lostcarnival | ⇨ INTERLUDE: A Dark Ritual

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⇨ INTERLUDE: A Dark Ritual

Who: The Ringmaster, Mari, Sans, Zecora, Childermass, Strange, and Lambert.
When: Day 58, at night
Where: At the devil mark in the trees.
What: The Ringmaster has attained what she needs to strike back at the leader of the vampires that have been stalking the carnival, but she needs some help.
Warnings: More wannabe satanism.

FIVE SHARP POINTS↴

Three of you were here for the original meeting in which the sigil was discovered - and two of you scryed in to watch said meeting against the Ringmaster's orders. Either way, the majority of those invited by the Ringmaster are familiar with the demonic sigil burnt into the ground within the carnival's forests, now in the center of a small crater instead of buried beneath fallen leaves. It's glowing an angry red, like burning coals, and has been every since they tried to destroy it with explosive a few weeks earlier.

The Ringmaster has explained herself to you in advance, this time. She spoke to you in private, asking how strong your grasp was on the arcane, and if you'd be willing to aid her in a ritual meant to defend the carnival from its enemies. Presumably you said yes. She was looking for mages and magic users, the best in the carnival. Also Lambert is here, for some reason, despite only having turned up a couple days ago.

She leads you out to the spot, and starts passing out a set of five obsidian daggers - one to each person, excluding Lambert. They have an odd weight for their size, supernaturally heavy, and read as deeply magical in a way that feels akin to a thick haze of black smoke.

"I need you five to stand at the points of a pentagram, around the sigil. And be careful! We can't risk any geometric carelessness..."

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Zecora looked at the dagger, then down at her own hooves -- themselves now sharp obsidian, thanks to her time in the carnival -- then back to the dagger.

She didn't need to rhyme when her every gesture exuded 'Really?', but the zebra took the weapon in her teeth anyway, then paced over to her spot to stand with precision. All in all she wasn't sure about this ritual, but the Ringmaster still held her trust enough that she gave credit to the woman's assurances that they were turning its forces on the source of their troubles. That being or beings, she had no doubt was their enemy and would continue to cause further suffering on them.

Well this is certainly fun! Or, at least, interesting. Strange's grasp on faerie magic was minimal at best since someone back home wasn't too keen on summoning faeries (cough Mr. Norrell cough). So the ability to be part of a faerie ritual is something he sees as exciting over worrisome.

He's taking this entire thing in stride, though he seems in more of a happy mood than usual. Ha, the Ringmaster picked him to help alongside the supervisors and...well, Childermass for some reason. And Lambert. What were they doing here in the first place? Still, that doesn't temper his arrogance as he takes one of the knives and heads towards the far end of the pentagram, on the other side of the sigil.

Unlike others, he's decided that an arcane ritual can't stop someone from small talk. "If we're casting black magic, I can speak from experience that it's not as easy as one might think. Still, I suppose that's why we're all here."

"You're helping me cast black magic, to be exact," the Ringmaster explains haughtily, before casting Zecora an impatient look. "And I went through a lot of trouble to get these tools, so you don't need to give them the stink eye, Zecora."

Lambert doesn't get a dagger, so he's just going to stand there with crossed arms and a slight wrinkle in his brow. When the Ringmaster had mentioned a 'date,' this wasn't exactly what he had in mind.

"So what are we sacrificing today?" he asks what he's pretty sure everyone else is thinking.

"Our dignity," Sans drawls, having suddenly appeared at his station around the sigil, via teleportation. He doesn't like the way the dagger feels, nor does he like the interaction its aura has with his own soul. He closes his white eye and takes a moment to examine it with his weird looking blue one.

Yep, that's magical.

The Ringmaster crosses her arms with a huff, looking towards Lambert.

"We're not sacrificing anything," she says, with a small effort put towards being patient. "That was the whole point of attaining these ritual daggers, to avoid that kind of nonsense. As it is, I just need magical assistance to open this portal while I send a spell through it."

She's been dragging something inside of several layers of burlap bag through the forest behind her, attached to several feet of rope so that it can be pulled at a distance. She starts reeling it in towards her, and then swings the rope and sends the bag to the ground at Lambert's feet.

"And I need you to use this to kill anything that dares come through it!" she says. Inside of the bags, wrapped in cloth, he'll find his silver and iron sword. "But keep it the hell away from me, and everyone else here. You're new enough that it shouldn't hurt you, but... best be careful, regardless."

Edited 2017-02-14 20:44 (UTC)

"The tools are serviceable, just fine.
But not suited for an equine."

Just saying. And luckily she was quite capable of speaking clearly around the hilt of a dagger, a useful trick when one commonly manipulated items with one's mouth. Even the Ringmaster had to acknowledge that wielding it would be highly impractical for Zecora.

"Should we interpret
The danger is greater yet
For those of us in stations
Of far longer durations?"

Not that she minded, but it gave her a good impression of who would be most likely to be targeted should anything go wrong.

Strange can wonder why Childermass is here all he wants. Chances are, had the Ringmaster skipped the dour man, he would have shown up anyway if only to keep an eye on the other magician. All in all, it's for the best, because helping is at least better than being stuck lurking. Although that she asked for help with black magic, of all things, is a little unsettling...

Not unsettling enough to keep him away, however, though he does remain silent throughout everyone else's chatter. The dagger he's been handed is held away from himself, making sure to keep the point aimed towards the ground in a way that might be deemed overcautious, but he doesn't care if that's how it looks. It's a miracle he can keep ahold of it all, the way it's weighed down with magic. That alone being enough to leave him feeling uncomfortable, even if he isn't about to show it.

The Ringmaster nods, apparently satisfied with Zecora's response. Zecora has always seemed extraordinarily handy for someone without any hands, and so she was disinclined to question her competency when it came to holding things.

"Yes, the more fae you are, the more our banes will effect you, and the longer you've been here the more fae you are. I'm sure you've experienced it before... iron disagrees with us, most of all in its pure forms." She gestures at the sword she just gave Lambert. "The iron in the core of that one's purity is threatening, despite the fact that it's been forged. I except Lambert will have trouble wielding it, after fully adapting to his surroundings."

Edited 2017-02-14 21:17 (UTC)

Lambert had been wondering what the hell the Ringmaster was dragging behind her (a cut up corpse, maybe?) but once it's chucked at him and he can see what's inside, it makes a lot more sense. The silver blade -- and the runes etched on it -- glow in the dim light when he draws it out, the twined wolf heads on the hilt as familiar as the back of his own hand.

"This is easier to dent than it looks, you know." As much as it's a symbol of what he detests, it's also a symbol of the only life he's known, and it fits in his hand easily. He doesn't feel anything different about the sword himself, but looking around at the other, more fae-touched workers and listening to the Ringmaster speak, he wonders how long that's going to last -- if he's going to reach the point where he won't even be able to hold onto it. There's no obvious place for him to stand ready to hack at anything that might burst through, but he does move so he's standing farther away from the Ringmaster and the veterans.

"Guess I'd better make the most of it while I can." He gestures to the glowing sigil. "Ready when you are."

"That trouble should not be ignored.
Perhaps I could make a ward."

Zecora had already found something more interesting than this ritual, no offense to the ritual or anyone participating in it -- but this was something she could directly address, rather than simply stand around with no control in her hooves. She leaned slightly over, though she didn't move from her spot. Zecora knew better than to tamper with magical geometry!

"Now's not really the time to be experimenting, is it? If there's iron at its core, it's bound to cut through anything you try on it anyhow."

There, Childermass finally says something from his own point on the pentagram. A little negative, sure, but he'd only call it sensible. Faerie magic and iron just do not mix, Zecora.

"Likewise, I imagine that the Ringmaster wants our full attention on whatever we'll be doing to help out," Strange adds on, giving Childermass a small nod as he looks from him over towards Zecora.

Still, the sword is interesting. He can't help but stand up a bit on his tiptoes, not moving from his spot but obviously trying to see just what sort of sword Lambert has. Iron, obviously, but are those runes on it? Something's glowing, at least.

Edited 2017-02-15 01:49 (UTC)

"I did not mean right now." Zecora split a droll look between Childremass and Strange. Hadn't the Ringmaster just said that it would only be a problem eventually? Honestly, you two...

Well, she supposed she couldn't ever expect humans who didn't know her as well to think she was a sensible being. They all thought her rhymes so strange and frivolous, let alone her species.

"But there must be a way somehow."

Yup, those are sure are runes, glowing with a faint purplish light. Not that Lambert can explain what they're for, at the moment, and the circumstances the sword was confiscated and return suggest to him that this is a special occasion. Meaning, he's not going to see a whole lot of it.

"Well if you figure out something that works, I'm not about to turn it down," Lambert drawls. "So long as it doesn't involve giving up body parts, anyway."

Edited (LORD, HTML) 2017-02-15 17:15 (UTC)

"Well. You can grow those back, a lot of the time." Mari has already taken position--very precisely so, in fact. Interestingly, she's also taken off her glasses, folding them up and setting them down a few yards away. Just in case.

Instead of squinting, though, she's just closed the two eyes on her face and is using the other 40-odd eyes to watch each and every one of them. And the pentagram. And the knife in her claws.

"Body parts, I mean. But iron's no joke." Any body part grown through fae magic would be a disaster to try and touch iron with anyway. Or even anything iron-adjacent.

She would know.

Well, in their defense, she is still a talking zebra. Of all the oddities here that takes time to get used to, Zecora is certainly one of the bigger ones. Even so, though Childermass still does shrug as he often does, he at least adds, "Then you will have to excuse us, Doctor. It looked as though you might be thinking to do something here and now about it."

As close to an apology as anyone can hope for right now.

By this point, he's also stopped holding his own dagger awkwardly. It's still going to give him a headache, that much he is sure of, but holding it away does nothing to help that. May as well take a closer look at it while he can, right?

"Guh," the Ringmaster says, apparently out of patience for this line of thought, though she's been tolerating it until now. "No, you can't ward against iron - especially not when you magic is already filled with my essence. Iron's entire point is that it is resistant to magical defenses... you can wear down its anti-fae properties with a great amount of time but only that."

She says this as if it should be obvious to everyone here - after all, if it were possible to defend against iron, wouldn't the fae themselves have done it already? Mortals just think they can figure out anything, don't they? It's part of why she likes them and part of why they can be incredibly exhausting.

"Anyway, that's not the point. He shouldn't even need to use his sword tonight unless something unexpected happens. Realistically, I only needed six of us, but seven is a much better number." And that's what's important.

She gestures to the five holding the daggers, making sure they are in place. It looks good, for now.

"I'll be doing most of the work - you five just need to use your grasp on magic to hold the points of the portal open. I could normally do that myself, but I'd rather put my all into what I'm sending through. You should be able to sense what you need to do once we get started."

Despite himself, Lambert finds himself leaning in, interested in watching the proceedings. True, he's not technically involved and like hell he had Zecora's magic ability, but it's still an opportunity to learn. He also gets to find out that his other boss and Childermass apparently have some kind of magical ability too, which is something he'll have to think about ... later.

For now, his attention's on the center of the circle, and the Ringmaster.

Silly Ringmaster, who forgot -- or never knew -- that Zecora knew magic that wasn't<>/i> fae. Of course, she didn't advertise the fact routinely and had rare cause to actually resort to it, so perhaps she couldn't be blamed for the misstep.

No matter. Zecora worked her dagger into a more comfortable grip between her teeth and settled back slightly to wait for her moment.

Childermass has not moved from the spot he'd taken before and he certainly isn't about to move now, not when it sounds as though the Ringmaster's spell — whatever it may be — is about to begin. Being the man of few words that he is, he'll only nod towards her to show he's aware and ready.

“Now, at my word – you will need to plunge your daggers into the earth in front of you, and align your energies with them. Let go of the dagger as soon as you do – you won’t want your fingers anywhere near this.”

Let’s presume, for the sake of argument, that all parties do as they’re told. The moment all five daggers have sunk into the ground with their magical focus, lines of red will cut through the ground, the points connecting until they have created the image of a pentagram. Once the star is complete, at its center, the fabric of reality within it will start to give way, opening a portal to somewhere else.

Fire and brimstone sears the other side of the gateway, and the ambient air around the group will grow hotter just from the touch. Without batting an eye at it, the Ringmaster crosses her hands in from of her – only to extend them, along with a suddenly formed set of black wings . They’re an inky mix between feathers and scales, with luminescent green patterns lightning them. Without the necessity of flapping, they lift her into the air, and above the portal.

He wings will stretch out above the ground, and she will begin speaking in words that none of them will understand. The patterns on her wings shift from green to orange, and her eyes light up with that same fire, the weight of her spell feeling akin to a physical burden on the air around her.

With one final, decisive movement, she channels something powerful through that gate.

“Eat shit, Satan!” she declares, the only part of her spell that they’ll understand.

The lines of the pentagram grow hot and agitated, and the Ringmaster lifts herself away from it with a manic grin. “Now – remove the daggers!”

They probably won’t have to be convinced – it feels like something will explode of this portal is allowed to persist any longer.

This is so cool.

Strange follows the Ringmaster's instructions to the letter—after all, he's not going to be the one to mess up a sensitive ritual. He might not be as magically sensitive as others, but even he can see the sheer amount of power that's being used in the Ringmaster's spell and the portal. He watches, utterly entranced, actually being quiet for once as the Ringmaster forms a set of wings and starts chanting. Of course he's listening, trying to see what she was saying—wait, Satan?

His mad grin mirrors the Ringmaster's as he yanks the dagger out of the ground right at her command. This is just far too interesting and far too exciting for him to mess it up. He's certainly planning on gossiping about all this later because there's just so much to talk about the ritual and so much to learn from this, he's certainly not going to let it end right now.

That's quite a sight to behold, the spell the Ringmaster weaves and her transformation both, even Childermass will have to admit as much later. Throughout it, once he'd stabbed his own dagger deep into the point it was meant for, he's remained crouched down on one knee to keep himself stabilized with all the power that's crackling around them. It's also because he's anticipating the next step and it puts the damned thing within easier reach.

If she's using this to open a portal, then he's well aware she's going to need it to shut as well. Admittedly, firebombing (or spellbombing, whatever) Satan had not been what he had expected from this and the Ringmaster earns a startled look just before the next command comes.

You had better believe he's quick to yank that dagger back up on her word, especially now that he knows where that thing opens to.

Now this looks more like the magic Lambert's used to seeing. Showy, powerful, the kind of thing you see and think I'm glad that's on my side. When the portal rips open, he can almost feel all the hair on his body stand on end. His medalion's humming so hard he thinks it might rip off its chain, but he continues to stand with sword at the ready, narrowed eyes trying to look into that portal and remember what the world on the other side looks like.

After all, if this action has any consequences from denizens of another world crossing over, it would be nice to have some idea what to prepare for.

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⇨ INTERLUDE: A Dark Ritual

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