9641/The Gray Flames of Surrey

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The Gray Flames of Surrey
Date of Scene: 15 January 2022
Location: Surrey - England
Synopsis: No description
Cast of Characters: Atrun Rai, Illyana Rasputina, Stephen Strange




Atrun Rai has posed:
    In ancient days, the Romans in their conquest of what would become England laid their roads across hill and dale -- here in Surrey there is no small number of them. The so-called 'Stane Street' is the greatest of these arteries, connecting Londinium to Noviomagus Reginorum (London to Chichester, that is) and serving as the stage for an endless flow of blood and human misery. And the march of civilization, of course. Can't forget that.

    Today, it is mostly abandoned. But there are other roads that run beneath the weathered stones, roads ever more ancient than they -- roads of magic, radiating through the bridlepaths, in the hollows of the hills. It is in the hollow of one such set of hills east of Hardham, toward the southern end of the ancient road, where one glimmering current terminates; normally a peaceful, quiet place, it is tonight a site of nightmares. The ripples of magic, carried along through the network up to London where the Sanctum stands, are able to detected as if via seismograph: where a circle of paleolithic stones had stood, unknown to anyone but perhaps the errant hiker, there are greasy spots in the form of humans who had fallen to the earth, or more accurately, were thrown there. Large splashes of blood radiating out from the stones, frozen and black from sudden age. And everywhere in the hollow, a soft, pale carpet of what might be ash in a kinder universe - but it is /not/ ash. It is the residue of a force that is used in vanishingly rare conditions on this planet now, in these days: the flames of entropy, gray and pallid, have been loosed here. Somewhere. Somehow.

    Perhaps the pleasant man in the quasi-clerical clothing and vaguely Mesopotamian beard, standing in the center of this eldritch devastation, could be of help.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
British roads serve to disrupt nice fields and perplex travellers, move goods and bisect churchyards from high streets. The idea of straight, tidy autobahns and interstates stretching out with tantalizing speed limits in excess of 80 km/h belong wholly to the Continent or bastard Americans, not the Sceptr'd Isle that throws up every barrier known to Queen and country to impede traffic of any sort. Convenience of achieving high speed with a straight mile ahead? Throw a cowgrate or an ancient bridge in the way. Oh ho, someone getting excited about four lanes of well-served macadam? Inexplicably throw an exit for a slow-moving backroad labelled by a Historic England and a Grade II* building, requiring everyone sloooow down to an unfathomable 35 km/h. Mustn't upset the precious ewes and calves.

Illyana grips the wheel one-handed in a seductive Z4, slaloming around pokey Vauxhalls and incanting deep guttural sibilance that passes for language. A human throat or tongue cannot produce such sounds normally and there she does, laying her accusations on a pottering Friday driver headed for the Midlands at no particular speed worth noting. The BMW's turn signal flashes, a sign of the End Times upon them, for what actual BMW driver ever uses that optional feature? A startled Mini almost careens off the road, tyres spitting up gravel.

Swooping into the outbound lane, she swings up onto the ramp depositing them abruptly past a gated intersection into nowhere. The car's console glows with a smattering of routes devised by a drunken spider blindfolded and forced to dance to the gnarled reverb of a broken dulcimer, with engineers to make real the horrible excuse for a road network. "We should have portaled," she insists to Stephen, the night slicing by them as she negotiates the turns without much aid from the hyper-bright headlights. It helps being able to see in nearly perfect darkness, creature of Hell that she is.

The first sight of rearing stones lies ahead, dappled dark on dark, and she points. He probably prefers she doesn't, especially with the picnic basket assembled from a damn fine cheesemonger in /his/ lap rather than hers.

Stephen Strange has posed:
With a scarred hand holding onto the frame of the door and the other holding the handle of the picnic basket as still as possible upon his lap, Stephen Strange appears to be the epitome of calm. Even his voice seems to be rather even keeled. "The idea was for a pleasant drive in the country. To enjoy the journey as well as the destination. Portaling directly there would have denied the experience." Yet, even as he speaks, there are signs that he is not *exactly* the picture of calm. The knuckles on that picnic handle are rather tight...and growing whiter by the moment. And that grip on the door frame isn't as nearly as casual as the sorcerer lets on.

And...after that sharp turn...Stephen utters what sounds awfully like a concession.

"Perhaps we should have portaled."

The pointing is noted...and Stephen nods. "I see it. We should stop." No...of course it wasn't to stop the drive. Never. There was a mystery to solve.

It is only a happy circumstance that it involves not being in a vehicle to do so.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    Woe betide all those who try to picnic on a cold winter day in Surrey, for there will always be some benighted horror or antisocial monstrosity to louse it up. Perhaps the curse of true power is to forever have to subsist on cold meats and flat lemonade when one is abroad, when one deigns to travels as the mortals do.

    Or, perhaps, one is doomed to happen upon horrible tableaus as the one here now. Raked by the lights of the BMW, the familiar form - at least to Ilyana - of the man who called himself Atrun-Rai turns to regard the approaching car; he squints past the searing glow of the headlamps, sees who's in the driver's seat. Does thing that men standing among the blasted shadows of humans and whose robes are flecked with the very ash of the flames of entropic annihilation rarely do: smiles. Big, warm. Friendly. Bellows to her in Russian in an equally big, warm, friendly baritone. With no accent.

    << Ilyana Strange of Irktusk! Hello! >>

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
They should have portaled. The beauty for piercing the fabric of space never receives its proper due unless someone needs an immediate way around inconveniences like budget airlines or security at the airport inexplicably growing irate dealing with someone who has no ID or their functional age appears to be ten. Illyana slows the BMW coupe some, tyre treads throwing up a rooster tail of loose stone and dirt behind the bumper before she guides the vehicle into an excuse for a pull-off. No such niceties as actual parking lots this way, and the last building some half-kilometer back is dark for the night. If night started at 4 pm, then it's early to bed and late to rise.

The seatbelt recoils with a satisfying metallic click, and she nudges the door open to ease her way out. "Best place for a picnic. Somewhere old and scenic, da?" The sign nearby might indicate the ruins' name. Probably something like Caldwell Farm or Kettlebinge-upon-Savonyforsythe or any equally peculiar English name. She circles the boot of the car and comes over to Strange's side to open the door for him -- not in some mistaken show of chivalry gender-flipped, but the practicality of not making him choose between his clothes and a basket of food.

No delicious prepared foods from Sainsburys or the wallpaper paste and wilted rocket sandwiches from a rustic roadstop on the motorway for those who fall afoul of the curse laden on them. The blonde Russian sorceress leans against the bonnet, stretching out to her full height, looking utterly nonplussed by shadow or strange people walking through the downs in their chalky array. A man smiling in the dark is more teeth than eyes, more intent than visible purpose.

<<Atrun-Rai of dead lands. We hunt?>>

Stephen Strange has posed:
Yes. They should have portaled. Not that Strange is going to admit anymore of his alternate view (not a failure of judgement, heaven's no), but yes....it was similar driving that may have been the first step towards his mystical enlightenment. And...he was not necessarily eager to relive that revelation. Still, no complaints from him. Just a wry little smile and a nod of thanks as the door is opened for him, to allow for an escape with clothing and food basket intact.

And...while any normal person might be more inclined to regard the blonde languidly stretching against the car, Strange instead turns his gaze beyond. To the individual that greets Illyana in unaccented Russian. A raise of the eyebrow is given as the surname given to Illyana is caught, widening that smirk just slightly more. Perhaps Stephen is not quite used to it yet...or something else tickled his fancy. In any case, Strange remains standing, basket in hand, as the two greet each other.

"Hunting, are we?" The reply is in English, but betrays much. For one, that Stephen perfectly understands Russian. And two, that the pair before him have met before. That bodes intrigue for him.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    Yes, they probably should have portaled. But what would they have come upon if they had? The man who speaks to her in Russian is /not/ Russian by any stretch of the imagination, though if one squinted hard enough one might even think he might be some species of Orthodox priest -- but again, ashes of entropy's raw flame, the seething aftereffects of elemental annihilation. Uncommon magic in the extreme. His aura, too, is odd, like a Polaroid with a thumb left over his face as the picture resolved. Strange, strange, strange, but to the eyes of the Sorcerors Supreme it should seem as some obvious if ingenious act of cosmic trickery and some new species of arcane existence. A wizard of some form, certainly. But is he human? Yet to be determined.

    But now, the man approaches, shifting from Russian to simple English, and here he wears an accent that is as vaguely Mediterranean as his features. "Lantala is not dead, sister," he says to her, crossing the field of scorched shadows and powdered matter. "She sleeps eternally in my heart. Ah! Doctor Strange." He executes a curious gesture over his heart as he gives a shallow bow at the waist, hand twisting into something like a mudra. "I am Atrun-Rai of Lantalla, member of the Amataoi and the last of the Mestales, Court Magician to His Towering Majesty Estuan, Fourth of His Name." If there is any sorceror on this planet that would have knowledge of any of these terms, it would likely be them -- ancient names from Atlantis, ancient footnotes in a history that died some seventeen thousand years ago. Names from Atlantis's early days, when the Ten Kingdoms still stood as an independent league, and Atlantis was not an empire but one of them. Forty-four thousand years have passed since the days of Atrun-Rai.

    Then he simply sticks his hand out to each of them, in turn. "Hunting? No, the hunt is over. Cult of the Black Mother, or some branch thereof. They keep thinking that their patron wants reality torn open. She does not."