Encounterlogs
Carters Odd Encounter Sr Jack
During a snowy evening at the White Oak Institute, Carter finds himself entangled in an unexpected crisis involving his fraternity brother, Paul. Paul, in his quest for power or perhaps passion, performed a sloppy ritual that resulted in the summoning of Bat-Shelah, a succubus and baroness of Hell from the Munich Manual of Demons. With the ritual circle faltering due to Paul's poor Latin skills and the succubus's taunting, Carter enlists the help of two more students, Avi and Aristotle, to contain and ultimately banish the demoness before she wreaks havoc on the campus. Avi's knowledge of the occult, combined with Carter's impromptu chanting and Aristotle's distracting taunts, form an unlikely but effective team aiming to resolve the supernatural mishap.
As the incident escalates with Paul crumbling under the pressure, the team must decide whether to bargain with the increasingly desperate succubus or to banish her outright. Avi wields a ritual dagger to draw Paul's blood to fortify the weakening protective circle while Carter continues to chant, gaining power over the ritual. Despite the succubus’s offers of pleasures and spells, the group unanimously rejects her bargains, not wanting to owe a demon any favors or incur the wrath of the Institute's powerful guardians. With a final boost from Paul's blood and Carter's assertive chanting, the succubus is sent screaming back to Hell. In the end, Paul, having narrowly escaped a demonic fate, skulks away with a bruised arm and ego, leaving the successful trio to reflect on an evening that very nearly saw a demon unleashed upon White Oak.
(Carter's odd encounter(SRJack):SRJack)
[Fri Dec 8 2023]
In a cozy, lavish bedroom
The fog gray walls of this room coupled with gentle mahogany accents give this room a cozy, inviting feel. The bedroom is kept comfortable and well-appointed with a luxurious king-sized mattress flanked by an elegantly hand-crafted nightstand. Across from the bed, a sleek dresser and walk-in wardrobe provide ample room for outfits.
A vaulted skylight in the textured ceiling's center bathes all below in a gentle wash of changing light, warming through the cozy, muted palettes arranged throughout the decor. Artificial lighting design shines too, pulled together with ultra-modern shades and fixtures.. From heat to light to sound, there's nothing in the room that can't be adjusted at the press of a remote, app, or the touchscreen on the wall.
It is night, about 33F(0C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. It's snowing outside. There is a waning crescent moon.
(Your target and their allies discover a cult trying to open a portal to another realm, hoping to bring forth a powerful demon. They must stop the ritual before it's too late.)
As Carter arrives home, a student is waiting for him: Greg, another student. "Carter," he says. "Carter, bro, I am seriously like..." Greg is pacing back and forth in front of Carter's place, looking worried and agitated by turn. He's maybe a little drunk, but not too far gone, and if anything that slight intoxication gives him a worried, wide-eyed attitude of fear.
Carter glances over to Greg as he's walking up to his door, a hint of curiosity on his expression as he notices him pacing in front of his door. "Um.. Hey. What's up..?", he wonders, some concern about his expression as he observes him.
"It's uh..." Greg looks concerned, and he steps closer to Carter with worry in his tone. "It's Paul," he says. Paul, another fraternity brother, is always looking for an edge, whether it is a cheat here or there. "He got a book," he explains. "From the Latin room, and it's not like a good book. It's like the opposite of the good book," he says. "And he's all fucking set up in a corner of the library and... man. It's not good. I was up there with him for a minute, right? He asked for my help, but then the shadows started moving on their own." He pauses. "Bro. Bro. If the sisters find out he's summoning demons and shit in the library?"
Carter furrows his brows a bit as he nods quietly along as Greg explains the situation. "I, uhm.. I'll come with you. I'm not.. super familiar with.. like, demons and shit, y'know, but I'll do my best to try and diffuse the situation if I can.", he decides on, giving a nod. "Was there anyone else in the library from the moment you left there..? And.. Has it harmed anyone just yet..?", he wonders lightly, though he winces somewhat at the implications of his latter worry as well.
"I know man," Greg says to Carter. "Listen, do you think I know anything about demons and shit?" he says. "And -- fuck if I know bro. If it's going to hurt anything?" he says. "I'm worried it's going to hurt Paul. You know Paul, bro. He's not a bad dude, he's just like, Paul, right?" he says. There's a little bit of stoner logic to the reasoning.
If Carter follows, though, Greg will lead him to campus. The snow is coming down as they move; there's an eerieness to it, as it turns the volume down on the town, rendering everything some white silence. The silence makes Carter's heartbeat echo louder and give some cavernous echo to his thoughts.
Carter's lips crease into a slight smile at Greg's reasoning, giving a nod. "Yeah, dude, he's, like, Paul.", he affirms, moving to follow along with Greg, though he draws his coat a bit closer to him as the snow falls, shivering a bit. "I know a bit.", he gently adds, before considering. "I have a friend who might know a bit more, though.", he says with a nod.
"I don't mind phone a friend, bro," Greg tells Carter. Inside the institute, now, and up the winding steps that lead high up to the library. "I could use a friend. Any friend, really," he says, his voice low. "I didn't like the smell, either."
In fact, it's the smell that hits Carter's nostrils first. As soon as he hits the library, his nose pricks with the odor of sulfur. For now, he can't hear anything, but Greg quietly indicates some passage through the northern stacks.
Carter wrinkles his nose as he follows Greg into the Institute proper, making their way up to the library. "Sulfur.", he murmurs, a hint of knowing on his expression, following quietly along as Greg leads him up, gazing curiously down that indicated passage through the northern stacks, hand slipping down at his phone.
As Carter approaches, he can hear the chanting. It's low and in Latin, or some vulgar approximation of the tongue. There's a kind of ecstatic quality to it, rising and falling, as if the person chanting it is full of overhwelmed excitement. In that regard, he is: Carter still can't see it, but he can recognize Paul's voice, now.
Up here, almost to a clearing in the stacks, the blacked out darkness of the library is lit by flickering red light. The pattern is like candles, but the color suggests some more powerful, glowing heat. The smell of sulfur grows stronger.
Carter listens quietly, closing his eyes as if to listen closer, before opening them, the flicker of those lights glinting in his bright green eyes, letting out a soft exhalation, wrinkling his nose a bit as he quietly observes the lights, inching slightly closer as if trying to get a glimpse of Paul in the room, whether that be directly or through a gap in the stacks.
As Carter creeps closely around the corner, he spots someone. It's a challenge, just barely peeking around the edge of a bookshelf, but there on the floor is a ritual summoning circle. It's sloppy, exceedingly sloppy, but all the same it glows with hellfire, sparks flying off strange sigils. That's the smell of soot and sulfur, the pulsing red light... and in the center of the circle is some beautiful, female figure. She appears to be considerably less than amused: not even upset, just bored, picking at a long, black-lacquered fingernail.
She is naked, with long, black hair that glistens obsidian: lust, full breasts, wide hips, and... wait. A tail. A small red tail. She looks up at Paul as he chants. "You've got it wrong," she picks at him. "Your intonation is all incorrect."
As Carter creeps closely around the corner, he spots Paul. It's a challenge, just barely peeking around the edge of a bookshelf, but there on the floor is a ritual summoning circle. It's sloppy, exceedingly sloppy, but all the same it glows with hellfire, sparks flying off strange sigils. That's the smell of soot and sulfur, the pulsing red light... and in the center of the circle is some beautiful, female figure. She appears to be considerably less than amused: not even upset, just bored, picking at a long, black-lacquered fingernail.
She is naked, with long, black hair that glistens obsidian: lust, full breasts, wide hips, and... wait. A tail. A small red tail. She looks up at Paul as he chants. "You've got it wrong," she picks at him. "Your intonation is all incorrect."
Carter raises his brows with deepened concern as he spots the demonic entity at the center of the circle, gritting his teeth before exhaling from his nose frustratedly, as if raking his brain for what to do in situations with these.
Paul takes some break in chanting: "No!" he says. "I command you," he tells her. "You are to be my slave, for a night and a day." There's a moment where the student consults a book frantically, but the break in chanting seems to have its own problems.
As the chanting fades, Carter can see the fire in the circle seem to flicker a little, like wind blowing over a candle. If anything, the woman -- the demoness -- seems to smile. Her pale skin seems more like ivory, and she seems to swell, taking a step closer to the circle's edge.
Avi walks up to the front of the campus library with Aristotle. "This is the place," he checks his phone with a faint frown. "Should we just head inside?"
"Might as well." Aristotle quietly offers to Avi as he walks alongside him. "I doubt if it's serious that he's free to just... come escort us in." He points out.
Carter looks behind him to glance for Greg, though he doesn't look for too long - perhaps spotting Avi and Aristotle arriving in the moment. A sigh's let out, his expression worried as he turns his attention back to that circle, his hand briefly touching at his necklace as he observes the unfolding scene - nose wrinkled at the likely now pervasive smell of sulfur - with uncertainty. "H-hey.", he quietly beckons Avi and Aristotle from a passage at the northern stacks.
The scene: something is wrong in the Institute library when Avi is summoned by Carter. Avi and Aristotle can first smell sulfur, and then, as they creep through the stacks, they can see flickering light, as if it is firelight. Then closer still, and they can see Carter himself.
Carter and another student named Greg are peering around the corner of the stacks at at a gap in the library. There, a student named Paul -- they all know him, he's the sort of person to take shortcuts -- is standing in front of a ritual circle. He's summoned, clearly, a succubus, all naked lush curves and black hair, with a little forked tail, and it doesn't seem to be going well for Paul. Paul's terrible Latin chanting is faltering, and the succubus is just continually berating his skill at declension. Each time Paul seems to hesitate the circle surrounding the demoness grows a little weaker.
Sliding a book out of his backpack as he watches Paul fumble this play, Avi skims through the pages swiftly. "He's fucked," Avi murmurs quietly. "How long has he been at this?" Avi wonders of Carter.
"Long enough that Greg had time to circle 'round my apartment as I got home from a meeting. He brought me here and this has been... going on since we got here.", Carter quietly recalls to Avi. "I... I figured you'd know something more about this stuff given it's, like, your area of specialty and.. stuff."
Aristotle's eyes widen slightly once Carter guides them to the scene, and spotting Paul with a succubus of all things has him surprised. Whatever he expected, it certainly wasn't this. "...Woah." He says, quietly. "...Uh... yeah, I don't think this is the kind of problem I can arrest." He says, partly in jest, partly serious. When Avi questions Carter, his eyes turn towards the latter, that question echoed in his silent gaze.
"Well, I don't really have much experience with big-tittied succubi," Avi says a bit wryly, looking up from the book he's studying. "But from the looks of things, Paul has bitten off more than he can chew, and the 'find out' segment of his 'fuck around' is swiftly approaching. Should we go give him some backup?" Avi asks Carter, deferring to his judgement on his discovery. "Well, you can maybe arrest Paul, if he survives," he points out to Aristotle.
Indeed, Avi might garner some details. Paul is trying to summon a succubus; from his terribly-pronounced ritual, he is expecting her to lie with him for a day and a night. Several problems might present themselves with this plan to the budding occultist. First, Paul is doing it inside White Oak, which has considerably more powerful wards than Paul might realize.
More importantly, though, Paul is bad at this. His ritual is bad, his Latin is bad, and he's not doing a good job of standing up to the succubus at all, who has largely just begun to berate him about how terrible he is at magic. The berating is working, it seems, since the fiery bounding circle is flickering weaker and weaker.
"The hell was he thinking?" Aristotle asks, his attention turning back to Paul and the succubus he's trying and failing to contain. He's watching the scene for a few moments, noting the Succubus' berating as it seems to worsen Paul's ability to weave his ritual and weaken the circle that binds her. He's looking to both Avi and Carter after a moment, and starts pointing to them, "So, she's definitely trying to distract him, right? I'm pretty sure I ritual about as good as Paul here, but, d'you want me to tell her to shut up or something while you two put a magical leash on her?"
Carter looks concernedly to Avi, though his quip gets a somewhat amused snort from his nose, a fleeting smile that passes as quickly as it emerges. "If there's anything we can do.. I noticed his circle's a -mess-... And he's.. letting that big-tittied succubus walk all over him.", he observes quietly. "I thought about breaking the circle, but depending on how badly this is fucked, it might set it free for a time rather than sending it back, I figured..? Probably not a good idea... Otherwise.. any thoughts?", he asks, his eyes studying the area around the ritual being performed, his bright green eyes flickering in the firelight-esque glow given off as he glances to Aristotle. "I figured maybe he was trying to cheat at finals, but this seems... more lewd, perhaps?", he observes with a quirked brow. "I could try to distract her.", he adds to him, though considering for a moment, "Perhaps the more 'open' approach would work better though."
"You distract her," Avi sends Aristotle into the line of fire. "You, take over Paul's chanting to keep the circle from weakening," Avi suggests then to Carter. "And I'll do what I can to reinforce the circle. No point setting her loose - and Paul owes us for the help, so whatever he wanted, he can kiss goodbye - maybe instead we can get something out of this," he says with a cold pragmatism.
For a moment, there's a slight press of Aristotle's lips into a line as he listens to both Carter and Avi, and when Avi begins leading the charge of a plan, he nods. He steps one step closer towards Paul and his underestimated conquest, and states, "Mostly safe so long as the circle is unbroken." But, it comes out more like a question than anything. He sets his hand onto his holster where his gun is, likely for some sense of security since he's not withdrawing anything yet.
Carter hums out a single "Hm.", giving a nod to Avi as he coordinates him and Aristotle, eyes focused on the book that Paul's holding, glancing back as he anticipates Aristotle making that initial distracting movement - his hand moving to trace the runes on his necklace for a brief moment, before he glances between Paul and his unsatisfied Succubus.
Over in Paul's ruined wet dream, things are getting out of control. "This is shameful," the succubus says. "Look at this. You can't write Enochian correctly," she tells Paul. "That wasn't even Latin. Was that Greek? Are you an imbecile?" she says. "I don't know what exactly you wanted me to do to you, but if your skill with that is the same as your skill with this, I could have just slept for the next day and a night." She shakes her head, black hair falling around the ridiculous curves. "Are you about to cry?" she demands of Paul.
Avi murmurs quietly, "Ari, draw that sass to yourself, Paul can't handle it."
Paul, for his part, appears to be about to cry.
Aristotle takes in a slow inhale, and another step is taken towards Paul and what will probably be the source of his trauma for the next few years. "Excuse me," he says, lifting a hand to wave at the demon to try and draw its ire. "I'm assuming you're new at this, right?" He says to her. "I don't know if you knew this or not, but men don't like it when you talk, and, uh, you're doing a lot of that." He says to her. "It's giving... boredom." He says to her, tone oddly polite despite trying to piss her off.
Carter wrinkles his nose at the succubus. "How rude.", he quietly observes, before mumbling, "Even if it's sort of true, why say it..?", before focusing in, looking between Aristotle and the succubus, giving a snort as listens to him, a smirk coming across his expression as he moves with easy strides on to the book that Paul has, eyes quickly skimming for the proper chant and detailing on effects.
When Aristotle steps out, the succubus turns to look at him. "Wow!" she says. "That's so cool. And you have a tin star, too," she says. She holds out her wrists: they are supple and perfect, milk-pale, her fingers crowned with long, dark nails. That lewdly exquisite beauty may, however, be ruined by her tone as she puts her wrists together. "Going to tie me up?" she says, her voice a little nasal. "Oh no," she says with a wiggle of wide, perfect hips: in a different context, it might be seductive. Here it's just grating. "Oh no! What is the bad man going to do me!" She snorts, tail lashing. "Paul," she says. "Friends don't make it better if they are all lame."
Paul was not expecting the arrival of company, and his chant breaks down completely. "W-what are you doing here?" he asks, and as he stops his ritual the flames immediately begin to go out as the magic of the circle begins to dissipate. The ritual needs to start back up, and soon. For Carter, the words seem simple enough: he just needs to get them out to get this demoness back in her proverbial cage.
Studying the circle as Aristotle moves in to distract the rude succubus and Carter seeks to stabilize it, Avi wonders aloud as he draws a satchel of different reagents from his bag, "What material did he use for the circle, and what reagent can I use to reinforce the wards? Sister Abigail will birth a literal cow if this gets out."
There's a furrow of Aristotle's brow that forms when he's addressed by the succubus, and her insinuation that he'd tie her up as him snorting. "Actually, no, not boredom," He decides, shaking his head at the demon to retract his words. "More like annoyance. You're annoying... like yipping little chihuahua... was that the seduction tactic? Or a nag." He says. "No wonder you're the one that got summoned." He says. "And you just met me and already you're wanting me to tie you up? Trying too hard and it's desperate. Hell clearly wasn't sending their best and I guess they were so eager to get rid of you." But, what he wasn't expecting, was for Paul to stop chanting and the circle to start dissipating.
Carter hums, looking over the book, before beginning to read off the chants from the book in a steady tone, doing his best to keep pace, eyes glancing between the page and looking up to the succubus with a wrinkled nose, then back to the page occasionally as he continues to read from the book, focusing intently on the words as he declaims them in hopes of reinforcing its bindings.
Reagants, check: Paul used chalk, Avi might notice, which is the weakest of all things. Powdered silver would be perfect in this situation, but expensive, but what makes every circle stronger? Well: blood, of course.
"Wow, you useless prick," Avi says as he heads toward someone who has seemingly given up entirely on chanting to contain his self-created problem. "Give me your arm," he demands. "Unless you want to join her in that circle," he threatens, bypassing cordiality considering the urgency of the matter. What he needs Paul's arm for becomes immediately apparent as he draws a ritual dagger from his bag, preparing to spill the wannabe-occultist's blood for the cause as Aristotle absolutely goes to town on the succubus, verbally at least.
"Wow, you useless prick," Avi says as he heads toward Paul who has seemingly given up entirely on chanting to contain his self-created problem. "Give me your arm," he demands. "Unless you want to join her in that circle," he threatens, bypassing cordiality considering the urgency of the matter. What he needs Paul's arm for becomes immediately apparent as he draws a ritual dagger from his bag, preparing to spill the wannabe-occultist's blood for the cause as Aristotle absolutely goes to town on the succubus, verbally at least.
Some resistance, perhaps, from Paul, but this is really not Paul's night. Here he had a plan: he skims Succubus Digest, picks the one he wants, finds the right chant, and gets all the love his offputting personality can't attract from the girls at Delta Delta Delta. Instead... here's Avi Arkwright with a knife. Slowly but surely, Paul extends his arm.
Meanwhile, Carter is chanting: and the fires are starting to kick back up. Sparks color the room orange and red, as the ritual words flow from Carter's lips. If he's in the mood for a succubus, hey: he's got the recipe right in front him. She doesn't seem that happy about it, starting to turn away from Aristotle as she realizes her chances of a night on the town are dimming as the circle flares up.
"I am the absolute best at what I do!" the succubus says to Aristotle. It should be a purr, perhaps, but instead it comes off with a little stamp of frustration, as the unreasonably curvy demoness stomps her foot on the carpet. "Listen," she says, shifting tracks. "Why don't we all just make a deal?"
Carter squints his eyes at Paul - he looks like he might have some choice words, though his eyes turn back to the page in front of him as he continues his light, steady chanting, a brief glance given towards that blade Avi pulls out on Paul. A slight head-shake's given toward the succubus, though seeming ever-so-slightly curious as to what the entity might end up offering.
When the Succubus shifts tactic and enters her bargaining era, Aristotle takes a step closer towards her and the circle, but it's a small one. He starts to relax, just slightly, as it seems the power dynamic is shifting in their favor. "The absolute best and what you do doesn't seem like it's good enough." He observes, slightly shifting from trying to piss her off, to trying to taunt her. "But, a deal? Alright. I'm listening." He says. "What could you possibly offer us?" He asks, using this time to beckon her to divulge more while Carter and Avi both continue to work.
Paul's resistance is relatively futile - Avi is clearly determined to spill his blood, the demonborn actually looking quite enthused by the prospect, really, and even if Paul's resistance is physical, once Avi has a hold of his arm, Paul will likely note that escaping that hold isn't likely, as the skinny goth Arkwright is clearly much stronger than appearances might seem. "This is going to hurt you way more than it hurts me," Avi advises Paul, attempting to slowly draw the blade across Paul's wrist, his blood ostensibly dribbling over the cheap chalk lines of the circle.
"Guys," the demoness says. "I'm literally a sex demon." She makes a gesture along her entire body, showing off the goods. "Three hours of anything you can dream of," she says. "And then I get the rest of the day and the night to explore this -beautiful- town," she tells them. "Come on!" she offers. "One at a time, taking turns, whatever gilds the lily." A look. "Is that still a saying?"
As Avi seizes Paul, blood begins to flow: it drips down onto the circle, and then the fire there flares up, now enriched with Paul's vital essence. The barrier is burning strong, now, and Carter, in control of the ritual, is flush with power. If he wanted to, he could banish the succubus right now.
Carter hums, lifting his brows to the succubus, looking back to the chant. An amused snort's given out at her suggestion to him, though he's seeming perfectly satisfied with banishment at this point, keeping right on at pace as he was before, his eyes briefly glancing down to the blood flowing from Paul onto the circle, drawing from that essence towards the banishment of the demoness.
"Guys, I think I might be gay, bisexuality isn't working for me at the moment," Avi mutters as he works, eyeing the succubus with more derisive pity than any signs of arousal on his part.
"Real.", Carter works in between the words of his chant, giving Avi a quirk of his brows.
"Sex isn't profitable." Aristotle says, turning down the succubus' offer with a shake of his head. "Is that the only thing you can offer?" He asks of her, glancing towards Carter and Avi as they shed blood from Paul. Though, Avi's muttering elicit a small snicker from him.
Aristotle may have no idea that Carter is moving to banish the demoness, but Avi can detect that change in Carter's ritual immediately. When that chant reaches its height, the demoness will be gone.
"I can seduce someone else!" the succubus says, a little plaintively. "I can beguile the mind of someone you wish: put some compulsion in their body," she says. "One for each of you," she says. "One hypnotic suggestion of your choice, if I have a day and a night to enjoy this town."
"Don't let her go yet," Avi entreats Carter as he chants toward completion, shoving Paul aside once he's (finally) contributed something useful to this endeavor. "We've got her, what can we get from her?"
Carter slows up a bit more towards maintainance of where the containment's currently at, glancing down at Avi curiously, glancing over to Aristotle, then to Paul, as if expecting a response to Avi's question, quirking his eyebrows expectantly.
"Three spells!" the succubus promises. "Three spells, and my freedom!" she says.
When Paul is shoved aside, Aristotle is looking over towards Avi and he takes a step back from the circle to let Avi take the reigns. At the question though, he can't help but comment, "I can't shake the feeling that anything she could offer isn't anything we can't get ourselves." He says.
"It's nothing against you personally," Avi tells the succubus as she haggles. "But we're more afraid of Sister Abigail's little black book of impending doom than what we might miss out on if we don't set you free." Avi shrugs. "That's just the way it is. So unless there's something you want that we can get for you to take back with you in exchange for what we want, my pretty friend here is just going to send you back to Hell empty-handed," Avi gestures toward Carter, "And we'll all just be unsatisfied. One star review for you on Hell-Yelp," he threatens. "And Caim," he invokes the name of a demonic-entity-about-town she might be aware of, "Will make sure the word spreads about your failure here." He eyes her speculatively. "Three spells for us, and for you, maybe... oh I don't know - they don't have Starbucks where you live, I'd bet?"
The succubus looks at Avi, and there's a tilt of her head, genuinely puzzled. "Starbucks?" she asks, the question setting the unreasonable, unrealistic bombshell body all a-quiver.
"Someone tell the pretty lady all about the addictive potions of the mythical Starbucks," Avi suggests mildly.
Carter gives a light nod to Aristotle's statement, seeming to consider that for a moment, before looking back to Avi as he threatens the succubus, giving a few stern nods to the demoness, though the mention of Starbucks makes his eyebrows quirk, an amused expression coming across briefly as he continues his -slowed- incantation.
"You want to give me coffee in exchange for spells?" the succubus asks. She steps towards Avi. "No sale, honey," he tells him. "But if you want to offer an IOU, I'll do that deal. You get your spells, you three: but in the future, each one of you, owes me some favor. Otherwise what are you going to do? Chant here all night?"
Aristotle looks to Avi, and then to Carter. And then to Paul. Seeing as how Carter is busy in maintenance mode and Paul is... Paul, it's probably leaves Aristotle to expand on what Starbucks is. And, he takes a step forward to give a very real description of the place, grounded in reality. "Well. Starbucks is our... apothecary," he says. "Every potion and concoction crafted by the hand of alchemists and sorcerers for all kinds of self..." He pauses for a moment, as if to pull the right word, "...modifications." He says. "There are potions that can grant boundless energy, ones for a silver tongue, ones for greater charisma... sexual arousal," he says. "There's a pink drink there that, if you specifically were to---" but then, the Succubus is proving she's not as dumb as they thought, revealing she knows exactly what a Starbucks is. "...Oh. Well. I mean... it's /really/ good coffee." He then tries.
"You did really well," Avi assures Aristotle. "She clearly drinks Dunkin Donuts coffee," he says, the same way one might say someone drinks piss. "Unless either of you is looking for three strikes from Sister Abigail, I say we just banish her, there's nothing she can do for us that's worth the trouble," he says, looking to Carter with a nod.
"Thank you." Aristotle flashes Avi a bright smile, but when he's suggesting she just be banished, he nods. "I don't want to her owe her a favor. We'll send her back and then burn her page so another 'Paul' doesn't try this again."
"Oooh, erased from the compendium. That's harsh, and I like it," Avi tells Aristotle appreciatively.
Carter shakes his head, working in the words, "No debt.", to the succubus, his eyebrows quirked mildly, eyes glancing between Avi and Aristotle as he continues his chant, picking up the pace, sprinkling in, "Or you go.", as seasoning, seeming curious to see if the entity would take such a deal, hastening almost as if threatening, eyes glancing between the two as he gives a short nod.
Demons are in the favor business, and when Avi, Aristotle and Carter reject the succubus' pitches she grows upset. "You little turds!" she says, stamping her foot. "You are ungrateful EUNUCHS!" she cries, and then she looks at Carter. "I'm going to hell one way or another," she says. "Either you let me free, you bargain with me -- or as foolish as your friends are you send me home, having wasted everyone's evening."
A small smile starts to settle on Aristotle's lips, as if proud by what he's told by Avi. His smile starts to falter though when the succubus berate them, going from bargaining to tantrum. "We'll just send you home. The only one with a wasted evening is you."
Carter squints his eyes at the succubus, before rolling them, aiming at wrapping up the banishment as he returns to his original pacing of declamation. "Foolish.", he opines as a sprinkling in between reasonably fast-paced chanting as he sees fit to the entity's removal.
Avi wiggles his fingers in mocking farewell to the succubus as Carter paces faster toward her banishment. "Imagine turning down Starbucks," he says with mild incredulity.
And then, as Carter's chant gets louder, the fire begins to flare up: it starts to become a sheet, floor to ceiling, and the figure of the succubus can be glimpsed only dimly through the flames. She screams, in futile rage, but the crackling of hellfire obscures her words as she begins to be dragged from here back to whatever Hell she came from.
After a moment, it is all silence: the fire is gone. The smell of sulfur lingers, but the circle is smudged on the ground and the demoness is banished back to wherever she came from. Paul, for his part, is still having an awful night: but as soon as he can flee he will, clutching his mildly wounded arm and his mortally wounded ego.
OOC: Thanks, guys. Any last poses or questions I am more than happy to respond to.
When the fire flares up, Aristotle takes a step back away from the heat, watching as the succubus is dragged kicking and screaming back to Hell. When there is only silence, his attention turns to Paul, and he peers at the boy, contemplatively. Whatever he was juggling in his mind revolving the boy seems to settle as he picks an option, and said option involves him turning his attention away from him and back to Avi and Carter. To both, he says, "You both alright?"
Carter glances down to Paul, no longer occupied by chanting, giving an eyeroll to him as well, though he looks over to Avi. "Imagine.", he adds somewhat amusedly, then turning his attention back to Paul. "I figured you were seeking finals questions or something like that. You know there are clubs where you can *pay* people, for this sort of thing, right? No need to risk your life over... well, sex.", he supposes, glancing back to Aristotle, giving a small smile. "I think I'm alright.", he responds gently.
For those in possession of the page, the succubus has a name: she is Bat-Shelah, a baroness of Hell, who according to the Munich Manual of Demons lashes the souls of those who are consumed by envy for their neighbor's wives. When summoned, the Munich Manual says, she will lie with a man and possesses great power over the hearts of those who are weak-minded.
"Before we burn the page," Avi seems content to let Paul flee for now - they know where he studies, after all - "Is there a name or anything for this particular entity?" He nods at Aristotle's query. "I'm fine, it wasn't my blood after all," he notes. "You really took to your task though, I was worried you might not be able to distract her from the easy meal she was making of Paul." He walks over to wherever the page was last, skimming the information on it. "Scourge of adulterors and idiots," he summarizes.
"I didn't want to let you guys down." Aristotle admits, shrugging at Avi's words to him despite having a small, but pleased little smile on his face. He's watching him all the while, eying the page from a distance as he skims it, and his summary has him huffing out through his nostrils. He doesn't pursue Paul if he chooses to flee, but to Avi and Carter he states, "If he does this again he's going to the station." He says. "This really could've gone the other way and it'd be on his hands."
OOC: I'll let you guys head down. Hope you had a good time! I'm going to crash out.
Carter hums, glancing over at the page. "Bat-Shelah.", he supposes, eyes scanning the page for information curiously, before he gives a snort to Avi's summary. "Sounds about right.", he adds, giving poor Paul a smize, before looking back to Aristotle, smiling gently. "You did great, Ari. Thanks for all your help.", he hums, before looking back. "Don't fuck with shit you don't understand.", he offers simply to the wannabe-occultist with a huff.
OOC: Let me know if you need a summon somewhere.
"Your pick-up Latin was on-point, I'm so lazy about ancient languages I could have never," Avi tells Carter. "Let's head out?" he suggests. "It smells like sulfur and desperation in here."
As the incident escalates with Paul crumbling under the pressure, the team must decide whether to bargain with the increasingly desperate succubus or to banish her outright. Avi wields a ritual dagger to draw Paul's blood to fortify the weakening protective circle while Carter continues to chant, gaining power over the ritual. Despite the succubus’s offers of pleasures and spells, the group unanimously rejects her bargains, not wanting to owe a demon any favors or incur the wrath of the Institute's powerful guardians. With a final boost from Paul's blood and Carter's assertive chanting, the succubus is sent screaming back to Hell. In the end, Paul, having narrowly escaped a demonic fate, skulks away with a bruised arm and ego, leaving the successful trio to reflect on an evening that very nearly saw a demon unleashed upon White Oak.
(Carter's odd encounter(SRJack):SRJack)
[Fri Dec 8 2023]
In a cozy, lavish bedroom
The fog gray walls of this room coupled with gentle mahogany accents give this room a cozy, inviting feel. The bedroom is kept comfortable and well-appointed with a luxurious king-sized mattress flanked by an elegantly hand-crafted nightstand. Across from the bed, a sleek dresser and walk-in wardrobe provide ample room for outfits.
A vaulted skylight in the textured ceiling's center bathes all below in a gentle wash of changing light, warming through the cozy, muted palettes arranged throughout the decor. Artificial lighting design shines too, pulled together with ultra-modern shades and fixtures.. From heat to light to sound, there's nothing in the room that can't be adjusted at the press of a remote, app, or the touchscreen on the wall.
It is night, about 33F(0C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. It's snowing outside. There is a waning crescent moon.
(Your target and their allies discover a cult trying to open a portal to another realm, hoping to bring forth a powerful demon. They must stop the ritual before it's too late.)
As Carter arrives home, a student is waiting for him: Greg, another student. "Carter," he says. "Carter, bro, I am seriously like..." Greg is pacing back and forth in front of Carter's place, looking worried and agitated by turn. He's maybe a little drunk, but not too far gone, and if anything that slight intoxication gives him a worried, wide-eyed attitude of fear.
Carter glances over to Greg as he's walking up to his door, a hint of curiosity on his expression as he notices him pacing in front of his door. "Um.. Hey. What's up..?", he wonders, some concern about his expression as he observes him.
"It's uh..." Greg looks concerned, and he steps closer to Carter with worry in his tone. "It's Paul," he says. Paul, another fraternity brother, is always looking for an edge, whether it is a cheat here or there. "He got a book," he explains. "From the Latin room, and it's not like a good book. It's like the opposite of the good book," he says. "And he's all fucking set up in a corner of the library and... man. It's not good. I was up there with him for a minute, right? He asked for my help, but then the shadows started moving on their own." He pauses. "Bro. Bro. If the sisters find out he's summoning demons and shit in the library?"
Carter furrows his brows a bit as he nods quietly along as Greg explains the situation. "I, uhm.. I'll come with you. I'm not.. super familiar with.. like, demons and shit, y'know, but I'll do my best to try and diffuse the situation if I can.", he decides on, giving a nod. "Was there anyone else in the library from the moment you left there..? And.. Has it harmed anyone just yet..?", he wonders lightly, though he winces somewhat at the implications of his latter worry as well.
"I know man," Greg says to Carter. "Listen, do you think I know anything about demons and shit?" he says. "And -- fuck if I know bro. If it's going to hurt anything?" he says. "I'm worried it's going to hurt Paul. You know Paul, bro. He's not a bad dude, he's just like, Paul, right?" he says. There's a little bit of stoner logic to the reasoning.
If Carter follows, though, Greg will lead him to campus. The snow is coming down as they move; there's an eerieness to it, as it turns the volume down on the town, rendering everything some white silence. The silence makes Carter's heartbeat echo louder and give some cavernous echo to his thoughts.
Carter's lips crease into a slight smile at Greg's reasoning, giving a nod. "Yeah, dude, he's, like, Paul.", he affirms, moving to follow along with Greg, though he draws his coat a bit closer to him as the snow falls, shivering a bit. "I know a bit.", he gently adds, before considering. "I have a friend who might know a bit more, though.", he says with a nod.
"I don't mind phone a friend, bro," Greg tells Carter. Inside the institute, now, and up the winding steps that lead high up to the library. "I could use a friend. Any friend, really," he says, his voice low. "I didn't like the smell, either."
In fact, it's the smell that hits Carter's nostrils first. As soon as he hits the library, his nose pricks with the odor of sulfur. For now, he can't hear anything, but Greg quietly indicates some passage through the northern stacks.
Carter wrinkles his nose as he follows Greg into the Institute proper, making their way up to the library. "Sulfur.", he murmurs, a hint of knowing on his expression, following quietly along as Greg leads him up, gazing curiously down that indicated passage through the northern stacks, hand slipping down at his phone.
As Carter approaches, he can hear the chanting. It's low and in Latin, or some vulgar approximation of the tongue. There's a kind of ecstatic quality to it, rising and falling, as if the person chanting it is full of overhwelmed excitement. In that regard, he is: Carter still can't see it, but he can recognize Paul's voice, now.
Up here, almost to a clearing in the stacks, the blacked out darkness of the library is lit by flickering red light. The pattern is like candles, but the color suggests some more powerful, glowing heat. The smell of sulfur grows stronger.
Carter listens quietly, closing his eyes as if to listen closer, before opening them, the flicker of those lights glinting in his bright green eyes, letting out a soft exhalation, wrinkling his nose a bit as he quietly observes the lights, inching slightly closer as if trying to get a glimpse of Paul in the room, whether that be directly or through a gap in the stacks.
As Carter creeps closely around the corner, he spots someone. It's a challenge, just barely peeking around the edge of a bookshelf, but there on the floor is a ritual summoning circle. It's sloppy, exceedingly sloppy, but all the same it glows with hellfire, sparks flying off strange sigils. That's the smell of soot and sulfur, the pulsing red light... and in the center of the circle is some beautiful, female figure. She appears to be considerably less than amused: not even upset, just bored, picking at a long, black-lacquered fingernail.
She is naked, with long, black hair that glistens obsidian: lust, full breasts, wide hips, and... wait. A tail. A small red tail. She looks up at Paul as he chants. "You've got it wrong," she picks at him. "Your intonation is all incorrect."
As Carter creeps closely around the corner, he spots Paul. It's a challenge, just barely peeking around the edge of a bookshelf, but there on the floor is a ritual summoning circle. It's sloppy, exceedingly sloppy, but all the same it glows with hellfire, sparks flying off strange sigils. That's the smell of soot and sulfur, the pulsing red light... and in the center of the circle is some beautiful, female figure. She appears to be considerably less than amused: not even upset, just bored, picking at a long, black-lacquered fingernail.
She is naked, with long, black hair that glistens obsidian: lust, full breasts, wide hips, and... wait. A tail. A small red tail. She looks up at Paul as he chants. "You've got it wrong," she picks at him. "Your intonation is all incorrect."
Carter raises his brows with deepened concern as he spots the demonic entity at the center of the circle, gritting his teeth before exhaling from his nose frustratedly, as if raking his brain for what to do in situations with these.
Paul takes some break in chanting: "No!" he says. "I command you," he tells her. "You are to be my slave, for a night and a day." There's a moment where the student consults a book frantically, but the break in chanting seems to have its own problems.
As the chanting fades, Carter can see the fire in the circle seem to flicker a little, like wind blowing over a candle. If anything, the woman -- the demoness -- seems to smile. Her pale skin seems more like ivory, and she seems to swell, taking a step closer to the circle's edge.
Avi walks up to the front of the campus library with Aristotle. "This is the place," he checks his phone with a faint frown. "Should we just head inside?"
"Might as well." Aristotle quietly offers to Avi as he walks alongside him. "I doubt if it's serious that he's free to just... come escort us in." He points out.
Carter looks behind him to glance for Greg, though he doesn't look for too long - perhaps spotting Avi and Aristotle arriving in the moment. A sigh's let out, his expression worried as he turns his attention back to that circle, his hand briefly touching at his necklace as he observes the unfolding scene - nose wrinkled at the likely now pervasive smell of sulfur - with uncertainty. "H-hey.", he quietly beckons Avi and Aristotle from a passage at the northern stacks.
The scene: something is wrong in the Institute library when Avi is summoned by Carter. Avi and Aristotle can first smell sulfur, and then, as they creep through the stacks, they can see flickering light, as if it is firelight. Then closer still, and they can see Carter himself.
Carter and another student named Greg are peering around the corner of the stacks at at a gap in the library. There, a student named Paul -- they all know him, he's the sort of person to take shortcuts -- is standing in front of a ritual circle. He's summoned, clearly, a succubus, all naked lush curves and black hair, with a little forked tail, and it doesn't seem to be going well for Paul. Paul's terrible Latin chanting is faltering, and the succubus is just continually berating his skill at declension. Each time Paul seems to hesitate the circle surrounding the demoness grows a little weaker.
Sliding a book out of his backpack as he watches Paul fumble this play, Avi skims through the pages swiftly. "He's fucked," Avi murmurs quietly. "How long has he been at this?" Avi wonders of Carter.
"Long enough that Greg had time to circle 'round my apartment as I got home from a meeting. He brought me here and this has been... going on since we got here.", Carter quietly recalls to Avi. "I... I figured you'd know something more about this stuff given it's, like, your area of specialty and.. stuff."
Aristotle's eyes widen slightly once Carter guides them to the scene, and spotting Paul with a succubus of all things has him surprised. Whatever he expected, it certainly wasn't this. "...Woah." He says, quietly. "...Uh... yeah, I don't think this is the kind of problem I can arrest." He says, partly in jest, partly serious. When Avi questions Carter, his eyes turn towards the latter, that question echoed in his silent gaze.
"Well, I don't really have much experience with big-tittied succubi," Avi says a bit wryly, looking up from the book he's studying. "But from the looks of things, Paul has bitten off more than he can chew, and the 'find out' segment of his 'fuck around' is swiftly approaching. Should we go give him some backup?" Avi asks Carter, deferring to his judgement on his discovery. "Well, you can maybe arrest Paul, if he survives," he points out to Aristotle.
Indeed, Avi might garner some details. Paul is trying to summon a succubus; from his terribly-pronounced ritual, he is expecting her to lie with him for a day and a night. Several problems might present themselves with this plan to the budding occultist. First, Paul is doing it inside White Oak, which has considerably more powerful wards than Paul might realize.
More importantly, though, Paul is bad at this. His ritual is bad, his Latin is bad, and he's not doing a good job of standing up to the succubus at all, who has largely just begun to berate him about how terrible he is at magic. The berating is working, it seems, since the fiery bounding circle is flickering weaker and weaker.
"The hell was he thinking?" Aristotle asks, his attention turning back to Paul and the succubus he's trying and failing to contain. He's watching the scene for a few moments, noting the Succubus' berating as it seems to worsen Paul's ability to weave his ritual and weaken the circle that binds her. He's looking to both Avi and Carter after a moment, and starts pointing to them, "So, she's definitely trying to distract him, right? I'm pretty sure I ritual about as good as Paul here, but, d'you want me to tell her to shut up or something while you two put a magical leash on her?"
Carter looks concernedly to Avi, though his quip gets a somewhat amused snort from his nose, a fleeting smile that passes as quickly as it emerges. "If there's anything we can do.. I noticed his circle's a -mess-... And he's.. letting that big-tittied succubus walk all over him.", he observes quietly. "I thought about breaking the circle, but depending on how badly this is fucked, it might set it free for a time rather than sending it back, I figured..? Probably not a good idea... Otherwise.. any thoughts?", he asks, his eyes studying the area around the ritual being performed, his bright green eyes flickering in the firelight-esque glow given off as he glances to Aristotle. "I figured maybe he was trying to cheat at finals, but this seems... more lewd, perhaps?", he observes with a quirked brow. "I could try to distract her.", he adds to him, though considering for a moment, "Perhaps the more 'open' approach would work better though."
"You distract her," Avi sends Aristotle into the line of fire. "You, take over Paul's chanting to keep the circle from weakening," Avi suggests then to Carter. "And I'll do what I can to reinforce the circle. No point setting her loose - and Paul owes us for the help, so whatever he wanted, he can kiss goodbye - maybe instead we can get something out of this," he says with a cold pragmatism.
For a moment, there's a slight press of Aristotle's lips into a line as he listens to both Carter and Avi, and when Avi begins leading the charge of a plan, he nods. He steps one step closer towards Paul and his underestimated conquest, and states, "Mostly safe so long as the circle is unbroken." But, it comes out more like a question than anything. He sets his hand onto his holster where his gun is, likely for some sense of security since he's not withdrawing anything yet.
Carter hums out a single "Hm.", giving a nod to Avi as he coordinates him and Aristotle, eyes focused on the book that Paul's holding, glancing back as he anticipates Aristotle making that initial distracting movement - his hand moving to trace the runes on his necklace for a brief moment, before he glances between Paul and his unsatisfied Succubus.
Over in Paul's ruined wet dream, things are getting out of control. "This is shameful," the succubus says. "Look at this. You can't write Enochian correctly," she tells Paul. "That wasn't even Latin. Was that Greek? Are you an imbecile?" she says. "I don't know what exactly you wanted me to do to you, but if your skill with that is the same as your skill with this, I could have just slept for the next day and a night." She shakes her head, black hair falling around the ridiculous curves. "Are you about to cry?" she demands of Paul.
Avi murmurs quietly, "Ari, draw that sass to yourself, Paul can't handle it."
Paul, for his part, appears to be about to cry.
Aristotle takes in a slow inhale, and another step is taken towards Paul and what will probably be the source of his trauma for the next few years. "Excuse me," he says, lifting a hand to wave at the demon to try and draw its ire. "I'm assuming you're new at this, right?" He says to her. "I don't know if you knew this or not, but men don't like it when you talk, and, uh, you're doing a lot of that." He says to her. "It's giving... boredom." He says to her, tone oddly polite despite trying to piss her off.
Carter wrinkles his nose at the succubus. "How rude.", he quietly observes, before mumbling, "Even if it's sort of true, why say it..?", before focusing in, looking between Aristotle and the succubus, giving a snort as listens to him, a smirk coming across his expression as he moves with easy strides on to the book that Paul has, eyes quickly skimming for the proper chant and detailing on effects.
When Aristotle steps out, the succubus turns to look at him. "Wow!" she says. "That's so cool. And you have a tin star, too," she says. She holds out her wrists: they are supple and perfect, milk-pale, her fingers crowned with long, dark nails. That lewdly exquisite beauty may, however, be ruined by her tone as she puts her wrists together. "Going to tie me up?" she says, her voice a little nasal. "Oh no," she says with a wiggle of wide, perfect hips: in a different context, it might be seductive. Here it's just grating. "Oh no! What is the bad man going to do me!" She snorts, tail lashing. "Paul," she says. "Friends don't make it better if they are all lame."
Paul was not expecting the arrival of company, and his chant breaks down completely. "W-what are you doing here?" he asks, and as he stops his ritual the flames immediately begin to go out as the magic of the circle begins to dissipate. The ritual needs to start back up, and soon. For Carter, the words seem simple enough: he just needs to get them out to get this demoness back in her proverbial cage.
Studying the circle as Aristotle moves in to distract the rude succubus and Carter seeks to stabilize it, Avi wonders aloud as he draws a satchel of different reagents from his bag, "What material did he use for the circle, and what reagent can I use to reinforce the wards? Sister Abigail will birth a literal cow if this gets out."
There's a furrow of Aristotle's brow that forms when he's addressed by the succubus, and her insinuation that he'd tie her up as him snorting. "Actually, no, not boredom," He decides, shaking his head at the demon to retract his words. "More like annoyance. You're annoying... like yipping little chihuahua... was that the seduction tactic? Or a nag." He says. "No wonder you're the one that got summoned." He says. "And you just met me and already you're wanting me to tie you up? Trying too hard and it's desperate. Hell clearly wasn't sending their best and I guess they were so eager to get rid of you." But, what he wasn't expecting, was for Paul to stop chanting and the circle to start dissipating.
Carter hums, looking over the book, before beginning to read off the chants from the book in a steady tone, doing his best to keep pace, eyes glancing between the page and looking up to the succubus with a wrinkled nose, then back to the page occasionally as he continues to read from the book, focusing intently on the words as he declaims them in hopes of reinforcing its bindings.
Reagants, check: Paul used chalk, Avi might notice, which is the weakest of all things. Powdered silver would be perfect in this situation, but expensive, but what makes every circle stronger? Well: blood, of course.
"Wow, you useless prick," Avi says as he heads toward someone who has seemingly given up entirely on chanting to contain his self-created problem. "Give me your arm," he demands. "Unless you want to join her in that circle," he threatens, bypassing cordiality considering the urgency of the matter. What he needs Paul's arm for becomes immediately apparent as he draws a ritual dagger from his bag, preparing to spill the wannabe-occultist's blood for the cause as Aristotle absolutely goes to town on the succubus, verbally at least.
"Wow, you useless prick," Avi says as he heads toward Paul who has seemingly given up entirely on chanting to contain his self-created problem. "Give me your arm," he demands. "Unless you want to join her in that circle," he threatens, bypassing cordiality considering the urgency of the matter. What he needs Paul's arm for becomes immediately apparent as he draws a ritual dagger from his bag, preparing to spill the wannabe-occultist's blood for the cause as Aristotle absolutely goes to town on the succubus, verbally at least.
Some resistance, perhaps, from Paul, but this is really not Paul's night. Here he had a plan: he skims Succubus Digest, picks the one he wants, finds the right chant, and gets all the love his offputting personality can't attract from the girls at Delta Delta Delta. Instead... here's Avi Arkwright with a knife. Slowly but surely, Paul extends his arm.
Meanwhile, Carter is chanting: and the fires are starting to kick back up. Sparks color the room orange and red, as the ritual words flow from Carter's lips. If he's in the mood for a succubus, hey: he's got the recipe right in front him. She doesn't seem that happy about it, starting to turn away from Aristotle as she realizes her chances of a night on the town are dimming as the circle flares up.
"I am the absolute best at what I do!" the succubus says to Aristotle. It should be a purr, perhaps, but instead it comes off with a little stamp of frustration, as the unreasonably curvy demoness stomps her foot on the carpet. "Listen," she says, shifting tracks. "Why don't we all just make a deal?"
Carter squints his eyes at Paul - he looks like he might have some choice words, though his eyes turn back to the page in front of him as he continues his light, steady chanting, a brief glance given towards that blade Avi pulls out on Paul. A slight head-shake's given toward the succubus, though seeming ever-so-slightly curious as to what the entity might end up offering.
When the Succubus shifts tactic and enters her bargaining era, Aristotle takes a step closer towards her and the circle, but it's a small one. He starts to relax, just slightly, as it seems the power dynamic is shifting in their favor. "The absolute best and what you do doesn't seem like it's good enough." He observes, slightly shifting from trying to piss her off, to trying to taunt her. "But, a deal? Alright. I'm listening." He says. "What could you possibly offer us?" He asks, using this time to beckon her to divulge more while Carter and Avi both continue to work.
Paul's resistance is relatively futile - Avi is clearly determined to spill his blood, the demonborn actually looking quite enthused by the prospect, really, and even if Paul's resistance is physical, once Avi has a hold of his arm, Paul will likely note that escaping that hold isn't likely, as the skinny goth Arkwright is clearly much stronger than appearances might seem. "This is going to hurt you way more than it hurts me," Avi advises Paul, attempting to slowly draw the blade across Paul's wrist, his blood ostensibly dribbling over the cheap chalk lines of the circle.
"Guys," the demoness says. "I'm literally a sex demon." She makes a gesture along her entire body, showing off the goods. "Three hours of anything you can dream of," she says. "And then I get the rest of the day and the night to explore this -beautiful- town," she tells them. "Come on!" she offers. "One at a time, taking turns, whatever gilds the lily." A look. "Is that still a saying?"
As Avi seizes Paul, blood begins to flow: it drips down onto the circle, and then the fire there flares up, now enriched with Paul's vital essence. The barrier is burning strong, now, and Carter, in control of the ritual, is flush with power. If he wanted to, he could banish the succubus right now.
Carter hums, lifting his brows to the succubus, looking back to the chant. An amused snort's given out at her suggestion to him, though he's seeming perfectly satisfied with banishment at this point, keeping right on at pace as he was before, his eyes briefly glancing down to the blood flowing from Paul onto the circle, drawing from that essence towards the banishment of the demoness.
"Guys, I think I might be gay, bisexuality isn't working for me at the moment," Avi mutters as he works, eyeing the succubus with more derisive pity than any signs of arousal on his part.
"Real.", Carter works in between the words of his chant, giving Avi a quirk of his brows.
"Sex isn't profitable." Aristotle says, turning down the succubus' offer with a shake of his head. "Is that the only thing you can offer?" He asks of her, glancing towards Carter and Avi as they shed blood from Paul. Though, Avi's muttering elicit a small snicker from him.
Aristotle may have no idea that Carter is moving to banish the demoness, but Avi can detect that change in Carter's ritual immediately. When that chant reaches its height, the demoness will be gone.
"I can seduce someone else!" the succubus says, a little plaintively. "I can beguile the mind of someone you wish: put some compulsion in their body," she says. "One for each of you," she says. "One hypnotic suggestion of your choice, if I have a day and a night to enjoy this town."
"Don't let her go yet," Avi entreats Carter as he chants toward completion, shoving Paul aside once he's (finally) contributed something useful to this endeavor. "We've got her, what can we get from her?"
Carter slows up a bit more towards maintainance of where the containment's currently at, glancing down at Avi curiously, glancing over to Aristotle, then to Paul, as if expecting a response to Avi's question, quirking his eyebrows expectantly.
"Three spells!" the succubus promises. "Three spells, and my freedom!" she says.
When Paul is shoved aside, Aristotle is looking over towards Avi and he takes a step back from the circle to let Avi take the reigns. At the question though, he can't help but comment, "I can't shake the feeling that anything she could offer isn't anything we can't get ourselves." He says.
"It's nothing against you personally," Avi tells the succubus as she haggles. "But we're more afraid of Sister Abigail's little black book of impending doom than what we might miss out on if we don't set you free." Avi shrugs. "That's just the way it is. So unless there's something you want that we can get for you to take back with you in exchange for what we want, my pretty friend here is just going to send you back to Hell empty-handed," Avi gestures toward Carter, "And we'll all just be unsatisfied. One star review for you on Hell-Yelp," he threatens. "And Caim," he invokes the name of a demonic-entity-about-town she might be aware of, "Will make sure the word spreads about your failure here." He eyes her speculatively. "Three spells for us, and for you, maybe... oh I don't know - they don't have Starbucks where you live, I'd bet?"
The succubus looks at Avi, and there's a tilt of her head, genuinely puzzled. "Starbucks?" she asks, the question setting the unreasonable, unrealistic bombshell body all a-quiver.
"Someone tell the pretty lady all about the addictive potions of the mythical Starbucks," Avi suggests mildly.
Carter gives a light nod to Aristotle's statement, seeming to consider that for a moment, before looking back to Avi as he threatens the succubus, giving a few stern nods to the demoness, though the mention of Starbucks makes his eyebrows quirk, an amused expression coming across briefly as he continues his -slowed- incantation.
"You want to give me coffee in exchange for spells?" the succubus asks. She steps towards Avi. "No sale, honey," he tells him. "But if you want to offer an IOU, I'll do that deal. You get your spells, you three: but in the future, each one of you, owes me some favor. Otherwise what are you going to do? Chant here all night?"
Aristotle looks to Avi, and then to Carter. And then to Paul. Seeing as how Carter is busy in maintenance mode and Paul is... Paul, it's probably leaves Aristotle to expand on what Starbucks is. And, he takes a step forward to give a very real description of the place, grounded in reality. "Well. Starbucks is our... apothecary," he says. "Every potion and concoction crafted by the hand of alchemists and sorcerers for all kinds of self..." He pauses for a moment, as if to pull the right word, "...modifications." He says. "There are potions that can grant boundless energy, ones for a silver tongue, ones for greater charisma... sexual arousal," he says. "There's a pink drink there that, if you specifically were to---" but then, the Succubus is proving she's not as dumb as they thought, revealing she knows exactly what a Starbucks is. "...Oh. Well. I mean... it's /really/ good coffee." He then tries.
"You did really well," Avi assures Aristotle. "She clearly drinks Dunkin Donuts coffee," he says, the same way one might say someone drinks piss. "Unless either of you is looking for three strikes from Sister Abigail, I say we just banish her, there's nothing she can do for us that's worth the trouble," he says, looking to Carter with a nod.
"Thank you." Aristotle flashes Avi a bright smile, but when he's suggesting she just be banished, he nods. "I don't want to her owe her a favor. We'll send her back and then burn her page so another 'Paul' doesn't try this again."
"Oooh, erased from the compendium. That's harsh, and I like it," Avi tells Aristotle appreciatively.
Carter shakes his head, working in the words, "No debt.", to the succubus, his eyebrows quirked mildly, eyes glancing between Avi and Aristotle as he continues his chant, picking up the pace, sprinkling in, "Or you go.", as seasoning, seeming curious to see if the entity would take such a deal, hastening almost as if threatening, eyes glancing between the two as he gives a short nod.
Demons are in the favor business, and when Avi, Aristotle and Carter reject the succubus' pitches she grows upset. "You little turds!" she says, stamping her foot. "You are ungrateful EUNUCHS!" she cries, and then she looks at Carter. "I'm going to hell one way or another," she says. "Either you let me free, you bargain with me -- or as foolish as your friends are you send me home, having wasted everyone's evening."
A small smile starts to settle on Aristotle's lips, as if proud by what he's told by Avi. His smile starts to falter though when the succubus berate them, going from bargaining to tantrum. "We'll just send you home. The only one with a wasted evening is you."
Carter squints his eyes at the succubus, before rolling them, aiming at wrapping up the banishment as he returns to his original pacing of declamation. "Foolish.", he opines as a sprinkling in between reasonably fast-paced chanting as he sees fit to the entity's removal.
Avi wiggles his fingers in mocking farewell to the succubus as Carter paces faster toward her banishment. "Imagine turning down Starbucks," he says with mild incredulity.
And then, as Carter's chant gets louder, the fire begins to flare up: it starts to become a sheet, floor to ceiling, and the figure of the succubus can be glimpsed only dimly through the flames. She screams, in futile rage, but the crackling of hellfire obscures her words as she begins to be dragged from here back to whatever Hell she came from.
After a moment, it is all silence: the fire is gone. The smell of sulfur lingers, but the circle is smudged on the ground and the demoness is banished back to wherever she came from. Paul, for his part, is still having an awful night: but as soon as he can flee he will, clutching his mildly wounded arm and his mortally wounded ego.
OOC: Thanks, guys. Any last poses or questions I am more than happy to respond to.
When the fire flares up, Aristotle takes a step back away from the heat, watching as the succubus is dragged kicking and screaming back to Hell. When there is only silence, his attention turns to Paul, and he peers at the boy, contemplatively. Whatever he was juggling in his mind revolving the boy seems to settle as he picks an option, and said option involves him turning his attention away from him and back to Avi and Carter. To both, he says, "You both alright?"
Carter glances down to Paul, no longer occupied by chanting, giving an eyeroll to him as well, though he looks over to Avi. "Imagine.", he adds somewhat amusedly, then turning his attention back to Paul. "I figured you were seeking finals questions or something like that. You know there are clubs where you can *pay* people, for this sort of thing, right? No need to risk your life over... well, sex.", he supposes, glancing back to Aristotle, giving a small smile. "I think I'm alright.", he responds gently.
For those in possession of the page, the succubus has a name: she is Bat-Shelah, a baroness of Hell, who according to the Munich Manual of Demons lashes the souls of those who are consumed by envy for their neighbor's wives. When summoned, the Munich Manual says, she will lie with a man and possesses great power over the hearts of those who are weak-minded.
"Before we burn the page," Avi seems content to let Paul flee for now - they know where he studies, after all - "Is there a name or anything for this particular entity?" He nods at Aristotle's query. "I'm fine, it wasn't my blood after all," he notes. "You really took to your task though, I was worried you might not be able to distract her from the easy meal she was making of Paul." He walks over to wherever the page was last, skimming the information on it. "Scourge of adulterors and idiots," he summarizes.
"I didn't want to let you guys down." Aristotle admits, shrugging at Avi's words to him despite having a small, but pleased little smile on his face. He's watching him all the while, eying the page from a distance as he skims it, and his summary has him huffing out through his nostrils. He doesn't pursue Paul if he chooses to flee, but to Avi and Carter he states, "If he does this again he's going to the station." He says. "This really could've gone the other way and it'd be on his hands."
OOC: I'll let you guys head down. Hope you had a good time! I'm going to crash out.
Carter hums, glancing over at the page. "Bat-Shelah.", he supposes, eyes scanning the page for information curiously, before he gives a snort to Avi's summary. "Sounds about right.", he adds, giving poor Paul a smize, before looking back to Aristotle, smiling gently. "You did great, Ari. Thanks for all your help.", he hums, before looking back. "Don't fuck with shit you don't understand.", he offers simply to the wannabe-occultist with a huff.
OOC: Let me know if you need a summon somewhere.
"Your pick-up Latin was on-point, I'm so lazy about ancient languages I could have never," Avi tells Carter. "Let's head out?" he suggests. "It smells like sulfur and desperation in here."