Difference between revisions of "9681/Ruins of Radio City"

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(Created page with "{{Log Header |Date of Scene=2022/01/17 |Location=Radio City Music Hall |Synopsis=Atrun-Rai visits Phoebe at the site of her experiment's first sucsess, and shares a story with...")
 
 
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|Synopsis=Atrun-Rai visits Phoebe at the site of her experiment's first sucsess, and shares a story with her. Phoebe listens, and the two magus, in their agreeable way, admit a warning to the younger about closing themselves off too entirely from their opposites.
 
|Synopsis=Atrun-Rai visits Phoebe at the site of her experiment's first sucsess, and shares a story with her. Phoebe listens, and the two magus, in their agreeable way, admit a warning to the younger about closing themselves off too entirely from their opposites.
 
|Cast of Characters=690,3692
 
|Cast of Characters=690,3692
 +
|Tinyplot=Path of Glory
 
|pretty=yes
 
|pretty=yes
 
}}
 
}}

Latest revision as of 08:43, 21 January 2022

Ruins of Radio City
Date of Scene: 17 January 2022
Location: Radio City Music Hall
Synopsis: Atrun-Rai visits Phoebe at the site of her experiment's first sucsess, and shares a story with her. Phoebe listens, and the two magus, in their agreeable way, admit a warning to the younger about closing themselves off too entirely from their opposites.
Cast of Characters: Phoebe Beacon, Atrun Rai
Tinyplot: Path of Glory


Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    There was a large hole in the top and side of the Radio City Music hall, where portions of its roof had been collapsed in -- partially on purpose. The archetectural and acoustic ceiling was snug against the seats and circles rendered in red spraypaint, followed by concrete and insultation, panelling from the walls.

    The burnt-in forms of Phoebe's incindiary circles lay across from the wall, from where angels had been caught in a literal crossfire. Hundreds of angels and cherubim cast down and crushed in a moment's notice, at a few hours preparation.

    And on the stage, clad in armor and her coat against the cold, Phoebe had a little camp stove going with a basic kettle atop, looking over the ruins of the wreckage she had wrought.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    A large hole in the top and side of Radio City Music Hall. One of the Rockettes, no doubt, developed superpowers in the middle of a kick line. Oh. No, it's just Phoebe. There is a horrible chill that fills the air as a rent begins to open in the space on the other side of the damaged rooftop: a thin line that draws itself down from a spot some seven feet in the air, widening to a black triangle, widest at the base, while a shuddering force seems to radiate from the plane of space in which it opens. It is...like reality set up a bass rig and turned it to eleven, though there is no sound, just the vibration, and only for whose attuned to the mystical. Just as it opens, it fades quickly - but not before Atrun Rai steps out, brushing at his cassock. Eyes Phoebe sitting there, lips twisted into a faint smirk.

    "So," he offers, looking wry. "I hear you are not a fan of the musical theater, sister."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe feels the shudder. She feels her senses tremble, frayed and harrowed as her nerves were at this moment, and she gives a soft hiss, grabbing at her extendable staff as the shudder rattles through the plane and then -- it's Atrun-Rai.

    "On the *contrary*." Phoebe remarks dryly, eyeballing the ancient mage. "I like musical theater. Just thought it could do with a little redecorating. I hear the skylight will be fabulous." she comments brightly, making the best of a joke between them, and she sits back down. "Can I make you a cup of tea? I've just got a couple teabags on me, so it's nothing fancy."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "You could try and fix things, perhaps?" He walks across the roof, steps deceptively light, as reality heals itself entirely behind him. Oddly, not even a scar, just a faint darkening that's already beginning to fade. The Void need not be violent, apparently. "I'm rather curious how you did it in the first place, sister -- and no, thank you. Today I have been busy."

    He stops a short distance from her, looking down into the reuined theater. "So. Hostilities have been finally joined. I take it all are well? Jon hasn't met his self-prescribed fate?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Mm, to what extent? My cleaning spells are cantrips meant to clean smoke out of someone's hair or dry some socks. Doesn't even work so well over a full set of clothing..." Phoebe remarks, "Meeting one of the Leaders of the Brotherhood of Mutants after falling into her koi pond and having wet undernithings wasn't comforting at all." Phoebe remarks conversationally, and she looks out over the ruins.

    "And I didn't. I brought down the archetectural stuff and acoustic ceiling. The angel Sara dispatched did the rest. And I still hold it inside of me." Phoebe replies, and she gives a small, dry smile, and then looks down.

    "Yeah. Jon lived, sealed the fountain at Battery park. Michael and I have made acquaintence. Nearly got obliterrated, instead -- I'm still finding glitter in my clothing. Freakin' Vorpal." she jokes, leaning back.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "Well, I'm glad to hear it." He peers down into the hole again. "I wonder if I might be able to fix it." He looks sidelong at the woman. "You'll make it happpen. The Old Ones are confident, at this point - which should say a great deal. They have, unfortunately, directed me from the field. But for good reason. Angels may have Manhattan, but there are forces everywhere now stirring in the dark, seeking to take advantage. Already I have been sent to destroy a cult dedicated to the Great Dark Mother, trying to bring her young into the world to rampage while all eyes are on this city." A beat. "She does not, of course, wish to enter. So they must be destroyed."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "At least the Great Old Ones have faith in us?" she adds with a dry note in her voice, almost as a joke -- and she snappoints at Atrun-Rai.

    "See, *see*, when the Night Brigade was founded, that's what we were supposed to do. Root out vampire dens, destroy cults before they brought about the end of the world by summoning your bosses and now I'm stuck fighting for literal existence and stealing Angel Will to try to ascend and become a minor *god* to fight. Just... freaking *why*." Phoebe asks.

    "Are they also trying to destroy the world by bringing the Dark Mother through a gate?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "People are always trying to destroy the world, Phoebe," Atrun-Rai replies, a soft laugh of affectionate bemusement escaping him. "If it isn't the Whisperers of the Womb, it's some other dark soul or cult of monstrosities. The Old Ones have their goals, but as I said, destroying reality isn't one of them. The stars aren't right." He shrugs. "Reality must be preserved."

    That said, he smiles a bit more widely. "In the meantime, I shall play janitor. And gather some of our friends who aren't busy on the field here to do so. It's really quite a lot of work that's out there needs to be done whilst you all deal with Mikha'el."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Yeah, some do it via magic, others are much more quickly using the government and corperations to just destroy the environment so that it's just *mostly* unlivable." Phoebe remarks, and then she chews on her cheek a moment, and she looks at the building's ruinous hole, and the elder magus.

    "I'm sorry that you're stuck cleaning up after me."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    He snorts. "I am not cleaning up after you, you ridiculous creature." It isn't mean, of course. Fond, perhaps a tad brotherly. If he is even capable of such things and this is not simply emulation. "You are not the singular point. And even if there were no angels, this is an entire world. Are you to be a single defender of an entire secret world? No."

    That said, the Atlantean shakes his head, looking back down into the ruins below. "These things happen. It is a sorcerous war; we do not use bombs or artillery, but these things will happen from time to time."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Man I hope not. I have other hobbies. I haven't opened a sketchbook in *days* and I miss my dog." Phoebe replies in a dry tone back up to Atrun-Rai as he comments.

    "I know. It's a war that we should have been able to stop though. I should have been able to stop. If maybe I'd looked closer, or moved back when he offered me my old room, I could have... seen something. I could have done something." she frowns.

    "John Constantine may be his best friend, but I'm his daughter. I was supposed to know these signs." she frowns, and she shrugs. "Maybe a single point could have stopped it, but we'll never know."

    And she gives a slight smirk.

    "And I meant you playing janitor, brother."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    He laughs. "Well, that was more a bash on those I am hunting, sister, not on yourself." A beat. "You know. Purging the mess. Pest control. But a tide of rats will kill you just as quickly as an angry angel, mmm?" That said, he makes a face at her. "You sound like the king," says Atrun-Rai. He looks around for a place to sit - gesturing for a box-ish piece of debris, possibly a section of ventwork, to roll across the roof and stop next to him. He moves to sit cross-legged, using the junk as a seat. "Did I tell you about how I secured my position as court wizard? I'm reasonably sure I might have, but if not, I feel this is the time for detail."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "You've given me a little of your life story. Mine's not as long, just a weirdly complicated mess." Phoebe replies, and she grabs the metal cup that came with the camp stove, its contents cooled enough to sip now, the rich reddish-brown of the tea within the teabag, and she sits down nearer to Atrun-Rai, and she pulls back the hood of her costume. Her hair has been braided and then red-braided into itself, securing it in place. She looks exhausted, her cheeks dirty from debris as she removes the domino that she was using to monitor the ground below, and she stashes it in the pocket inside her hood. Everything stored to the inside, or in her pack.

    "I could definitely do with a story that's not New York right now."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    That gets her a smirk. "I can only imagine," he says, though he procures a kerchief from within his sleeve and holds it out for her. "Well. I had said, before, that during my last years studying at the Red Palace, I had become inducted into the Amatoi, a society of exorcists that worked extensively around the Ten Kingdoms at the time. Our membership was made up of sorcerors from all the Kingdoms, so of course, it was easier to do so. It also made us largely apolitical.

    "So I, having just spent time in R'lyeh on another task, finally came home after several years to return to Lantalla - where I found the court in chaos. The fortress shuttered, the King not speaking to any, the princess nowhere to be seen when she was once seen all over the capital. Well. You can imagine what happened, can you not?" He smiles. "It's a tale as old as time, or at least was common in my day. Which of course was part of the point."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe holds her hand out "I could fix it if I wanted. Just don't have the mental-ness to concentrate on the Latin." she replies gently to Atrun-Rai as he begins his tale, and she sips tea from the tin cup, her gaze settling on him, so much playing over in her mind as she considers his past, stitching together words with her limited Ancient Atlantean knowledge. She sips her tea, fingers curling a little more around her cup as she considers the possibilities of what may have happened.

    "I think I recall that portion of the story, yes."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "Well," he says, gesturing a bit. "His Towering Highness, Estuan, had discovered that his daughter had taken up with what she had come to call her consort, a being that to /her/ eyes was a young nobleman from R'lyeh - that city of wizards was trouble long, long before its premature sinking - but was, to everyone else, clearly a spirit of some kind. A living shadow of a person, insubstantial but somehow visibly human. Transparent." Atrun-Rai pauses to look at his boots a moment. "Do not ever allow yourself to calm loneliness with sorcery, sister. It rarely serves."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe opens her mouth a moment, and she considers Atrun-Rai's words. She closes her mouth, and her hand goes to her chest. The hole in her aura was healed nearly completely now, thanks to Sandalphon, but all the same...

    "Noted." she states quietly, she leans back on the ventwork that was serving as a chair.

    "But you had defeated the demon, after a time, yeah? Saved the princess?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    Atrun-Rai frowns faintly as he looks back to her. "Defeated the demon? Yes. Liberated her from its power? Certainly. But saved her..." The Atlantean heaves a soft sigh. "Salvation comes from choice, Phoebe. It is not something that is conferred. After I wrested Xaja'uul from her side, the Princess Jalusa was no the same for a very long time - she was, indeed, never quite the same as she was before she met the creature. There were...injuries. Self-inflicted. She nearly killed herself several times. That was why I stayed at the palace, you see. To keep her from dying." He smirks. "I think sometimes that His Towering Majesty should have invested in a physician of the mind, not a sorceror. But in time, I managed to help her. She returned to life, scars and all. And I was asked to stay on as King Estuan's court sorceror and advisor on arcane matters."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe looks to the frown, and she gives a nod to Atrun-Rai as she considers his story, and she stretches her legs a moment, weighing her words. The camp stove below runs out of its timer, and the fire goes out, the blue flame vanishing in a puff of gas and a click of the timer.

    "I can relate I think, to Jalusa. Loneliness can be an awful thing to confront when you think there's no one else that could possibly love you." she remarks very carefully. "How did you help her after wresting Xaja'uul away from her? Did it hurt her, to give him up?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "It destroyed her." Blunt and to the point. He sounds tired, saying the words. "Her Highness had...certain sicknesss of the heart, the mind. You could call it clinical depression in the modern day, but culturally it was sometimes seen as a hole in the soul -- literally, in this case, because it sometimes happened that people were born in those days with incomplete souls. Strange condition." Atrun-Rai shakes his head. "She was not incomplete, of course, but she felt it. And so she sat by the fountain in her personal gardens and cried about how lonely she was, how she wanted someone just like her, someone that could fill her loneliness. And something answered. That something was, of coures, Xaja'uul. Xaja'uul the Sorrow, who drove many maids to drown themselves in their tears, as well as the basins of water that mixed with them."

    Atrun-Rai heaves a long, soft sigh. "Essentially a serial killer, that one. Xaja'uul was known to us in the time. The Amatakoi. He had killed many young women over our history. A common story, common methodology. Never a princess of the blood before, of course. She was particularly vulnerable to him."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe is quiet. Her gaze was dark, her face kept carefully neutral as she listens to Atrun-Rai speak of Xaja'uul and his mode of operation for drowning women across the ancient kingdoms, her legs drawing up after a moment as she sets her chin on her armored knee.

    "For what purpose? Feeding off their loneliness, condemining their own souls? I Mean, is there a reason he did it, Atrun-Rai?" she inquires quietly. Knowledge both increases sorrow and preparedness, after all, and her heart went out to the lonely, broken princess of so many aeons ago.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "Xaja'uul thrives on misery." He looks across the way at her, and sighs. "You are not the same as her. But once she had come back to herself, she...hardened. Cut herself off from the world. You cannot do that, Phoebe. You must learn that these things happen, these cosmic tragedies. That the world can be horrible, cruel. Even these luminous beings with which you clash now - light is not beautiful on its own, sister. Light without warmth, without love, merely scours. Nor does it need to be bright and happy all the time. It can weep as much as anyone else. And so can its bearer."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe's gaze stays on Atrun-Rai, and then she drops her gaze. "I know. Light without warmth is cold, without dark is oppressive. Just as all things turn on the wheel -- or back and forth on a pendelum -- each in its time. Reaping and sowing. Growing and resting." she replies, as if by rote, and she leans her head back, and closes her eyes.

    "I'll weep when there's time to. Sandalphon's gift is holding fast, and so I can concentrate and work without too much anger storming through my mind, the work has to be finished before..." she trails off a moment.

    "Xaja'uul... is he still out there, lurking in the dark and hunting maidens for their tears?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "Demons are hard to annihilate." He eyes her faintly. "But I do not know. Perhaps. But if not him, another. Such creatures exist wherever there is sorrow. Xaja'uul is merely one of the stronger ones. But that was, of course, forty thousand years ago, or more." Atrun-Rai gives her a fint smile. "Truly. Guard your heart, but do not wall it away. And you shall be all right."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "I've removed minor demons from people. Burned them away using The Light. I was a natural at it." she gives a quietl, reflective look, pensive crossing over her face. "Forty THousand years is a pretty long time, even for a demon I guess." she remarks quietly.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "Xaja'uul..." The Atlantean's eyes close, and he draws a deep breath as he inhales of history's perfume. It is not a floral scent, but one of ozone and bitter rot. "...was called Xaja'uul the Sorrow, for it brought down such things upon people and kingdoms since before Atlantis's towers were raised. It came here from another place, another dimension - one of many, for in that time the brood to which it belonged was dispersed when its sire was destroyed by a wizard of that plane. Of all of them, it was the most cruel. Ju'naxil, Zevurix-Haal -- all these cruel destroyers from the shadows were bested before they could /truly/ get started. And they were far more powerful than their sibling. But Xaja'uul..."

    Another deep inhalation of that ancient, forgotten spice, and now Atrun-Rai gives her a smile he does not remotely feel. "We will see. My hope is that the beast has been destroyed in the intervening millenia. That, at least, would be a peaceful thing."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... you don't need to smile if you don't feel like it, Atrun-Rai. I've read so much, so many evils and little bits of darkness that my people have destroyed in the four thousand years of existence..." she trails off a moment, and gives a smile. "It's a lot to process. I don't have so much time for reading it at the moment, but my people, these Villagers in Reeds, they were exorcists, protectors, healers. Maybe if I come across it, and it turns out my ancestors encountered him, I'll have an answer for you." she gives a smile to the elder magus, and stores away the other names. She curls her fingers a bit, and drains the rest of the luke-warm cup of tea.

    "I hope it has been destoryed, sounds like it'd bring you peace."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "I smile because it's better than the alternative." He moves to get to his feet. "I might never do it again should I stop, mmm? And that would be unfortunate." With that, he rises, and brushes dust from his clothes. There isn't much despite the mess. "Be vigilant, but do not close yourself. A closed system courts only entropy. And I should know, eh?" He wiggles his brows, and waves as he goes to the edge of the roof and steps off - and floats, ever downward, to street level before walking off down the street.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "I'll keep a weathered eye." Phoebe replies to Atrun-Rai, lifting her hand in farewell to the man, and watching him, shaking her head as he cracks a joke about Entropy.

    And as he sinks down to the street below, she looks at the wreckage below her, and she attaches a zipline, grabs her camp stove and stashes it away, and then drops down into the belly of the broken auditorium.