8688/Noble Gases

Noble Gases
Date of Scene:	15 November 2021
Location:	Gotham Cemetery
Synopsis:	Angela and Etrigan argue over whose turn it is to pay the bill.
Cast of Characters:	Jason Blood, Aldrif Odinsdottir

---

Jason Blood has posed:
The man walking through the cemetery is tall, with a noble bearing. His walking stick taps against the stones of the path he walks. A faint chittering reaches his ears on the breeze and he smiles. Up ahead a rotten shambling mockery of the living walks onto the path and shuffles towards him eagerly. More misshapen forms join it.

Jason Blood smirks and begins the old rhyme:

"Change! Change! O' form of man!

Free the prince forever damned!

Free the might from fleshy mire!

Boil the blood in the heart for fire!

Gone! Gone! O' form of man!

Rise the demon Etrigan!"

There is a flash of flames that sear the eyes but don't seem to shine. A yellow hulking demon stands where Blood was.

    "Hello my rotting charnel friends

    Bring your maker to the Prince forever damned!

    I'll send you back to your cold tombs

    With demon fire to light your gloom!"

He begins a mocking laugh.

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
    There's also a naked woman.

    Well, that's overselling it. She does have a gold breastplate the size and style of a bandeau bra, and purple knickers that are only barely more concealing than the miniskirt-sized leather belt she wears over them. Two long ribbons, at least five feet, drift about her as if caught in a wind, but the wind doesn't seem to be moving her red mane of hair at all; then again, her hair is very thick and long, so maybe it's too heavy for the wind to move. Oh, and she's also wearing a winged circlet. Mustn't forget that. Maybe those things distract from the fact that her eyes are featureless white orbs with what looks like tattoos of jagged red lightning bolts descending to her cheeks but, all things considered, are probably not tattoos.

    She is standing atop the head of the gargoyle statue mounted on the roof of the gravekeeper's shack, and does not seem to be participating in anything the undead are doing. I'm sure she's just an innocent bystander.

Jason Blood has posed:
Etrigan charges the lesser horrors. A claw swipes and head rolls free. The boney hands reaching at him hardly slow him down as he wreaks carnage among the revenants. More arise and n the back of them a hooded figure, directs, its hands glowing with green flame."

    "Your rotting husks avail you nought

    Your existence is with risk now fraught.

    Lay down and die you cannot stand

    Against one who Heaven fought!"

Etrigan roars as he is delayed, and catches sight of Angela, just as an eldritch blast sears his chest.

"Look what the cat has brought..."

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
    "I know no cat," Angela corrects Etrigan in a tone of complete seriousness but not gravity, the same way she might explain that this bus is on the red line to someone who thought they were about to get on the green line, assuming for the sake of analogy that Angela knew anything about buses and their routes. She continues to observe the fight impassively, ankles together to keep her balance on her toes between the gargoyle's horns, arms loose at her sides and not especially near the hilt of a broadsword sheathed horizontally in the small of her back but also not especially far from it. She watches the fight impassively, but it's the kind of impassive that's a little too impassive to be real and probably masks actual interest.

    To the hooded being, she observes, "You seem doomed, if the soldiers you summon are so ineffective against the enemy you mean to be protected from. Before you die, what was the nature of your argument with that being?"

Jason Blood has posed:
Etrigan throws limbs and bodies about all of them no longer attached. As for the hooded being, he receives a blast of fire from the demon's maw, and vanishes, replaced by ashes. Etrigan gains the roof of the shack, which somehow shakes under his weight but remains standing.

    "As to the cause of our little spat

    You'd have to visit him in hell to learn that.

    What be you, lovely, of form sublime?

    You're not o' the Pit, nor the boring Divine.

    Angels dress in dress in robes and hoods

    Whereas you display... your goods."

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
    Angela frowns as she pivots on her toes to face the hulking, sulfur-breathed brute who has joined her atop the shack. "You killed that person before they could answer my question. Their burden now falls to you. What was the nature of your quarrel?" she asks again, ignoring the question and veiled slut-shaming thrown her way as well as his size and propensity for violence.

Jason Blood has posed:
Etrigan's eyes blaze red for a moment.

    "Such as you does not give me orders.

    Etrigan romps and play where he will

    He knows no borders.

    Yet I will answer your rude request

    Just say, 'Please.'

    I'll do the rest."

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
    Angela's frown deepens. Her gold bracers, seemingly hard as any metal ought to be, flow like metal down her wrists and into her hands, becoming paired weapons like handaxes, but, like, Star Trek-versions of handaxes, you know? The heads are way too big, way too circular, and have weird hooked divots in the blades that make no sense, while the overall shape of them is so flat and thin you'd suspect they were made from sheet metal in someone's garage.

    On the other hand, they literally just grew themselves out of some kind of liquid metal, so maybe they're more serious than Lt. Worf's bat'leth.

    Angela draws no attention to them, though, nor makes a threatening move beyond drawing them. She simply says, flatly, "Please."

Jason Blood has posed:
Etrigan gets a feverish, excited look in his eyes as the weapons come out. His face falls as she honors his request.

    "I'm bored by more conversation

    This wearies me.

    Take it away beloved Jason!

    Gone, Gone o' Etrigan!

    Arise again, form of man!"

Another burst of demon fire. The dapper man reappears. "Thank you Etrigan. Thank you so much -you scurvy offense all men should beat!" He becomes aware of Angela and the axes and says, "Evening, Miss. I am Jason Blood. I apologize for that rankest compound of villainous smells." He extends a hand politely

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
    Angela examines the extended hand, flicking her eyes down to it and back. Her eyes being featureless, you can only tell they moved because of the way the light reflection changes on them. She doesn't shake it, but hey, her hands are full so that's probably it. She just states, "If you are the same being as the one I addressed, then you have stolen an answer from me. I demand it be returned. If you are not the same being, then I have been given an insult in addition to the theft, and I wish to locate the yellow creature to repay the debts it inflicted upon me."

    Her weird axe-thingies continue to dangle loosely at knee level, blades pointed behind her.

Jason Blood has posed:
Jason Blood adjusts his tie. "I am NOT the same as that scurrilous clotpoll. However, I shall be glad to restore your purloined answer as I know his habits well. He is loosed from Hell to find those others who escape and send them back. He derives some payment for this in whatever form the various Hell Lords use. I am sorry if he insulted and wronged you, warrior. Would you allow me to buy you some beverage to recompense you?" He does keep an eye on the axes.

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
    Angela's weapons flow back up her forearms, becoming bracers again with no fuss nor muss. Her head cocks slightly to the side, which seems like it would be hard to do with those big metal wings on her temples; it seems like with that much weight on your head, cocking it to the side would be an all or nothing venture. "Why do you offer to pay Etrigan's debt, Jason Blood? Does it give you leverage over this being who can banish himself at will?"

Jason Blood has posed:
Jason Blood chuckles. "First it will annoy him. Second, I do not like to see people affronted. Regardless, the necromancer was an escaped soul and a very bad one. Etrigan banished him. We worked together on this. I was bait to lure him out. I try to curb his worst impulses and turn him to good. Sometimes it is very hard. It also seems as though there are a lot more demons on Earth these days. Etrigan is the blunt instrument. I am the scalpel, demonologist, minor conjurer, jack of all trades. Now you have the advantage as I do not know your name. I take it you are from far away."

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
    Angela nods succinctly. "Yes, it is good to have the advantage, but for your services I will repay by surrendering it. I am Angela of Heven. What harm would I do to you, were I to kill your blunt instrument?"

Jason Blood has posed:
Jason Blood smirks. "We are bonded and share this existence. I've tried to rid myself of him for ages. I was set as his keeper for my transgressions. My charge is to turn him to do good and it is my duty. So apart from what it would do to me, I'd rather you let him be and leave him to me. Killing him could be my end. Though he could stand a few hard knocks. I will not begrudge you that pleasure on the hedgeborn, horn knotted, bugbear. It is courteou of you to ask or offer. My thanks." He gives her a courtly bow.

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
    Angela does not bow to Jason, but nods, and silently regards him for long enough to get awkward. Her face gives away nothing but she is thinking about the logistics of hunting a teleporter and beating him up enough as to get her revenge without incurring any from Jason Blood, who, as far as she can tell, seems decent if weirdly untrustworthy about looping her into situations to owe him something. She comes to a decision, nods once briskly, and flexes her ankles hard enough to leap off the gargoyle's head and onto the shack's roof proper. "Very well. You may inform Etrigan that Heven's mistress of the hunt comes for him; that he may hide in Midgaard or Hel or any realm between without avail, for there is no land beyond the sight and the judgment. You may also inform him that he shall survive the hunt because blood rather than Blood shall pay, but that his survival will bring with it wisdom he currently lacks.

    "Or you may tell him nothing at all, as pleases you. You are not a courier."

    With that, she drops to a knee and examines the scorch marks on the roof left by the transformation, smearing the soot first on her fingers, then on her tongue.

Jason Blood has posed:
Jason Blood chuckles. Then stops as he works at getting off the roof. He dusts off his hands. "If you intend on handing him a thorough beating, a cup of coffee is the least I can do for you to show my thanks, if nothing else."