RP:Danse Macabre

Background

This is part of the Kurgan's Run story arc.

Mahri and Leifong finally make their way to the Main Hall and the Obsidian Pool. Meanwhile, Cornelius and Amadeo meet up with some figments of memory, loved ones transformed by illusion into the terrifying puppets of Eldritch.

Later, Somewhere in the Fortress

The ceiling in this new room suddenly bows downward, becoming thick and viscous as it vibrates at a high frequency. The walls respond in kind, warping upward to fill the space left by the sinking ceiling, casting the room in a strangely perverse light, as though the laws of physics themselves had decided to say "Ah, whatever." and gone off for a night of hard drinking. Further and further it continues to dip, until the ceiling finally connects to the floor and a large glob of... something, pushes itself down to meet the hard stone tiles. With a great snap that would hurt the eyes if looked upon from it's sheer impossibility, the ceiling returns to it's proper position, rippling slightly like a disturbed pool of water. What is left in it's wake, is a crouching form, a man in black robes who appears to be regaining his bearings as he gently rises and looks around, attempting to discern whether he'd arrived at his desired destination.

Mahri herself is suspended, desperately trying to keep a hold on reality in the void the Maze had called a door. Her chest hurt. Had she forgotten to breath? She couldn't remember but she held fast to the image of the room which housed the pool. Not long after the ceiling birthed Leifong onto that stone floor, the very air would sizzle and snap, charged with a preternatural energy. A circular void swirls in the air causing it too to warp and wave like heat off a sunbaked road. Depositing its own burden in a manner not quite so elegant, Mahri rolls from the oppressive weight of that nothingness and onto the floor where she'll gasp for the oxygen her lungs scream for. It felt like she'd been in that in-between place for eons when it was in reality only a few seconds. When her eyes come into focus it's to the blurred gray of floor from which she pushes up from and regains unsteady footing to look around. She does not immediately notice the black-clad figure doing the same. And certainly not after her eyes light upon the well the Maze was determined she not get near.

Leifong reacts very swiftly as the air crackles and snaps as though charged with a powerful current and that circular disk of null space appears before him. In an instant he is prepared for battle, both hands raised before him, their palms facing the disk, and as it ebbs outward to signal the arrival of someone through it, the priest's eyes burst alight, pure darkness swirling within them and spitting out like flames. What was it that had come to stop him? Was it Xiang? The monk would certainly be trying to stop anyone from nearing the pool. Or was it Eldritch himself? Leifong would not be able to fight against such power. Yet he silenced his mind, enforcing discipline over it as rigidly as he'd enforced it over the sack of flesh which was now nothing but that. Thin lips part, and from between them rises a sound like the death wail of some unimaginably horrible creature, a low tone strong enough to fill the room with an unnatural building pressure, and out from his maw pour writhing tendrils of shadow, vomited up from the depths of the void itself. They wrap down his arms, surging to that point between his hands where they would collect, ready to blast forth and disintegrate whatever new foe this might be, for he'd made his decision, and there was no turning back from it. In a great tumble the Lycan appears, hitting the floor in a pile and gasping for breath. He nearly blasted her into oblivion, and might have, were it not for the slightest hesitation in that cold, no longer beating heart of his. "You...." he speaks, the flow of shadows cut off as his mouth make noises, and slowly he lets his newfound power wane, though not entirely, still holding a swirling ball of chaotic darkness before him.

Mahri isn't as nimble as she used to be but the surge of gathered power sends the fine hairs along her arms and the back of her neck standing up so that she turns with a crouch toward the perceived threat. The retreat of shadow is noted with a practiced skim of her narrowed eyes and the information filed away for later review. "I've come for my sister, Priest." Her words come in a rasp which still manages to echo in the room. Rising slowly to her feet but not approaching Leifong, the wolf tenses and readies for objection either verbal or physical. Delicate nostrils twitch as she automatically draws in a breath to scent the air for any other potential nay-sayers and Pool Protectors. "Are you going to try and stop me?" Just how she plans on removing Jolie from the Obsidian Pool without entering it herself Mahri hasn't a clue yet. She'll figure it out one way or another.

Leifong allows the dark power gathered in his sphere of blackness to recede, back to whence it came. It writhes back up his arms, shoulders, neck, and then it is devoured through his mouth, much as though it were nothing but a meal. "I'm not going to stop you." he says quietly, as though the words were almost painful, and then he cracks his neck hard to either side, calming the cramps. "I'm going to help you."

Mahri is only a little taken aback by the answer. Not by the evident fact the man eats shadows for lunch. Or is it dinner? In any case, the lycan relaxes and glances towards the serene surface of the pool. "You know what happens if you go in there, right?" A hand lays gently over her swollen abdomen in a protective gesture. Would she risk her child for her sister? Would she have a choice? It all came down to making choices. It isn't until she can smell the stale stink of death on Leifong she realizes she's edged closer to the priest. Snapping a look his way, Mahri compresses her lips into a thin line and exhales that distinctive odor from her lungs. "Well..maybe you do."

Leifong turns to look at the pool, his gaze unwavering in the presence of such an unnatural thing, yet still it takes him a good several moments to tear his attention away and return it to the she-wolf once more. He studies her carefully, eyes traveling over every inch, from her rugged facial features to the swell in her belly. He could tell that she was afraid, but even with his relative lack of experience with the woman, he knew she was too stubborn for that fear to do her any good. "It's not a matter of what happens if we go in...." he states coldly, his voice devoid of any emotion. "It's what happens if we don't."

Meanwhile, Not Far Away

Amadeo simply stared forward as he ran, leaping, as he did, over the various stones and outcroppings of foliage that interrupted his course. His limbs moved mechanically, seemingly of their own volition, and his vacant expression betrayed the mental preoccupation that had reduced him to this overcoming and aimless spell of flight. An image of a man was burned into his retinae. A vagabond, head cocked back and cutting a macabre figure in the shadows and light of the fire he'd left behind. He couldn't shake this image or escape the accusation that he'd read in that lifeless, gaping smile. So he just ran, fleeing, aborting from the reality of the murder he'd just committed. It was rather appropriate that he should soon take note of the surreal and sudden transposition that overtook his settings. The forest was gone. The moonlight, the dirt, gone. The sound of his own muffled footsteps padding softly against a carpeted floor brought his senses to appreciate the regal yet mundane corridor in which he found himself. Amadeo would pause, eyes attempting to blink away the hallucination, but in vain. God damned house of horrors. Tentatively, he just just proceeded forward. What else could he do?

Mahri is pacing in front of the well while Leifong watched her. She is busy thinking, plotting..planning.. It's not going well as she can really only think of one course of action. And it did not sit well with the wolf. What she needed was some bloody sound advice.

Cornelius lunges through the wall in a half-stumble, his sabre slashing through thin air as his empty hand thrusts forward to strike at some unseen opponent's face with an equally invisible weapon. Breathing heavily with every movement, his face is a white caricature of fear, hatred, grief and rage combined. Tears course freely down his cheeks as he looks wildly about for his opponent. At the sight of Amadeo approaching, Cornelius stops, spins away a moment to run his left hand over his face and through his silver-grey hair. His posture visibly stiffens to become upright and straight of back. When he turns around a second later his face is a mask again, one of blithe smile and jovial attitude, ruined only by the traces of wetness still gleaming on his cheeks. Through effort of pure will, he squeezes a greeting through his smiling teeth: 'Hello there. Perfect place for a midnight soiree, wot". Although the phrase is light-hearted enough, they are incongruous with the hoarse, rasping sound of his voice.

And in the twisted halls and corridors echoed, faint at first, and now growing in volume, growing with every step taken, every breath drawn, an unearthly music as of some wheezing, unwell piano accordion being tortured with an archaic waltz. One-two-three, one-two-three. The rhythm seemed to permeate everything, the music less deafening than omnipresent. Even the shadows seemed to sway in time. One-two-three, one-two-three…

Amadeo wouldn't have noticed. He looked over at Cornelius with the kind of regard a man might give a ghost... assuming that man were overly accustomed to seeing ghosts. It did occur to his addled mind that he might be in the presence of a common interest, but still, though slow to learn, he was starting to get the impression he ought to be wary at the sight of anything that rang with even remote familiarity. Coming to a gradual halt beside Cornelius, he peered, for a moment distracted, down the long hallway. Then he turned his bright blue eyes on the man, holding him in a long and earnest appraisal. "Do you hear that?" he grumbled at length, still subjecting the dandy to an unnerving scrutiny. "Are you noticing something...odd about this place?" He wasn't at liberty to give a personal testament.

Mahri stopped pacing. And her heart almost did too. The music drifting from somewhere was a waltz. Incidentally, the only freaking dance Mahri knew with any skill. Her feet remembered the steps at least and the lure of dancing, just one more time...A sharp shake of her head brings the wolf back to reality. Or what could be called such and without so much as a glance at the priest, she'll abruptly leave the one room she had been so blasted determined to get through. It was the music. That haunting melody with the treble beat demanded attention.

Cornelius regains his composure second by second, and has constructed a semblance close to his normal demeanour by the time the strange drunkard reaches him to ask the question. He resheathes his sabre, commenting "Odd? No, not at all. I pop in and out of walls all the deuced time." He straightens his sleeves as he looks around "Well, no time to chat. Must be off. Things to do, Mahris to find. You know how it is" He starts off at a brisk pace in the direction Amadeo was originally heading, focusing his attention on the path ahead for any signs of Mahri's passage. He is determined to ignore the strange dissonant tones of the fortress, the unsettling warping of the walls - Cornelius would be damned if he'd give whatever was orchestrating this infernal experience the pleasure of further emotional displays.

But ah, what a display would thrust itself upon the dandy and his wolfish companion, for in the dimlit distance of what was now a long, mind-achingly long, corridor, swinging and swaying, rapidly waltzing closer and closer to the two were what appeared to be an elegant couple dancing on air – quite literally. Their feet were not at all touching the ground, it might be noted, as the dancers grew closer still and emerged from the murk. A man, in a dark suit, a hat tilted over his eyes at a rakish angle. A woman, dark of hair and dressed in white printed with would appear to be large red flowers. Any other onlookers might’ve admired their grace, their flair for the art of motion, might’ve found their hearts lifting at such a lovely sight in such a dismal place. But these two, Cornelius and Amadeo, would likely note that the crimson flowers adorning that ivory gown were strangely like tiny hand prints, and the man’s mouth hung open, that his jaw swayed in time to the music like a short and fleshy pendulum. On and on they danced, and were soon undeniably, horribly familiar.

Amadeo stood rooted to the spot. He had been about to follow Cornelius but froze completely at the strange sight unfolding before them both. His eyes showed a hint of panic as he first noted the male of the duet, his hat and ruined suit an uncanny give-away if the ghastly broken jaw was not. Despite the perfectly valid magnetism with which he marked the vagrant looking dancer, it was the woman who soon drew his attention, and on her, he gazed with a sort of desperation. He took a timid step forward, cocking his head askance as he peered for the answers in her ethereal face, but could do nothing more than stare helplessly. From the way his bushy mouth hung ajar to the perfect wideness of his eyes, he looked outstandingly vulnerable.

Cornelius had held up his ideal of nonchalant aloofness admirably while the passageway had housed but himself and the Lycan vagrant. This changes the moment the dancers come into view. The woman in white was scarred too deeply in Cornelius' memories to ever be forgotten or mistaken, even at a distance. An angry hiss erupts from his throat - and is matched by that of the sabre leaving its scabbard once again. The enchanted sabre of Penzance, one of the few things left of his family which hadn't rotted into corruption over the past three centuries, sits in his hand with the reassurance of an old friend. Cornelius knows this to be an illusion, a mocking pantomime sent to unnerve him - it is the only rational explanation which fits the facts as he knows them - but the mere sight of her, of the the physical manifestation of his family's ruin, is enough to contort his face into a grimly stoic mask through which rage-filled eyes stare intently. How well did the thing controlling this mummers play know his past, his mind? A closer look would tell. As Amadeo steps forward, the dance whirls the woman temporarily away from the Lycan, the male dancer's swinging jawline bobbing in a grotesque grin at him. A moment later, however, Amadeo will get to see the face of Anastasia as last Cornelius had seen it: what was once a perfect porcelain portrayal of beauty is cruelly marred by molten and scorched flesh. Viscous, bloody tears run from her eyes now, matching the tears of frustrated rage which well again from Cornelius' eyes. The bastard who pulled the strings of this twisted marionette knew him better than any being had right to. Cornelius knew that scarred expanse of flesh on the vampire bitch's face. He had caused them in the aftermath of the fall of the House of Penzance, having forcibly smashed a vial of dragon's blood against her right cheek, even as he had pierced her with the rapier he had carried on that accursed day. He spits on the bleak stones of the fortress, a spiteful contra-note to the dissonant waltz it plays "You'll have to do better than that, you bastard, if you want to dance with Cornelius Von Penzance"

The couple gradually slowed to a halt several yards from the two misadventurers, and parted elegantly from the embrace of the dance, their hands clasped, to take a deep bow and curtsy, respectively. The show over, Winston snapped upright, and would stop the gruesome dangle of his jaw via the support of his opposite hand, the one not clasped to Anastasia's. Peering toward Amadeo, head canted back a little to better see from under that forward-tipped hat, the hobo used the hold on his lower mandible to aid in a terribly slurred attempt at speech: "Well… now. We meet again, boy." A dribble of blood stained his fingers as the jaw was manipulated up and down, and the vagrant made a wet, sucking noise before continuing. "And looky here, I found me a real nice gal…. a town woman... kindest heart y'ever did meet. Got a heel on her shoe. Don't mind if a man's got a little... adjustin' to do... a little… speech impediment. She don't mind none at all, boy. Kindest heart y'ever did meet… Why, I'd give her my babies, if she weren't already wed and bred." Winston added, "And dead." He coughed, turned to Anastasia, who'd been poised like the doll she once resembled this whole time. "No offense intended, ma'am." The vampire seemed lost in a waking dream, her eyes vacant, but she nodded and said, woodenly, "It was worth every drop, every drop, every little body. Every scar, every tear, every ruined memory…" And -snap- her gaze was on the dandy. "And even now you love me, even now, even now…"

Amadeo was shaking from head to toe, his hands tightening into white-knuckled balls as he stared with a dawning mixture of fear and rage at the disfigured aspect of the woman's face. Did the sight of Winston unnerve him? Sure. It couldn't have been long since he'd delivered the killing blow on his old friend, since he'd left the rag-tag jester grinning up at the sky in the light of a firepit they'd once shared together. But Amadeo was not a thinker, more emotional than his foppish ally, and what with the hazy, dream-like quality of this vision, he was drawing the wrong conclusions. He looked upon the woman, Anastasia, as though she were his mother, and the way that Winston clutched her along with the horrible, withering lust with which he regarded her deathly appearance began to prey on the lycan, fast. His brow furrowed intensely, lips curling back to reveal his clenched teeth. "You..." he growled the beginnings of an accusation, glaring at Winston, but the words would die on his tongue with a shaky breath as he turned to glare at Anastasia. His gaze bristled. "Ma..." he breathed, but something was beginning to stir inside of him. As though becoming faint or losing consciousness, he took a faltering step backwards and closed his eyes.

Cornelius merely stares at his second wife while his eyes darken to a cold, emotionless grey. He does not respond, does not speak, does not let the slightest muscle twitch - three centuries of hiding from his own emotions and memories grant the ability to draw upon that skill now when he needs it most. Indeed, for Cornelius, a game of chess had commenced the moment he had been dragged back into his memories, and the opening gambit of his opponent had been brutally effective. However, a single mis-step on his opponents' behalf had now levelled the board, and Cornelius gives nothing away as he stares at Anastasia and awaits his perceived opponent's next move.

But no move was made, as such, except that Winston, still holding his ruined jaw, and the woman bloodied with the murder of her own babies, moved their mouths as one, and spoke in perfect unison: “The bones are cast, the cast is all assembled. The plump lady’s aria has begun. The denouement’s forthcoming, you are all invited. Fate has got her red dress on.” Then both puppets laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

Amadeo reeled backwards with a sudden, violent twist up the middle. The fists at his sides pulled back close and his chest was thrust outward as he leaned back on bending knees. Then he roared, a release of all the pent up rage which had seemed to dam up and explode within him. His bearded visage contorted painfully, and the sound of that scream seemed to undergo a rumbling transformation even as he did. It took on a new depth, a thunderous bass, as the tightened muscles of his limbs bulged to the point of bursting. But they would not burst. The flesh would stretch beyond its seeming capacity, but the hard musculature beneath them only expanded. Biceps and forearms corded with rope-like veins doubled in mass. With sickening snaps of tendons and sinew, his shoulders popped out of place only to fill in the new expanses with more and more flesh, monstrous in its bulk. And all the while, he twisted, breathing ragged pants as he seemed to struggle with the transformation. The nails of his fingers slid out to elongate into claws, and the fingers themselves swelled out with more resounding cracks as the bony knuckles grew to fill the cushions. In a nutshell, he was getting bigger, assuming an imposing physique which towered both in height and breadth. The cheap garments which he had already worn tightly had torn their seams in protest to his bodily expansion, but coarse patches of fur shot out and spread over his skin like a fast-working virus to take their place. As the last vestiges of humanity faded from his visible forms, he stood hunched and breathing heavily, long and burly arms bobbing with predatory tension. His countenance, perhaps the most jarring of all affected zones, bore the basic nature of a canine, a stunted muzzle complete with a drooling maw of twisted teeth, and the once-blue eyes, now suffused with a bestial yellow, bore into Winston with feral animosity.

Cornelius narrows his eyes. With a chessmaster's sensibilities, and the intuition of a skilled player in life's great game, he has sensed what seems to be an arrogant pride on behalf of his opponent: the kind of matured, labyrinth-minded version of childish 'you can't touch me' antics he had found common to the machinations of those hated vampire families who had orchestrated the decline and eventual termination of the influence Penzance had once had on the Vailkrin economy and black markets. Cornelius calculates his response, and with a sneer he spits again "Have fun with your games of chance." He walks forward, even as Amadeo undergoes his transformation, each of the dandy's steps taking on the assured braggadocio and swagger of a man who owns his environment. The scarred dandy, former spymaster and assassin, steps towards and through the puppet of Anastasia. Whether she is pushed aside by his movement, or whether he passes through her as if through an illusion, matters not - Cornelius is prepared with a response for both eventualities, his sabre readied and at ease upon his shoulder. He lets the disdain he feels for his opponent's petty tricks and illusions show on his face as he ignores the peels of mocking laughter and the Lycan driven to frenzy who was even now charging the apparition of the hobo. If Cornelius is not obstructed by a physical presence to the illusion of his wife, he will continue his forward movement in relaxed and confident fashion, even if his eyes do send his watchful gaze all around, constantly wary for more mundane dangers along the lines of crazed Lycans, stonework traps, and pitfalls.

There was no pride; no such emotion existed in their sphere. There was no further interruption to the dandy’s expert self-containment, nor his onward stroll. There was no more laughter, no mocking sing-song intonations. There was only the abrupt silence of two wretched figures, who would drift aside like a pair of mismatched drapes to allow Cornelius his passage. Both then turned to stare at Amadeo, their heads canted at strange angles, eels of darkness surging from them, cuff and pants-leg, décolletage and hemline, mouth, eye, ear, nostril…. And they were deflating, horrid balloons filled with eternal night, flopping and flapping, the shed skins of a snake, puppets with no hand left to fill nor guide them. Only garments, then, and then shreds, wisps, a sigh. The wolf might rage, but it would not be at the nonexistent servants of the Pool’s true and Machiavellian master.

Amadeo issued a bizarre bark, a guttural, choking sound-off of rage. It was rage that seemed to characterize every nuance of the hulking werewolf, from his shivering limbs to the ever-present snarl that vibrated his slackened, canine lips. At the sudden and anti-climactic disappearance of both Winston and Anastasia, he exploded with another wave of livid emotion, barreling in the direction Cornelius has blithely strode with a violence and frenzy that formed perfect contrast. Any trace of the former young man within this beast sure remained dormant, for it took no notice of those it did or did not pass but rather focused hellbent on the light that beckoned from across the hall, and the malign presence he sensed therein.

Cornelius adroitly times his sidestep to allow Amadeo pass with barely a shift in his own forward momentum. He follows at his leisurely pace, swaggering but still wary of potential traps and ambushes which may have been set off by the Lycan's reckless charge. Although rage still simmered within him, it was well under control again, helped in part by the bold curiosity which frequently compelled Cornelius into danger, and caused him to revel in crisis and chaotic circumstances.