7556/1000 Faces: Triskaidekaphobia - Thea

1000 Faces: Triskaidekaphobia - Thea
Date of Scene:	26 August 2021
Location:	Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Synopsis:	With cunning and compassion, Thea keeps Sedna from sacrificing mortals and herself, tying down those hunters of the drowning deep goddess to prevent them from aiding in a search for Hermod. The scales balance to the light by one step.
Cast of Characters:	Jane Foster, Thea Queen
Tinyplot:	1000 Faces of Death

---

Jane Foster has posed:
A spell transformed a pleasure boat on the Haitian shore into a castle, the likes of which Haiti has never known. The French aristocrats who reaped obscene wealth from the plantations and sugar fields might know ghosts of that Asgardian wealth, the gasping gold walls and shining architecture so far away from the rotten, squalid banlieus just a mile and some down the road.

For those feasting and prepared to sacrifice Hermod, the messenger of the All-Father, the setting's much less impressive. That does not prevent them from being locked in rooms and hallways known to the Odinsons, their friends, and soldiers or servants. At least seven powers confined to a prison by the Trickster Prince of Asgard still wreak havoc in search for Hermod.

Those not immediately within the castle ar not safe. Morrigan's dire efforts to rip apart the enchantment that leave mortals prone to slaying their peers or themselves, whatever is more convenient, takes time to unweave.

And the servants of the gods aren't kind. Spiders phasing through space have struck at Thea at least once. Her baton keeps them back when they strike. Shadows move in force through the shaking gardens, the beautiful trees and walls for an opulent, staggeringly wealthy villa thrown down in the fury that Ereshkigal and other members of the Court of Death exude. Even those mortals who can be saved are in peril from earthquakes, the sea sloshing. From dogs that hunt and owls that sweep down, claws out, ready to strike. A woman falls, her side torn open. More blood spilled, more power gained. Another man with a badly bruised faced, practically pulped, runs blindly for a tree to grasp and climb while a ribbon-line serpent wraps around his leg to drag him down.

A menagerie of nightmares, and Thea Queen is the unexpected ringleader.

Thea Queen has posed:
This is pretty much about the time in which Thea should chastise either Loki or Sif for not having yet brought her to Asgard. Shame! For them she'd at least know her way around the hallways. But what can go wrong in following a God of Mischief along with a vampire? Everything! But she does it anyway, now close to the vampire while the other is unweaving the spell, watching misery unfold everywhere.

Yet it's not as if she is one to watch without doing anything so soon enough she is putting the baton away and again drawing the blade. A more proper weapon to face these creatures. If only she could make it flame at will. Alas, not to be.

Still, it doesn't mean she can't do something, reaching out to strike at some of the creatures prowling about, between them and innocents in the way. If anyone at this party could be considered an innocent, but that's a detail she doesn't really want to think about right now. Act first, think later.

"If we can stop them from killing themselves it should weaken the Gods! Perhaps make them need to retreat!" hopefully, she says over to whoever might be around listening.

Jane Foster has posed:
Sif or Loki probably deserve the chastising for unleashing im`mortal mayhem on unsuspecting mortals, but the body count keeps rising higher. Asgard is barely open to mortals; Midgard remains a realm apart from the All-Father's hall. With two of Odin's sons in the field, surely he takes an interest in the damnable deeds done here.

Easy to lose track of someone in the fracas, especially with horrified models and pretty folk hired from all over the Eastern Seaboard coming slowly to when Morrigan isolates the enchantment binding them to a sedate purpose. Finding yourself barely dressed, covered in gore and grime, while drowning your seatmate on the plane is a bit upsetting. The screams are only half of it. Some go to their knees, others stumbling away in a catatonic haze as the mind cannot compute. Right into the willing arms of more active servants.

Those on gate duty use better weapons than knives, broken bottles, and stilettos to attack. They turn guns on those fleeing past the house, the rattle of guns loud as can be.

Perhaps in that moment, somewhere in the rattling thunder, Thea makes the right or wrong turn. A crossroads she finds herself at, wood panels on one side and elegant stonework in another. The wood-panelled hallway stretches ahead past a series of niches, some filled by statues and too dark to discern if a door is there. On the stone side, light seeps through an open balcony that oerlooks an evening panorama far from Haiti.

Where has Loki gone? No telling. The spiders scratch and galumph through the hallway behind her, seemingly unimpeded by the weird slowing of time. How can one be in a rush when grinding slower and slower under the influence of entropy? The castle's mysteries await her, if only she chooses a direction.

Thea Queen has posed:
There isn't a long time to decide. Thea can listen to the sounds of the creatures coming up behind her, rounding out some of the last pockets of resistance. And Thea certainly registering as a warm body to take down. But she's certainly decided to avoid such a fate!

So ..., left or right?

Out into a balcony and risk finding a dead-end? Or further into the mysteries of the castle? She chooses the latter, turning towards those wood-panelled hallways and starting to run in that direction, another quick glance behind her. She has lost sight of Morrigan now, but she knows the vampire should be able to handle herself. The same way the Asgardians can! As for her? It's time to explore, maybe find something or someone to help in this whole situation.

Or stabbing Marzanna. That could work too.

Jane Foster has posed:
Never trust vampires in library-like locations. They may revert to habit, no matter how nice the habit could be. Feet fly then, her soles coming down in the hallway with depressing regularity as Thea takes wing. Skittering hooked claws hit the ceiling to the floor, shapes of white and grey huntsmen superimposed over the detail known mostly to Loki and surely no one else.

Doorways open two to the right, three to the left. One bears the narrowest entry, the furthest from her on the left. Nothing tells the doors apart except for the torches burning in their niches. Crystal light blazes, but the flames themselves cannot crackle from within their stylized metal cages. Getting too close is a fine way to end up entropically trapped, frozen in time for one of the hunters to close on her.

Sounds emanate from the right, a heaviness to the air thickening at any approach. The air grinds, and the ground runs slippery wet on that side.

Alas, no sign immediately of Marzanna, but it makes sense that Loki entrapping the gods might also entrap a few mortals, too.

Thea Queen has posed:
Doors. More doors. It *would* had been nice for some of these to be labeled! Just because Thea doesn't know Asgardian it's not as if it would be fully useless. Who knows how close the alphabets would be! Most likely no resemblance but a girl can dream.

At least on how to get out of this nightmare.

She rests her hands on her knees to catch her breath a moment there. Left doorways without sound or the one with sound but also wet. Well, if she was an illusionist she'd probably have a few traps around. Who knows? Opening that door with the sounds might just lead to some underwater demise. They are in Haiti after all. Maybe it leads right to the sea. So ..., she thinks better on it and runs swiftly towards the left where that narrow entry is. Might be it can stop larger hunters from following her. Who knows!

So she opens that door.

Jane Foster has posed:
A millennia-old race living in the same place for all that time hardly needs labels. Labels are what rapscallions do to confuse young servants or their betters. Easy to imagine Thor putting up mislabeled signs saying "WEPIN LOCKER" all over the place, and laughing when a guard or Loki opened the door. Throwing a flour bomb at them still counts as a weapon, right?

Ahem.

The narrow entry takes some rattling to open, for the well-balanced door is wedged up against something. Thea must push it several times to get past several pieces of furniture haphazardly thrown in the way, a tripod and a bowl knocked over as she pushes her way in. A shadowy stoat comes slinking at full speed down the hall, but when she pushes in, the bubble of slowed speed pops and she goes tumbling faster forward into the recesses.

Two women and one man in the fine clothes of the party huddle together, trying to push a large glass-doored cabinet into place. They look terrible and smell of broken flowers and spilled drink. One woman has a bruise making her face puffy, and the bandage made from the man's shirt lopsidedly flops over his face. He still lifts his fists to defend them.

"Ge'out!" cries one of the women, reading to throw a bottle with a label. It's a small bottle, and whatever it contains is a liquid. "I'll burn you!"

Probably not likely, and she would probably go wide of the mark. So hidden humans, one of several options. They at least look sort of safe in what appears to be Frigga's apothecary room. Different compounds are stored neatly in beautiful glass-front cabinets all around.

Thea Queen has posed:
Come on. Open before the shadow creature gets there. Just one more push...

Ufff, she tumbles into the room, quickly closing the door behind her and resting her back to it, breathing heavily and slowly recovering from the quick sprint through molasses. Can she still be called Speedy while in a slow bubble? One hopes so!

"Calm down. I am not here to kill you." Even if she could fool anyone considering she does have a short sword in hand. Details. She eyes the waved bottle and her expression turns a touch more sober, "And please be quiet, we don't want to attract any of those creatures here."

Compounds though? This does give her an idea ... Even if she isn't too sure on whether this is real or not she slides away from the door to explore some, looking at the labels. "We are all on the same boat here, being hunted by these creatures."

Jane Foster has posed:
The shadow creature galumphs the way wolverines and stoats do, the ripple of movement and scratchy claws odd for a thing made of nightfall's bad memory.

Into the apothecary, the illusion holds a terrifying realism to them. Illusion is a drug that works the first few hundred times, after all. Believe it, whether from desperation or need, and they can fulfill more than reality itself ever offers. Thea searches though the organized drawers and cabinets, their labels beautifully made for a sense of purposeful order. Whatever it is, the mind behind the organization intends on making something practical and useable for work. Not only a matter of beauty, then.

It takes her time to bypass lots of herbs and spices, concoctions not covered in oil. Oil might be nice, but almond or something fruity may not burn. The first choice she pops open is bound to be astringent, more likely useful for waking up the dead than throwing at shadows. One of the women comes over to help, her friend with the bruised face leaning against the cool glass where it helps a little.

"Are we going to die?" she whispers, afraid, but rifling through looking for something. She comes up with a small, ornate set of shears. Something Loki /would/ remember.

Across the hall, the door smashes open. Waves roll. A gasping breath emerges and then the shout rings through the hall, rage rippling outward. <<You dare, you coward son of an old, withered husk of a storm-god. Liars, both of you.>> That would be a woman with wet hair and a dragging dress, slamming and racing her way through the hall.

The shadows mustn't bother her, but whatever /was/ down the hallway might just be drowned in the smell of deep rot in the sea. It's not Marzanna, but if theocide appeals to Thea -- with that name, no less, honouring a goddess -- then now might be the time. Or the time to hide.

Thea Queen has posed:
"Not if I can help it." Thea replies to the woman helping her in what she hopes is a confident, re-assuring voice. She even puts her dimpled smile on, even if inside she is just as terrified. These aren't the usual types of enemies she is used to finding in Starling, no matter how much she has been hanging with Asgardians as of late. Trips to Sweden can be dangerous like that!

"Just stay back..." And now is the time that Thea is glad she didn't go through that door she felt the floor being wet. A rampaging God? But she has a score to settle. These Gods *are* behind this. And if she can take out of the equation? Works by her.

It's funny how murder comes easy when it's not humans you are thinking of killing. But how else to stop this? And it's not as if she believes Gods actually stay dead. She finishes gathering the compound she was looking for and pours it over her sword, looking at the other. "You guys look like you smoke. Mind if I have a lighter?" she asks the grouping, really hoping one of them does. If so she will ignite the sword and then step outside to face the woman.

Jane Foster has posed:
"How can you smile?" whispers the frightened woman as she clatters through cabinets, sending things into disarray. It doesn't matter what she grabs. Bottles clatter. One drops to the floor and rosemary carrier oil blooms with a strong, familiar scent. She swears and apologizes, kicking away the broken glass.

"I didn't mean to," she whispers to Thea. "They promised a good paycheque, handsome men. It was supposed to be a tropical paradise. A great party."

The other two keep pushing on the cabinet together to join the furniture for the door. Thea moving forward halts them -- to be so fearless when they are so afraid. All mortal. All so perilously, frighteningly alive and thus fit to die.

"I wanna go 'ome," slurs the woman with the bruised face. "Plessh. Don get hurt, mish." The compound poured over her sword is cause for her to flinch away. She's in a bikini, what is there to hide?

The man's the only one in board shorts, but he pats around and comes up with a battered pack of matches. "Best I have." Why do they have it? Why? He can't remember. The sword alight causes him to squint. They're all ragged little ghouls in a fake castle.

Thea Queen has posed:
"If the choice is between crying or smiling I think I prefer the latter." Is what she answers to her 'partner in crime' as they go through the cabinets before she offers a shrug and steps away, headed for that door.

Indeed, why would they have matches? Might be that Herod would be a nice little roast as a sacrifice. Which he may very well still be. "Ok, once I am outside just barricade yourselves in again." she calls out. "I will try to come back once it's done to get you out." hopefully!

Stepping out she lets out a soft sigh. "Hope you know what you are doing, Thea Queen.." she whispers to herself, keeping her sword horizontal to the ground, so as to not burn herself and settles her gaze on Sedna. Full on attack? No, she isn't that kind of fool... She watches instead, keeping against a wall to try and be unnoticed to look for an opportunity to strike.

Which may mean having to fend off against some shadowy creatures. But she is ready now with her flames. Gritting her teeth she moves on.

Jane Foster has posed:
Thea's got a good attitude. If only her mortal friends did. They nod when she says to barricade themselves in. The illusion of safety is all that counts, even if that illusion is wreathed in lies, slowed time, and a gasping, exhausted prince.

They will push the door shut and the cabinet after it, one last push for safety. Fools, such fools.

When she pushes through the doorway, once again Thea is snared by the slowed route. Her ability to speedily rush around proves greatly limited, the lack of haste grinding against her bones. It hurts a little to fight friction, squeezed and pushing forward where the world would rather hold her still.

Sedna doesn't spend long in the hallway and she has already made good progress. In her damp wake lie things from forgotten shadows, and they good as not have no distinguishable name or form that could be called anything but beastial. Combine a walrus with a sea urchin, give the legs of a caribou, and that's one such monstrosity. Another looks like a walking goblin shark of shadow, and they eagerly turn when a door opens. The spiders, at least, have moved on. She will indeed be beset, if she doesn't fall from the waves sloshing around. Sedna's clammy hands grab a door and literally rip it from its hinges, chaos turning the door to a car door, a taxi cab hood, a sign for crossing, a proper cardboard box for a fridge.

She utters a birdlike shrill, and sends it flying forth from the castle, a dark and palpable vengeance gathering as the waters in Haiti fly.

They truly do to answer her, lofted over the moored castle-boat, and smashing into all that must lie there.

Somewhere else, a scream.

Thea Queen has posed:
Getting flooded doesn't sound like a good plan, and considering we are talking about a God who might just be able to control the ocean in some kind of manner this may not be the smartest of things Thea has ever done. Specially with the creatures that appear to have come on her wake. And add to that the slowness? Yea, no chance that she can face off against that.

So what to do?

Thea holds up her sword just so, prepared to intervene if the creatures rush at her. Maybe they won't considering she has a fiery sword and they don't like fire but who knows?

She makes way closer to another door just in case she indeed gets rushed so she can push inside and fight in a more 'fair' environment against these creatures.

Jane Foster has posed:
Getting flooded by a lot of seawater never counts as a 'good idea.' The fact a palace may be an illusion doesn't change the weight or the sheer current; a few inches flowing fast can knock someone over. Double that, things may well turn absolutely catastrophic, washing away nice archer ladies from a certain Starling City. An angry goddess isn't one worth contending with.

Is she?

The fiery sword is enough to give one or two of the gods' creatures pause, but these aren't mere little familiars. They embody something darker, colder, crueller. The mechanisms of those strange bestial creatures merge into a taller shape, half-human and half-monster, shaggy and bulging with extra humps that bleed out to become limbs. Safe to say the walrus-thing didn't like her waving fire his way, but it also drips and stinks of the deep where no light under the ice ever shows. A snappy snap of great teeth warns her off. Aims to be hungry.

Sedna's tantrum invokes ripping another door apart and finding nothing of interest in there, or at least it's not Hermod. The boat-castle heaves; her wrath is intense, though perhaps not the worst...

Thea Queen has posed:
And with the slow spell? She most likely wouldn't be able to swim! Never a good thing... So she stops to look at the creatures, eyes squinting as she watches, the blade being twirled on fingertips, showing a certain skill with it. She *has* been training after all. Under Slade Wilson no less!

"Now that's just cheating.." She mutters as the creatures merge together into one. But now she can't run, or most likely will be pursued. So she looks at the door on her side and gives it a kick to try and open it. Perhaps inside there won't be a slow bubble.

And there at least she will have a chance of fighting this monstrosity. "Come on, buddy." she says to the creature. Shoooing it? Or calling it?

Jane Foster has posed:
Swimming in the slowed spell may be a problem, though presumably it's there for the water, too. Slade Wilson is not someone to be reckoned on lightly. But neither is he a man to say take on a superior foe without gauging the measure of an opponent. Enraged may make Sedna weak. But she has her element in striking distance. Is she distracted? Yes, but how fast can Thea hit and evade? How quickly can she use stealth or cover to her advantage when the illusion fails to keep the death goddess of the Arctic cultures of North America from seeing her? Chances. Numbers.

It can be done. It might be possible. Staggeringly dangerous, though.

The door Thea kicks open leads to a sitting room of sorts, another touched by Frigga's influence. Here plants pool in front of a window: an outcome for her to leap from! Maybe she can dodge out and return to the illusion-free terror of the garden, and get out.

Green plants exist outside, too, tumbling down the steps of a ziggurat??

Thea Queen has posed:
Yes, Thea could try to jump out perhaps. Flee. But that's not why she is here. She is here to stop these Gods from doing this, and find more information as she goes. Of course that the plan had went sideways when she got separated from the Asgardians, namely Sif, but what can they do? Well, there's phones but she has already sent messages that were unanswered. Which means Sif is most likely busy slaying a God or three. Typical!

Yet while she won't jump perhaps she can travel *through* the outside windows to gain ground and to surprise her opponent. Who knows?

She opens the windows wide and steps out onto the window sill to poke her head out and look to where the other windows are, and if she can even find a good handhold.

Jane Foster has posed:
Run, run friends! The horrific servants of Sedna, so close to mortals and so prepared to devour all they find in their wake. The walrus-thing on spiny legs, with the many limbs of bears and other fantastical things come rushing for her, hurrying through the castle and being caught in that rush for the window.

Thea rushes out into the plants, and finds herself able to descend for the greenery tumbles down onto a walkway, each lower than the last. Water splashes underfoot as the irrigation supporting the plants growing there, giving her ways to roll and hurry while the shadowy creature shrieks and cascades in a rush after her. The mortals here are at risk; those in the illusion, those outside. Sedna's fury is turned downward though, to rip into the castle foundations and not to harm those whose deaths keep increasing the count.

Surely that keep increasing the power.

Water is already flowing through the gardens, salty and dangerously moving, but she can pull away the fearful or the enchanted from trying to drown one another in there.

In the stories of gods, they never tell enough of the mortal helpers or their contributions. They don't often say which person tirelessly ran themselves to fatigue to save others...

Or those who ran from a god of the hunt themselves, for Sedna is the death found in the drowning deep, and she is preoccupied by her servants giving chase. Thea Queen may have bought a few precious minutes for Hermod.

For Sif. For Brunnhilde.

For reality itself.