7531/1000 Faces: Dead to Rights

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1000 Faces: Dead to Rights
Date of Scene: 25 August 2021
Location: The Underworld
Synopsis: Blackagar's viral illness becomes a matter for the Secret Warriors to solve, though it won't be easy... or fast.
Cast of Characters: Jane Foster, Stephen Strange
Tinyplot: 1000 Faces of Death


Jane Foster has posed:
The road always begins somewhere. Stephen Strange is the victor of a hundred battles beyond the veil of mortal ken, successor to the Ancient One's countless conquests. One never becomes Sorcerer Supreme solely for battle prowess or love of victory. Conditions that often come forth from arcane puissance, true, but the Vishanti choose their champion for numerous other reasons.

Recklessness perhaps was among them once. No doubt time tempers a preference to sober second thought wedded to readiness, a preference for action at the chosen time. Reactive Sorcerers Supreme tend to be handsome corpses. What qualities sent a man to the yawning void torn into the Brooklyn Botanic Garden? Are they the same that help him endure the fall through the Black Bifrost?

Iridescent rainbows in a midnight oil slick conjured by Malekith punch the doctor forth from reality under an immense weight. Thinned barriers separating one realm from the next hold little resistance for the corruptive, corroding energy that slams him right off the board. Travel through the Bifrost itself is supposedly quite thrilling, though Asgardians rarely speak to outsiders, the grown-up version of a rave, killer party, and waterslide all in one. The Black Bifrost is anything but.

Sludge sticks to the aura, agony and fear wound into the torrential currents eroding at a man's equilibrium and peace of mind. Everything that seeps to the roots of the World Tree condenses into a sinful splatter refined down further through the darkest sorcery -- blood magic is practically angelic, the soulcrafting inflicted on his counterpart from Limbo a bit of good fun next to what monstrosity parts the realm he means to defend. The twisty, turning ride fit to induce vertigo probably has a good deal less effect compared to the places he's strode, Ancient One's tutelage notwithstanding, but going through an avalanche or megaslide atop a supervolcano is still not enjoyable the fifteenth time around compared to the first.

Until it stops. An abrupt reeling squeal means Stephen Strange plunging at rather high speeds in the most dramatic fashion for an enormous glass arch. The domed roof of something stretches an impressive length indeed, possibly as far as he can see. Sides curve down, not that it helps when countless reflections of himself grow and expand across the panes connected by latticed metal.

Stephen Strange has posed:
What qualities, indeed?

It is often said that with age comes wisdom. Normally, this is so. It was not the initial plan, nor the backup plan, nor the backup to the backup plan to simply just leap into the yawning abyss that had spawned the devilish pixies that tormetted the botanical gardens. The plan was to close it, reverse it, sense the interlopers back without further incident.

Until the incident went further.

The leaping into the portal was instinct, and solely that. Should it not have been, the calculated risk would have outweighed the needs of the one. Perhaps. It really has no meaning now, for Stephen is riding the wave of unbridled fear, nausea, and whatnot that a trip via the Black Bifrost would provide. And those...are the good parts.

The sorcerer does have his protections. His lessons with his mentor have been well learned. Still, there are better ways to travel.

This is not it.

Was it hours? Days? Or merely minutes? Time has lost its meaning...until the joyride stops....and the lurching and tumbling gives way to a simple drop. Is he able to slow his descent? Perhaps in sync with his thoughts, the relic upon his shoulders billows out, attempting just that. If only to angle his descent to not become an unsightly blemish upon the vast structure of polished metal that stretches out before him.

Jane Foster has posed:
The world possesses countless modes of transportation, but really they come down to two: self-propelled and forcibly moved. Falling with style, regardless how much fashionable elegance that involves, still involves the essential lack of control over beginning and terminus.

Time no longer really applies. What touchstone is there to follow? A blackened spire through green-shot skies rushing by beyond escape velocity imparts an impression. Roots twisted around whole cities and civilizations crushed by snarled labyrinths give another brief snapshot in time, crushed fuselage and aluminum-glass cities pierced by vast woody filaments a stain. Let there be a moment to appreciate a huge weeping gouge, the enormity of empty space that dominates so much of creation, radial wheels of dark dust and endless black until--

--the end.

Feet first is better than face first when the Black Bifrost's energies retract. Exhausted to the end of its reach, it wants no more to do with the mortal, a toddler discarding a toy. Strange is tossed into the mix. Deceleration is a nasty struggle, and the Cloak's valiant efforts halt the sorcerer from hitting the glass dome like a junebug meeting the windshield.

Boots strike the glass panes. Diamonds crumple into thousands of shards, twinkling dully under a sheen of ghastly dust. Thinner lead lacework cannot resist the force twisting them from true, and so he goes crashing through onward and down. It is always so much easier to descend.

Below him, through the gap in the great domed roof, much is dark and thereby so much harder to identify at a distance. The cavernous space replicates a cavern of the grandest size through the gallery, a great hall stretching lengthwise much further than it is wide. Skeletal apparati in lead and cast iron gives shape to the ridge and furrow roof design. Stacked arches support grand half-burst windows that maintain a slightly brighter hue than the grounds below. Supported by beams and pillars, the walls are themselves merely extensions of a skeleton with a glass skin.

Belly of the beast? Cathedral to the gods?

Stephen Strange has posed:
Feet first is an infinitely better option than the other and the Cloak's effort are not in vain. Feet meet glass, and the velocity is more than enough to shatter the pane into stardust, with nary a twinge felt in the calves. Yet...the ground is still rushing to greet him at much too fast a pace.

And yet, the Cloak offers some small measure of salvation.

Then sorcerer finally reaches the ground (floor?), it is hard, but at an angle to at least not immediately induce death, nor the shattering of his bones as easily as the glass that continues to rain down upon him. The mortal strikes...and rolls, the noble red garment encircling about him. It protects from glass shards, certainly...but little cushion for the body within its folds, as the tumbling threatens to pull his limbs asunder.

The form finally comes to a rest, in the middle of the crystal palace it finds itself in. And remains motionless.

Then, with no thought of dignity, Stephen groans. A sure sign of life if there ever was one. He...just doesn't seem to be in a big hurry to want to move, just yet.

Jane Foster has posed:
The floor is constructed not of flagstones but what looks like tiles. Cool ceramic and blasted feel solid enough, though dangerously slippery without the added danger of broken glass all over. Soft-soled shoes would be shredded here. Dusted glass spills off the Cloak. A few broken pieces lie in the collar for a good shake to come free.

The uneven ground slopes slightly to the half-moon window mounted to the side of the great gallery, and water drips slowly in plinks and gurgles. For all the greenhouse-like conditions prevail, it isn't warm in here, quite the opposite. Clammy and cold, the air smells thickly of dirt and things that lurk in the primeval dark. Cracked pillars hold up the remnants of what might have been a market at some point, though Strange might have to shuffle around in the dark to really be sure if those are cloth lean-tos and tents hidden there or shrouds wound around something particularly large.

His entry is not quite, and neither are the faint signs reflected in the broken glass.

Only flames lit by the Manifold may burn in this Realm.

Stephen Strange has posed:
The ceramic cools the pads of the fingers as Stephen shifts, pushing himself to a sitting...and finally to a fully standing position. The darkness is stifling. Heavy, with very little to no ambient light to guide him. It could be a torn cloth that was once the roof of a fruit stand flapping before him or the physical manifestation of a tortured apparition with an apparent love of the classics. Though, as Stephen stumbles forward, a ghost in a holey sheet would be a welcomed departure from the sights no mortal eyes should see.

And, speaking of seeing, the signs are noted, themselves providing the faintest of glows to at least make out dim shapes in the void. Only flames lit by the Manifold. The phrase tosses in Stephen's head. An engine manifold? It is possible. It would make the most likely of sense. But...there is one rule that Stephen has learned from his lessons in the mystic arts.

Usually, the most likely is rarely the answer.

That prompts a study of the word. Manifold. There is a mathematical concept of manifold...but that seems rather unlikely. Another sense of manifold. A whole that unites or consists of many diverse elements. Could that be something? A fire lit not just from heat or flame...but from multiple elements?

Perhaps.

However...a test. Is a magically-induced light source allowed? There are multiple elements involved in the simplest of incantations. Could Strange himself be the Manifold? Maybe *a* Manifold, if not *the* Manifold. Is the warning being strictly literal?

Only one way to find out.

A practiced gesture, the murmuring of words long since burned into memory. Light *should* produce. But does it? The results, success or failure, will give the sorcerer insight into what he is dealing with.