An attempt to thwart Dovie’s Storm(Thomas)

Date: 2025-11-19 23:05

(An attempt to thwart Dovie’s Storm(Thomas):Thomas)

[Wed Nov 19 2025]

In Southern Wing Bookshelves
The southern wing extends into a vast chamber lined floor to ceiling with
dark wooden bookshelves that stretch upward into shadow. The shelves hold
countless volumes, their spines displaying titles in various languages and
scripts, some faded beyond recognition. Rolling ladders on brass tracks
provide access to the upper reaches, while narrow walkways between the
towering cases create a maze-like pattern across the polished marble floor.
The air carries the distinctive scent of aged paper and leather bindings,
heavy and still in the windowless space. Globe lights on long chains descend
from the vaulted ceiling at regular intervals, casting pools of amber light
that fail to fully penetrate the gloom between the stacks. The books
themselves range from modern hardcovers to ancient tomes bound in materials
that catch the light strangely, and careful observation reveals that some
volumes appear to shift position when unobserved, their placement subtly
different from one glance to the next.
It is about 50F(10C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Mayflower and Franklin

Mercy runs her tongue across her teeth and adjusts her jacket with a shrug to Teagan. “It’s eased up a bit by now, moon fluctuations an’ all, it acts strange here.” Then quiets down since Thomas had begun chanting, whispering a query to Teagan that would be questionable without context. “You think he wantin’ me to stay like this or should I get down on all fours?”

It is as if a sudden cold wind rushes through the library — pages turn frantically in books as Thomas steps to the center of the circle of candles, black book in hand. Books seem to shiver here in the deep stacks, to move themselves, and shadows lengthen. It’s as if the very cold itself seems to leach into the air of the library, a freeze that takes on the overtone of the chill of the grave.

“Like this is fine,” Thomas tells Mercy, and then he turns to Teagan. “I know. I said you weren’t the sacrifice, Miss Lawson: but if a spirit is drawn here?” he says. “Well: Miss Matlock, full of the natural world, an enemy of magic, weakened… She will distract whatever magic-hungry thing haunts in the liminal world.”

Mercy wasn’t a fan of the cold to begin with but here, indoors, its assault on her is that much more unpleasant and she has to pull the flimsy leather jacket more tightly around herself. Already she’s keeping eyes and ears on high alert, trying to ignore the chill and the irksome presence of magic both with little success, and as she hears Thomas clarify her purpose here there’s a heavy exhale that’s visible in the frigid air. “Ayeah, course. Shoulda seen that one comin’..” She murmurs, then comments to the man from over a shoulder, “Or maybe I’ll join ’em and take yer head off with one good snap. We’ll see.”

“Whichever you think you can deal with a spirit in,” Teagan tells Mercy at the question. Even the answer could be questionable without context. She shivers, herself, pushing up the sleeves of her sweatshirt a bit regardless. In case her hands are needed. “And I am thankful that, for the first time, I am not. Though I do wonder: is that because I am not simply human anymore?” There is a bit of a widening of eyes at Thomas, watching for his reaction to that. “The sooner it is done, the sooner we can all be home and warm.”

“Spirits don’t like werewolves,” Thomas tells Teagan, as his hand moves down the page. He begins to murmur again. “The wind will try to blow the candles out,” he instructs the young woman. “Keep them lit.”

Darkness is descending further, now, so that the bookshelves seem like shadows — but cold flurries of snow begin to gather round the trio. One, like some tentacle, seems to inch forward out of the darkness towards the ring of candles. Only — as it comes near Mercy, it seems to move towards her.

“I should really look into getting an artifact for fire,” Teagan mumbles to herself as she gets into position with lighter to watch over the candles. There is a look to the flurries, the tendrils. She sidles in that direction, just in case. “Or maybe a… thermos of endless hot cocoa. That’d be really good, too.” She looks over toward one of the shelves, giving a slight shrug before going back to keeping sentry over the circle of candles against the snow falling indoors.

“Nobody does, not even other werewolves.” Mercy comments flatly as the room grows dimmer, the mixture of dread and revulsion she feels intensifying in contrast. She seems to be just about to say something to Teagan when movement not following the pattern of the flurries catches her eye and she spots the limb-like thing encroaching her way, staggering back a few steps in preemptive alarm and with much more zest than her earlier languid demeanor. “You seein’ that?!” She exclaims to the other girl, whom she tries not to bump into nor step on the candles she’s diligently tasked with keeping lit.

Suddenly the tentacle strikes — like some snake, like some flash of icy cobra, and then it is wrapped around Mercy. There’s a terrible pressure there, as if it is trying to drag her off, away, into the darkness, as the new moon saps away the werewolf’s strength. Meanwhile, the wind is howling: it seems to pulse in time with Thomas’s chanting, and it blows harder, blowing open the covers of books. A candle goes out in front of Teagan, and then a second, then a third. “Light them!” Thomas cries. “Light them, or we are lost!”

“Yes,” Teagan says, realizing now just what ‘sorceress’ they’re dealing with. “It’s just some scam artist of a weather witch.” On the upside, all trepidation she had of what this ritual might entail bleeds out of her. On the downside, she now looks utterly bored. When Thomas yells at her about the candles, she does move forward to light them again: at least being quick about it as she mutters about definitely getting her hands on something for fire soon.

Mercy should have skipped third period today and stayed home, clearly. In that new moon gloom her physical prowess leaves much to be desired and she’s summarily snared before she can really react. There’s a high-pitched cry that reads more angry than afraid, for the moment, and a hand swiftly withdraws her knife to try and plant the blade into the floor of the library and help anchor her in place. “AW SHIT MAN.”

The snow tentacle begins to drag Mercy away as Teagan keeps up with the flurries of snow. “She’s awful,” Thomas agrees with Teagan. “But magic has a way of getting away with people, doesn’t it? She just sort of — fires away, and what will be,” he says, gritting his teeth. “Will be.” Another pair of candles go out, as the snow tentacle starts to move Mercy almost horizontal. “I should have just hunted her down,” he admits.

“I will help you hunt her down,” Teagan tells Thomas. “Hell, I will hunt her down myself at this rate. I mean,” and she raises her voice as she moves to the other candles to re-light them. “HER NAME IS LITERALLY SHOWERS.” Just in case, you know, the woman is listening in somewhere. There is a glance towards Mercy and a pursing of her lips. Torn, perhaps, between abandoning the candles (and risking the whole thing fizzling) and helping the wolf. “Attack the snow, Merc,” she offers… helpfully?

The juxtaposition of Thomas and Teagan casually conversing about the merits or lack thereof of this sorceress while Mercy gets dragged away by a tentacle, shrieking angrily, will probably be amusing to her later on, in hindsight, when she’s not in the thick of it. Maybe. With the latter’s suggestion she keeps one hand gripped around the knife’s handle because god only knows where this thing might yank her away to if she lets go, but relinquishes the hold of the other to try and pry the thing off with what strenth she does still have. “Ain’ let it take me, Tea! M’not into that!”

“I’m down,” Thomas tells Teagan, and then he looks over at Mercy, who — to be clear — he set up to be snolested so the snow spirits wouldn’t bother him. “Great work, Miss Matlock!” he tells her, even as she starts to fight her way out of the snow, soaked and covered in the white, frozen remnants of the spirits. Then, as Mercy fights her way free, the necromancer turns back to the book — his finger going back down as his chanting increases, increases — and then breaks. As it does, the wind dies down, and the flurry of the snow seems to fade once more.

“I better be gettin’ extra credit or like a whole-ass diploma or some shit fer this!!” Mercy snaps back to Thomas after loosening the tentacle’s hold enough to wriggle free and subsequently scurry a few feet away, soaked in spirit residue and chilled to the bone in more ways than just temperature.

“It could be worse,” Teagan calls over her shoulder to Mercy. “At least you get to fight back.” She continues to hover around the candles, moving in the way of snow where she can- ready with a lighter where she can’t. “… extra credit, huh. I should’ve asked for that the last…” Mumble, “times.” But as the wind dies down and the snow starts to clear, she glances up and squints around them in mild suspicion. “I’d say it can’t be that easy, but it is Isascam Showers.”

Finishing his chant, Thomas chuckles. He shuts the book — and as he does, the lights seem to flood black in. “She is,” he agrees, “terrible.”