[NEXUS] MaGLoG II: Alcoholic Boogaloo

[Shadowcaller]

Outside - The Roof

Monster

The word made Hekta's eyes widen in surprise, suddenly remembering everything Elias had told her about his inner conflict. Her fear turning to anger now that she understood what was wrong, why Elias was acting so stupid.

She get's a determined look on her face, her eyes boring back into the fools as he looks at her, bearing more meaning that Hekta possibly could put in words. Within the demons eyes is a malice that now is released. Her iris turning into a color out of this world, like two pools of madness their gaze shoots back into the observer piercing through every layer of sanity and illusion of happiness into the very core. It doesn't last long but in just a moment it can cause the very soul to shrink back like a frightened children, hiding in a corner of the mind and just try to forget what happened. Forget everything that lead up to it.

And then it's over, Hekta's eyes returning to normal.

"No, you're not!" She hisses a reply and attempts to latch on to Elias with her free arm, not even realizing what she just did.

[happyturtle]

Outside - The Roof

Hekta looks into The Fool's eyes.

The Fool looks back.

Then, suddenly, it's Elias looking back, unsure how they ended up outside climbing up the fire escape.

Hekta bound, helpless. The taste of her fear. His own heart pounding in excitement.

The knife in his hand.

"Oh no no no..." he whispers in horror. I did this, somehow. I lost control, and became the monster. I don't remember it, but I'm still to blame. It's what I always wanted to do. Still want to do. I could lose control again at any moment.

I need to save (kill) Hekta (my own soul).

The Fool is rising again in his mind, and Elias only has seconds to act. He places his knife in Hekta's captured hand, closes her fingers on it, yanks her other hand off of him, unwinds his legs from the fire escape ladder.

And falls to the alley below.

[Halae]

Apart from the flickering lights of the banks of slot machines, the only functioning bit of technology is a lone Magbot strung up in a massive spiderweb on the ceiling that she can glimpse just before the lights go out. It looks pretty much decommissioned, but if that's how they think they're getting out of here it may be their only shot.

[The Lobby - Halloween Night]

Ormirrah points up towards the magbot, "Up there. We've got a magbot up there just hanging alone. I'm pretty sure they all have an internet hookup or whatever."

[Lost_Deep]

The Lobby - Halloween Night

"Not sure how helpful that will be, but it is better than nothing. Please, lead me to it."

Kate actually has more than just unspecific doubts about the use of the Magbot. Unless it has some input/output stuff that Kate doesn't know about, it won't be any use without a computer to hook it to.

[Halae]

[The Lobby - Halloween Night]

"It's stuck to the roof in a giant spiderweb. I could climb up... but skirts don't lend themselves well to climbing, if you catch my meaning," Ormirrah frowns. She knew that the skirt was a bad idea.

[Shadowcaller]

Outside - The Roof

Hekta first looks confused at Elias places the dagger in her hand. She was still upset but it looked like Elias was getting all better again.
She is about to smile when he suddenly let's go, almost causing her heart to stop beating for a second.

"ELIAS!" She screams while desperately trying to grab on to on to his hand, letting go of the knife which tumbles downwards with the bakery apprentice.

[Lost_Deep]

The Lobby - Halloween Night

Here's hoping it's a cobweb and not and active web, because anything big enough to spin web strong enough to catch a magbot would be... an unpleasant encounter.

"Unfortunately, I am also in a uncooperative outfit. Are you very strong? Perhaps you could lift me by the waist, and I could grab it."

Don't think about touching the spiderwebs, Kate. Don't think about-what did I just tell you? It's a good thing the masquerade mindset keeps you calm or you would have the heebiejeebies right now.

[The Bushranger]

Halloween Night - Lobby

But you're needed here. The good witch, and the wizard, and the lion...

The foreign thoughts recede, finding no purchase on Crissy's mind. While that doesn't help her with her personality problems, she's managed to escape the second part of the shadows' dangerous spell.

Well, alright then. Jace renews the light spell and heads off in the direction of the shouting girl. Even with such limited visibility, it shouldn't take too long without interference.
I think it came from under the giant snake, Boss.
What giant...oh.
Faced with a poorly lit room and a large serpentine corpse, Jace calls out as he begins searching around the coils.
Hello? Miss? Can you here me? A little help finding you would be appreciated.

Ezreal follows Jacen. He hasn't seen anyone. He points with his weapon around using it as some kind of light.

"Right here...please..."
A bit of searching might reveal the brunette half-elf wriggling free, her gingham dress mussed from the naga's squeezing but looking, overall, less the worse for wear.

Despite the tears that are streaming down her cheeks.

"Need...need to find..."

[Halae]

[Halloween Night]

"Yeah, I'm definitely strong enough. You're going to have to stand on my shoulders to reach it, though" Ormirrah doesn't look too pleased about this, of course, but there's a goal and a way to reach it.

Ormirrah, when Kate is ready, will help her up. According to slii, the Magbot is about 12 feet up.

[Lost_Deep]

Halloween Night

Kate will cooperate as best as she can, to get on Ormirrah's shoulders and then try to grab the Magbot. If she can get a good hold on it, she will say, "Okay, help me down, I'm trying to pull it down with my weight."

[Slii Arhem]

Outside - The Roof

Hekta first looks confused at Elias places the dagger in her hand. She was still upset but it looked like Elias was getting all better again.
She is about to smile when he suddenly let's go, almost causing her heart to stop beating for a second.

"ELIAS!" She screams while desperately trying to grab on to on to his hand, letting go of the knife which tumbles downwards with the bakery apprentice.

Outside - The Roof

Hekta looks into The Fool's eyes.

The Fool looks back.

Then, suddenly, it's Elias looking back, unsure how they ended up outside climbing up the fire escape.

Hekta bound, helpless. The taste of her fear. His own heart pounding in excitement.

The knife in his hand.

"Oh no no no..." he whispers in horror. I did this, somehow. I lost control, and became the monster. I don't remember it, but I'm still to blame. It's what I always wanted to do. Still want to do. I could lose control again at any moment.

I need to save (kill) Hekta (my own soul).

The Fool is rising again in his mind, and Elias only has seconds to act. He places his knife in Hekta's captured hand, closes her fingers on it, yanks her other hand off of him, unwinds his legs from the fire escape ladder.

And falls to the alley below.

The Alley

"You won't escape from me yet little monster. Or yourself." The apple Elias carries speaks softly, nearly inaudible over the wind moving past his face as he plummets. It worms its way from his pocket and tosses itself to the ground, the perfect yellow skin of the fruit bruising as it hits asphalt.

When Elias hits the ground, he'll find it spongy and forgiving. It won't completely negate the harm he was trying to do to himself, since Eris wants him to remember her reprimand, but it should reduce it to little more than a sprained or broken limb because of the softness of the earth.

[Halloween Night - The Office]

Wow! That was easy! Too easy... Spec thought she'd end up locked in a Silent Hill bathroom or something once or twice before stumbling upon something even remotely promising! But it can't possibly be as simple as entering one unmarked door and finding the boss! She'd better stay frosty. With her luck, this is a trap, but what doesn't qualify as a trap when you're as paranoid as Spec? And now that she's here confronting the goddess of chaos herself...

Eris is exponentially more powerful than Spec, if what Spec has witnessed this night is indicative of anything, so she can't engage her in honorable combat and have a snowball's chance in heck of winning!

Not on the field of gory- erm, glory, at least!

Spec attempts to dance over to Eris and endeavors to sassily seat herself atop Eris while facing her!

"Funny you should ask, miss! What can you do for me... All I know is that I'm here for you! To be more precise, I'm here to put the hurt on you! You wanted to mess with with the guests, so here I am. So ask not what you can do for me. Ask what I can do for or to you!"

Spec toothily smiles at Eris with as much happiness and warmth as she can muster, as though her night hadn't gone to heck in a handbasket! She's forcing herself to be a regular ray of sunshine personality-wise, with a lighthearted, confident lilt and all the bells and whistles!

The Office

Eris laughs, skin-tinglingly and nail-scrapingly creepy noises coming from her lips as Spec makes her intentions clear, "Brave hero, come to save the hearts and minds of those poor fools from the wicked witch and win the waning day? How... boring. It's not very chaotic at all, is it? There's no spontaneity, no Oomph! It needs something... bigger." Eris taps a perfectly manicured nail against her chin as she seems to consider it, but the look in her eyes tells Spec she already has something in mind.

"Tell you what, if you go back out there and kill something under my thrall, all the others will go free, by my word. Maybe you've got some more issues to take out on that champion of Hatred? Or you didn't like the costume someone came with? After all, they're all insane, right? A perfect reason to put one out of their misery if it means curing the others. Besides, you know that if it came down to you and me the only reason I'd let you get a hit in edgewise would be if I was secretly a masochist, and I don't think gambling on that possibility will win you many chips."

The Darkened Way --> Halloween Night

Gertrude speeds up, but she can't move fast enough to escape. She's running through the air, heading down as fast as she can because that way they won't plummet when the spell ends, but a rabbit's (or maybe a hare's?) foot is too large for her to escape, even if she did drop Kayla.

[The Darkened Way]

Kayla is in no position to do anything to escape. She considers letting go of Gertrude so that she might be able to escape without her extra weight. Unless Gertrude has a way to save them she will be squished.

Halloween Night - The Lobby

Gertrude and Kayla are ejected back into the lobby, unharmed as the illusion fails and the room collapses. The shadowy tendrils quickly attempt to caress them and swap their personalities with that of their costumes.

-----

Elsewhere, by the slot machines, the naga "corpse" is revealed to be still alive and breathing, just unconscious. She can be shifted out of the way to allow Crissy to get up again though, and it looks like there aren't any more monsters looming in the darkness for now.

------

Elsewhere Elsewhere, the magbot can easily be pulled down by Kate holding onto its ankles, as the spiderweb is nothing more than that crazy cotton webbing decoration applied thickly enough to hold up a body.

[Halae]

[Halloween Night]

Once Kate has a good grip on the magbot, Ormirrah will pull downwards. She has good enough reflexes that she should catch Kate no problem, though the Magbot is another matter.

[happyturtle]

Outside

It's lucky for Hekta that she doesn't get a grasp of Elias as he falls, as it would probably tear the sash that's holding her up and send her plummeting too. Instead, her claws rip along the back of his hand.

And then she's left dangling from the ladder by one ankle. Alone.

Elias falls. His primary thought is I don't want to die, but buried under that primal fear is a sense of relief at having found a way to stop the Monster. At least this time.

Then there is the voice of Eris.

Then there is the ground, softer than it should be. Then there is pain, as he finds himself alive, but broken.

Inside the Party

Elaine is still screaming.

Decker is hugging Butler.

[Shadowcaller]

Outside

Hekta doesn't really think in those lines right now, all she can do is watching Elias fall to what she thinks is his death.

Then Eris intervenes.

But the little demon don't even have time thinking about that too much. Finding strength where there wasn't any before she takes a hold of the ladder again with one of her hands and tries to pull herself up close enough to the sash so she can cut herself free with the claws of her other hand.

[happyturtle]

Outside - the ground

Elias lies on the ground, staring up at Hekta.

Did I just offer my life for hers?

What an alien thought. He doesn't care about Hekta. He finds her intriguing. He knows how other people treat their friends, and so he mimics that behaviour. It's a way to try and be normal. To defeat the monster.

He can feel The Fool inside him, angry at losing this contest of wills.

That was why I did it. It wasn't for Hekta. it was so I would win. So the Monster wouldn't. If I let him out, let him kill, he'll only grow stronger.

He can see Hekta struggling to get free. There's an impulse to go and help her (kill her). He tries to sit up, but the pain is terrible.

Maybe I'm going to die after all.

[Shadowcaller]

Outside - the ground

As the sash is suddenly cut, Hekta falls.

But she manages to hold on to the ladder out of share determination and some demonic strength. Now hanging from the ladder in an rather uncomfortable position Hekta manages to pull herself on to the ladder and climb down again.

As she turns to Elias her face have twisted into a mask of rage, "WHY DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!!" She shouts a question without wanting any answer. "You could have killed me, you could have killed yourself!!! You stupid BOY!!!" Her accusations comes mercilessly despite the fact Elias is obviously hurt. She bends her leg backwards as if she's going to kick him but the punt never comes. Instead Hekta pauses and let's her arm wipe away the tears which have started to fall down her cheeks in the middle of her rant.

"I should just leave you there. Then you'd die and no one would miss you." She declares while holding on to her right arm which looks to have been quite strained by all the effort.

[happyturtle]

Outside - on the ground

Elias can't stop himself from cringing against the kick that never comes. Why is she crying? It can't be that she cares about me. I guess she's hurt from almost falling. Yeah. Her arm looks hurt.

"Nobody will," Elias agrees. Master Dahl could find a new apprentice easily enough. His brother would probably be glad that he's no longer around to make trouble. And Hekta... well, he just tried to kill her. He figures he'll never see her again after this.

[McBish]

Halloween Night - The Lobby

Kayla's heart is racing as they get ejected back into the lobby. She doesn't even notice as one of the shadowy tendrils brushes the back of her legs. As Ms. Monroe's personality starts to take over Kayla the overwhelmed look on her face starts to get worse. She looks around the party trying to figure out what is going on and where there is a safe place to stand and get a drink. She figures she will need one.

[Shadowcaller]

Outside - on the ground

Despite what Hekta said she doesn't leave, instead she just stands there staring at him for a while until she finally seem to have calmed down somewhat.
She purses her lips and shakes her head. "You have no idea how stupid you actually are, do you?" She asks rhetorically before kneeling down and slowly attempts to life him up which probably is going to strain her arm even more but she didn't trust anyone else to help her.

If only Kashi had been here, he had get Elias back to the bakery in like a second.

"If it hurts, you deserve it." She hisses as he probably cringes from the pain.

[happyturtle]

Outside - on the ground

"Why are you helping ... aaaaagh!" Elias asks, his words interrupted by a near scream as she pulls him up.

[Shadowcaller]

Outside - on the ground

Steeling herself Hekta holds on to Elias as she slowly starts to move towards the bakery while carrying him. She knew what he was going to ask though.
"If anyone should be asking questions here, it's me." She hisses in his ear. "So stop feeling sorry for yourself and tell me why you hanged me upside down like that."

[happyturtle]

Outside

"Aaaaagh! Stop! I can't..." The pain is too much. He can tell now that his right leg is broken, and trying to walk on it is going to make it much slower to heal, if not impossible. Elias tries to struggle free and sit back down on the ground, then he looks up at Hekta with anger of his own. "What do you think? I was going to kill you!" he hisses. He doesn't remember tying her like that, or what he was thinking at the time, but he doesn't need to remember. He knows.

[Shadowcaller]

Outside

She let's him go, realizing that's not going to work. Why couldn't he just ignore the pain so they could go home?

As Elias looks up at her, she meets his angry gaze with her own. "That wasn't you, that was someone else that the black stuff created." Hekta insists. "But then you threw yourself off the building instead and now you're back to normal." She wasn't sure why though, but she started to suspect. It was that evil woman that had something to do with it. Elias had been normal until her black stuff appeared.

[Lost_Deep]

[Halloween Night]

Once Kate has a good grip on the magbot, Ormirrah will pull downwards. She has good enough reflexes that she should catch Kate no problem, though the Magbot is another matter.

Kate doesn't try to save the magbot, either, so it hits the ground. With a bit of luck the inner workings of these things are tough enough to take a fall or two.

The important workings, anyway.

Once that's done, Kate will start to search the magbot. "Help me find some kind of maintenance hatch," she will tell Ormirrah.

[happyturtle]

Outside

"I'm not normal, Hekta, I never will be!" Elias yells. "If I hadn't let go, you'd be dead now!"

[Earl of Purple]

Halloween Night

Gertrude is also spat out, and comes into contact with a lot of shadowy dark tendrils. She stands up, and looks around cautiously. She's still a bit dazed at the moment, so doesn't do anything more.

[Shadowcaller]

Outside

"Neither am I Elias!" Hekta yells back. "We aren't normal. I get you're really weird, but that wasn't you. That was that woman's doing, the one who gave us these." She insists, holding out the seed Eris gave to her.

[Deathkeeper]

Halloween Night - Lobby

"Right here...please..."
A bit of searching might reveal the brunette half-elf wriggling free, her gingham dress mussed from the naga's squeezing but looking, overall, less the worse for wear.

Despite the tears that are streaming down her cheeks.

"Need...need to find..."

Lobby
Finally noticing the girl, Jace moves over to her
Calm down, we'll get you out of there.
Jace plants his spear under the serpent's flank and attempts to lever it up for the girl to crawl out. If she still can't, he'll call over Ezrael to pull her out
Boss, we've got life signs where we don't want them.
Well, that's not good. Keep an eye on it while I hold this thing up, Zebes.

[Zefir]

[Lobby]

Ezreal is right behind Jacen. As he sees the poor person under the serpent body he rush closer to help. While Jacen uses his sear on one side Ezreal creates a car jack made of green light to lift up the body as well. Then he tries to drag out the woman since the car jack seems to work on it's own.

"Are you all right?"

[happyturtle]

Outside

"Neither am I Elias!" Hekta yells back. "We aren't normal. I get you're really weird, but that wasn't you. That was that woman's doing, the one who gave us these." She insists, holding out the seed Eris gave to her.

Elias wants to yell back, but it hurts to yell. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to keep The Fool suppressed, and he isn't sure how much longer he can do it. "You better get rid of that."