939/Radio K.A.O.S.

Radio K.A.O.S.
Date of Scene:	02 April 2020
Location:	Radio City Music Hall
Synopsis:	No description
Cast of Characters:	Russ Broxtel, Clea

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Russ Broxtel has posed:
    It's midnight thirty. Earlier tonight the music hall featured "Riverdance 25th Anniversary Show" and now everyone has left except for the cleaning staff and a few managers. The cleaning staff is composed of 22 people of various ethnicities, ages, and genders. One particular individual is a man named Russ Broxtel, ex convict (exonerated - so is it really ex con?). But, he's been a top knotch employee for weeks now as he's obviously trying to turn his life around. He has a mop and is pushing it across the stage and muttering something about how the Riverdancers scuffed his floor. Another employee chuckles and found it humorous.

    Meanwhile, backstage, another of the cleaners, Esmeralda Lopez has been cleaning the dressing room of the superstar of the dancing rivers. The main clogger himself William Bryant. She discovers an ornate ring that had dropped slightly beneath and behind the dressing booth. She finds the golden and gemed ring quite striking and she figures that she will try it on. Surely she's not going to steal it. She just wants to know what it looks like on her hand. It's a man's ring, quite large (size 11) and dwarfs her small middle finger. However, the moment she puts it on, there's a subtle glow to it and it shrinks to fit her perfectly. She exclaims, "Amazing!" (translated from the Spanish - Bob). But she's also a bit frightened. For she feels the presence of something beyond just the magic of the ring. Something that senses her. Something that is closing fast upon the Music Hall.

    The Darkness - D'Spayre awakens. His glowing white eyes peer throughout his realm and he senses someone touching a mystical artifact. The Ring of Enchnon. He smiles. His nefarious grin. He stands and will follow the sensation from the ring. He rips a hole in space time and emerges atop the Music Hall of the Radio City. His cape billows in the wind. He snarls, and starts his descent through the floors. Phasing through them, descending toward the dressing room. Toward poor unsuspecting Esmeralda.

    In other parts of the multiverse, Clea can sense the tear in the fabric of space/time and can sense D'Spayre. Should she choose to accept the mission, she is quite capable and able - also the best choice for the scene.

Clea has posed:
Seeing anyone do some kind of Riverdance proves a fascination for Clea, given she isn't exactly the most cultured of New Yorkers. The tickets to a show are easy enough to procure, what with a few strings pulled and a last minute purchase made at the box office after standing in line forever. It means dressing up a bit and having a night on the town among others who are clearly doing very human things, with very human company, according to very human tastes. She sits through a show without stirring much, welded to the front of her seat in anticipation as the athleticism and dynamic dancing combined with skirling pipes and rapid footwork enchant her. Hard not to want to tap her toe in time to the beat of Irish-inspired music, though the Gaels may have their own opinion about this offshoot of their cultural legacy. It matters not, everything is perfectly enchanting and delightful as far as the platinum blonde is concerned. She is an enthusiastic participant in the applause afterward, though she doesn't participate in the teary-eyed, maudlin admiration of the woman beside her or the patently bored stares of the teenager on the other side dragged along as a chaperone for at least three aunts who keep saying the drive down from Burlington was totally worth it.

It's late, of course, and with the last of the crowd trickling away through the mezzanine and collecting their coats. She is a bit loathe to leave behind the memories of the music dancing in her veins and visions swirling around her head, but even she understands the decorum. None of the performers are likely here for long, eager for a shower and a drink. Enough of the haunts on Fifth Avenue and the adjacent neighbourhoods might be open late for a drink and a bite to eat. There's always the Starlight Diner, or a run through Central Park for those daring enough to deal with it. Mostly willing to deal with the risks: hobos, occasional demons, super-powered heroes having fights with sharks.

So it is she's a three block walk away when she vanishes through a temporal rift to home. Long enough to leave a special reminder of her trip abroad in her collection, the program set among different grimoires, a rail token, hints of a life spanning far longer than her evident twenty years or so. She no sooner has slid out of her coat than the wrongness hits. Than that sense something has gone terribly, utterly awry. Considering the benefits of continuing her evening alone no longer applies. Her head turns, the snapping wrist turning and twisting the fabric of reality to part it in one of those telltale portals that Doctor Strange is so fond of. The Dark Dimension's energies permeate it, permeating her in kind, giving a boost to the residual fluctuations of her own power. Then she floats through, taking a step. It wouldn't do to be right on the stage -- never.

Much more practical, she flits out in the coat check and almost runs face first into someone's forgotten winter puffer coat. At least it's soft, though she has to sweep the sleeve away from her arm. "And here I wanted to see another episode of Outlander." The murmur is spoken to no one in particular, but she peeks a look around the open doorway and starts following the arcane signature.

Russ Broxtel has posed:
    Phasing from the ceiling into the dressing room. D'Spayre stands with his back to the dressing room door but faces the poor Esmeralda who is looking at the pretty ring with her hand held aloft. He is 10 feet away from her. She barely feels the aberration and begins to slowly turn.

    While others of the magical sort could easily feel the darkness of D'Spayre within the dressing room area. And in particular, the star's dressing room.

    The majority of the area is devoid of people. Most are still cleaning the stage and seating parts. There are a few people, hit or miss, within other dressing rooms vacuuming and making enough noise not to notice anything going on beyond their attention's focus.

Clea has posed:
Clea flicks her wrists, shaping another quiet spell that weaves together the light around her so it reflects off. In short, a veil of invisibility settling over her. Nothing about it intends to focus the eye, but it can lie unnoticed against the lower-level mystical senses. For anyone else, actively suppressing her aura requires a great deal more work than simply urging the mind to look past her. The noise of vacuums and brooms might swallow up her footfalls, but again, nothing here is left to chance. She floats a few inches above the ground, ghosting along like a living phantom. Here, in the terrestrial realm, her mastery is not absolute. Neither is everything so utterly certain as home; home as one would define it, anyway. A chill prickles her skin as she feels the shifting vagaries of humankind, since vanished to their homes or their jobs. But that wrongness, that stultifying wrongness, cleaves through the miasma like a blade.

But someone's at risk. Certainly if D'Spayre is here, it cannot be just to pick up a copy of the New York Times and a coffee. The tattered coat of shadows and the white, bony visage are sure to stand out, even as she pauses to glance down corridors and through partly adjacent doors. Know your way out, as well as the way in. It's an old maxim, and applied. Being stealthy is something she's good at, but breaching the dressing rooms after tracing the trail of poisoned fear takes her closer to the heart of darkness.

And she, the only embodied light of the Faltines born, holds to her resolve.

Russ Broxtel has posed:
    Just as Esmeralda begins to turn, D'Spayre weaves his illusion. The room changes around her to become a fancy ballroom in a great and glorious Spanish castle from the middle ages. She is dressed in a ballgown, long gloves, glass slippers, and a tiara. She is the belle of the ball. As she turns to see D'Spayre, she doesn't see the macabre horror; instead, she sees a dashing prince wearing a period tuxedo of black and white with fancy gemed buttons. He wears the crown of a prince, her prince. Esmeralda smiles and he takes steps toward her in a fashion of offering to dance. Music plays in the background, a stringed waltz.

    As with all illusions of such power, Clea will struggle to know the truth as she may also get caught up in the facade. It is the nature of D'Spayre to create elaborate illusions that can trick the greatest of minds like that of Strange. Clea may also find herself wearing a ball gown and could be caught up in the illusion. There are many other very olive featured handsome suitors about, awaiting the opportunity to dance with a fair maiden.

Clea has posed:
A glorious castle, a dashing Infanta. What things are dreams made of, if not the shining lies spun with a kernel of truth? They can sweep up their bystanders perfectly well, and drown the unsuspecting in the luscious panoply of velvet and hooped skirts, candlelight and savory flavours rising from a roast in the back corner. Incense that sweeps over recalls Catholic masses and long, sultry nights.

In fairness, none of these experiences hold a sense of familiarity for Clea, who has no touchstones. Oh, she was /alive/ in the period, without fail, but imprisoned, divorced from Earth, caught up in the struggles and strife of a much greater, older danger. He doesn't share comfortably.

The Faltine thumbs the heavy velvet and silk gown, arranged in an almost chokingly wide circle over hoops. It's nothing like the slender profiles she tends to prefer, and even figuring out how it moves is an object lesson for a girl who floats by nature. Her fingers strike her brow. The glamour wrapped around her protects her from sight, somewhat. Unless it's an illusion against an illusion, and how do they blend, how do they blur? Danger brought her here, danger she cannot see.

Are those oranges? The sumptuous offering of fruit used for decoration captivates her for a moment, the murmurs of music passing over her head and gathering her to its bosom. Harmonies plucked just enough for her to reach out, tracing the shape of unfamiliar architecture. She came with a purpose.

She also came with a crown, and that fact isn't lost in midnight shadows, though the reason why it remains suppressed perhaps is. But for a moment, she hangs back, see sawing through realities, as the intuitive voice -- one honed at her uncle's knee, in a court of horror -- whispers its seduction. Hide, princess, hide. And the spell is almost on her lips to bind herself in protection.

Russ Broxtel has posed:
    The steps come without question to Esmeralda as she's swept about the ballroom floor by her charming prince. She is in love, her eyes dreamy as she looks up to him. His stature is strong and does not falter with each step in the waltz - practically carrying the dreaming woman. His left hand holds her right, his fingers touching the ring. His right hand is around her waist. He twirls her and the ring is captured into his hand; upon his own finger it comes to rest. She doesn't even notice.

    A would-be suitor approaches Clea, and in her native tongue asks, "Would you fancy a dance, beautiful lady?" He, like the prince is wearing a peroid tuxedo with tails, fancy baubles about his chest, a striking royal necklace. His gloved hand offers itself to her - for her to take - with or without oranges.

    Those oranges smell so sweet. Their skin feels fresh. They will be so tasty if bitten into.

Clea has posed:
The sweep of her velvet and silk skirt utters a sibilant plea, motion made. Someone coming near her startles her from her reverie of oranges and music, the notes of a waltz nothing at all like the fast beats patterned on a stage, shared between leaps and masterful arrangements of choreography.

A space she was scarcely an hour ago. The jarring cognizance gives reason to look around for proof of the dancers, the Irish who absolutely aren't in evidence here. Especially for the abundance of cocky, fiery Spaniards waiting for their cue. She halts thus, her shoulders lifting. "How do you know how to speak...?" The question languishes, a caress of sound and no more. Esmeralda turns and turns again, caught up in her capture, her suitor a figure of monochrome airs and dulcet graces. Jealous? Not in the least, for the Faltine woman turns her head back to the man adorned in glittering features. "You would know it is forbidden. My rank prevents it."

and the first flickering flare of fire shows in those violet eyes, condensing as a pale, suffused glow on hair so fair it's naturally a pearled white. Here, perhaps, not so, gold; but the flames that trail a ghostly nimbus follow her as that memory collides and bursts like a seed in spring. "I am the regent, and the regent stands alone."

A knell, if he's listening, in the midst of his workings. The invocation strikes a kindled note, one that carries a charge of her home plane.

Russ Broxtel has posed:
    As Clea's awareness becomes more acute to the reality of the situation, she will be able to see the darkness that wraps Esmeralda in dark dispair. Though she is enraptured by the illusion of the waltz, she feels the pain of loss, the absence of the man whom she loved so long ago. The very man whose visage is with whom she dances. Tears flow from her eyes, streaking down her face. Yet, in the very same instance, she is smiling, happy, so content and in love with her prince.

    D'Spayre is aware of Clea. But she does not hold his attention as he feeds on the despair of Esmeralda. Though Clea will soon force his hand and he knows these things. He continues to waltz with the woman.

    The man denied takes a few steps back. Bowing and giving Clea her space. However, it should be noted that his dark features turn even darker. Eyes begin to turn purple. Just like the other 8 would-be suitors that stand on the sidelines.