Stupid time-sucking TVTropes...

At Notre Dame the sections are prepared
At rue de Bac they're straining at the leash!

At the Paris Opera House, a bedraggled actor has taken the stage. He makes an excellent mummer or beggar; stooped and bent, clothed in a tatterdemalion of rags and refuse. He moves about the stage in silence for a time as patrons fill the reserve boxes, gnarled bent fingers outstretched toward the scenery; a mockup of Paris itself, monuments and impressionisms of her many great structures.

Flames erupt as the streetlights come ablaze in sequence, like a slow steady and unstoppable tide.

He begins to rasp ... a horrid atonal thing that still yet manages to capture some primal rhythm as he rasps and paces, back and forth along the length of the stages ... back and forth across the whole of Paris itself.

The time is near
So near it's stirring the blood in their veins!
And yet beware
Don't let the wine go to your brains!

For the beast we fight is a dangerous foe
With a strength and a prowess that we never can match

Erikun steps onto the stage, looking bewildered, out-of-place. The beggar-man does not lose a step, not a note, turning to him.

"Erikun, you're late. What's wrong with you today?
You look as if you've seen a ghost."

The other man's pause is slight, coming across as artful. His expression turns inward, musing on past events.

"A ghost you say... a ghost maybe
She was just like a ghost to me
One minute there, and she was gone!"

An odd sort of bobbing of the head, and the beggar leads erikun down one of the 'side roads' of Paris, coming back in a tumbling roll, ending in a half-split, before the audience of nobles, second-children, rich merchants, university students and other members of the Parisian social tapestry. Again, that odd atonal caterwaul ... but there is a weird intensity in it now.


"It is time for us all
To decide who we are
Do we fight for the right
To a night at the opera now?"

A hand lifted, a stage laugh ... and the audience after a moment laughs with him at the irony. A slight reprieve, then a sharp chopping gesture with one hand - that now holds a knife in it. He sings once more, and now there was an undercurrent of challenge in it.

Have you asked of yourselves
What's the price you might pay?
Is it simply a game
For rich young boys to play?
The color of the world
Is changing day by day...

Then the ballet company enters the stage from the depths of Paris; from every class and call; nobles, beggars, fishers, whores. All carry knives; fishknives, shanks, stilettoes, each with a blade, all armed.


Nothing changes, nothing ever will
Every year another brat, another mouth to fill.
Same old story, what's the use of tears?
What's the use of praying if there's nobody who hears?
Turning, turning, turning, turning, turning Through the years.

Turning, turning,
turning through the years
Minutes into hours and the hours into years.
Nothing changes, nothing ever can
Round and round the roundabout and back where you began!
Round and round and back where you began!

The ladies of Paris, weeping, file back into their city, quickly disappearing from sight. The echoes of despairing cries filter from the city.

From the dome of the church, a soft light springs forth, illuminating the figure of super dark33. From elsewhere in the theatre, a new voice is heard. Soft, melodious, powerful ... mesmerizing.

There, out in the darkness
A fugitive running
Fallen from God
Fallen from grace

From the back of the room, a figure dressed in the garb of a High Inquisitor steps into the crowd. A second shaft of light falls upon him; behind a porcelain mask, that voice emerges once again, as he crosses the room toward super dark33.

God be my witness
I never shall yield
Till we come face to face
Till we come face to face

Standing before him; he reaches beneath his cloak.


He knows his way in the dark
But mine is the way of the Lord
And those who follow the path of the righteous
Shall have their reward

And draws forth a heavy blade, levelling it at the other man's throat as his voice reaches a crescendo...

And if they fall As Lucifer fell
The flame The sword!

There is a spark, then a roar of flame as the blade ignites. Instinctively super dark33 shields his eyes with one arm, hissing. But it is far too late. The Inquisitor's blade bites deep, sending a spray of blood toward the stage as it enters the man's neck.

Superdark was lynched - he was a Vampire

At that same moment, there is a shriek onstage, as a body drops from the rafters, tied to one of the many ropes.

erikun was autolynched - he was a Parisian

The guests flee the Opera House to the faint sound of mocking laughter. On the stage, the begger-man sings one last piece, though there is none to appreciate it but the masked inquisitor.

That inspector thinks he's something
But it's me who runs this town!
And my theater never closes
And the curtain's never down!

Day ends and Night begins. PM all actions to Helgraf and RabbitHoleLost