have studied the situation more before attempting such a ploy. You are correct, as always. Your eye sees all."

Yes, it may be a bit of pandering. But, only slightly. There is truth there...and Strange speaks still with reverence. He means what he says.

Not that Strange needed to say it. But, he suspects that Agamotto may appreciate the gesture...being told he is right.

Hela has posed:
<<See you use what time you have wisely.>> Agamotto says no more. The swirl of pain collides with the tormented dreams spanning four arrondissements in Paris and the shades of a fifth, circumscribed by the muddy bend of the tamed Seine on her westward course.

Night rushes back in, animal musk and spilled wine carried above stagnant water boiling and spat forth from sundered pipes. Burst wreckage announces the slow collapse of the apartment into the spreading hole disrputed by thunder and hammer, hellfire rotting out the byways long disused except by those few spelunkers drawn into the catacombs. Dust and shrieking metal pepper the air.

It is a small matter next to the thin, tenebrous whispers and mutterings reaching his ear. --not time to get to the Metro--mama I'm sorry--yes, I will launch the nukes comrade--F equals G(m1m2/r2) remember for the test, Aimee needs me to get into the university--uno due tre quattro cinque--never gonna let ya go--

His light-etched shield strikes the bow wave of the seas hurled up over its hemisphere, casting back the leaden weight that death energy brings. Around him the cobbles haven't been obliterated by stygian forces, only the undermining -- literally that -- from deific tantrums. A scourging wave pierces another street set back from the intersection, and a stag goes bounding through the darkness, trailing shadows around another sinuous bone construct that collides with a small, night-black girl wielding a green-flame torch that sets them both alight.

Stephen Strange has posed:
At the last moment...just before that mystical barrier attempted to slice through all of those tenuous tendrils tying the living to the dead, Strange cups his hands together and twists then counter-clockwise. The barrier dramatically reduces, down to more of a shield for the sorcerer himself rather than all of Paris. It doesn't sever the bonds...at least not yet. But...it does allow for a closer look.

Shifting to maintain the shield with the left hand, Strange reaches out with the right, a fingertip hovering just above a singular connection. So easy to see, once the eyes are truly open. And....it should be relatively easy to trace. There is a puppet master behind the tugging of these strings...and Strange means to find out who.

Or what.

A tap upon the string. Resonance cuts through the cacophony of chaos, ringing out. The clarion call travels down the connection. Yes, it will warn what is manipulating the threads that Strange is searching. But...it will also allow Strange to trace, hopefully catching the manipulator before having time to react.

Hela has posed:
Were he standing in a hospital or among the densely crowded flats of the Latin Quarter, all stacked up like beloved French gateaux, he might well find a few confused residents emerging from their sleep or at least returning to flipping in their beds, couches or the floor that acts as a place for unexpected nocturnal adventures. Strange is not.

Any he could reach subsurface would be buried in stone or too far beyond help. Cracked bones wrested from control of the empire of death, as the famous red-stained gate into the Catacombs reads, lie scattered and strewn. Countless femurs and broken skulls, ribs shattered by a Valkyrior blade or wine bottle, no longer answer the calls of gods of death. But so many more do, saturated in their own entropic energy, a vast sea to be funnelled into the god who rightfully claims them.

Shadows bound in and out among the lampades nymphs, their brutal battles invoking the burning torches with Underworld flames that consume ghosts as surely as the real thing devours wood greedily. Spectral hounds burst through the underground paths, diving between collapsed limestone blocks, and he can feel as much as see the energy erupt in a bloody mess when their teeth catch a lamia-like servitor of Thanatos and tear it asunder.

Threads pluck and the remnants of the great ritual pour out from the sevenfold path centered on the catacomb entrance, though it's not the epicenter of that spell. Cobwebs torn free by a recent attack leave recesses where the power has bled thinner. In other spaces, wine-dark shadows spread in an oiled haze, but the ancient foundations of Paris go back to the province of Gaul and earlier still. Stones answer the claims of a king of the Underworld, and one of those remaining singers not felled is an anchorpoint indeed.

Beneath the Pantheon.