An attempt to thwart Thomas’s MindControl(Matias)

Date: 2025-09-14 12:24

(An attempt to thwart Thomas’s MindControl(Matias):Matias)

[Sun Sep 14 2025]

In a secret underground vault containing a parliament of skulls
The air inside this underground vault is cool and dry, with a stillness that feels deeper than silence. Stone walls are lined with narrow wooden shelves, each one crowded with skulls – human and otherwise – every cranium inscribed with curling runes or marked with brands that seem to darken rather than burn. Some are mounted on brass stands, others rest directly on velvet-lined niches, and a few are bound with iron bands as if to keep something in. A faint metallic scent lingers in the air, like blood and old coins, mingled with dust and candle wax. Hanging from the ceiling is a pair of iron manacles, dropped down in the center of a ritual circle etched into the floor.

In this underground space, poured concrete walls seem to loom, oppressive. The air is cool and dry, filtered through unseen vents, and the heavy door to the south is like a bank vault door, full of heavy gears to lock away the world.

It is about 60F(15C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Mayflower and Madison/span>/spanThe latino professor walks forward towards the ritual circle on the floor. “Hello.” he says to the teasing whispers of the skull with a dry baritone of a voice. He places his foot on the circle and amongst all the necrotic energy and spirits there is a pulse of natural energy a breeze whirling in the room disturbing the dust. Reaching into his pocket he produces a Saint Minted coin to Saint Symeon. “How are you reaching so far?” he asks as the carved ritual circle begins to hum softly and intermittenly shimmer.

As Matias is pulsing natural energy into necromancy not the most compatible substrates of magical energy there is visions for those with ghost sight in the room which does not include the Professor. There are small shrines and hidden marks of power throughout cemetaries and places of death between here and the heart of Bayview. They appear to be physically present but also magically linked.

“Badass,” Kai says as he looks at the ritual circle, he wanders outside of it, taking pictures with his phone periodically as he takes in the workings of magic, hazel eyes bright with excitement, tracking hidden spirits and and vision now and then as he wanders around the circle, trying to document it for later review.

“I have come,” Seraphina says to the skulls as they all seem to shift, magically, toward her, their empty eye sockets taking in her and the company she has brought with, Matias and Kai. “What is it that you want?” The whispers grow further excited, some are so hard to make out, and some are only desires, for those who may have the blood to hear. She shakes her head, “You can not just have me!” But she’s becoming open for the idea, and she steps closer to the skulls, rather than the circle. Her hair is moved, but it does not seem to be by the winds that Matias has stirred, but by unseen hands, moving it to reveal her neck. Handprints are left on her revealed flesh as spirits from beyond touch her, their cold freezing flesh.

The latino professor makes a discontented *mmm* sound looking sidelong at Seraphina trying to communicate directly with the collectively of trapped ghostly entities. From Kai’s observations this is clearly a chamber of power meant to enhance the ethically… creative Arcanist. Knowledge and power flow from the spirits to the Master in several fashions. Matias says to Kai in a brazilian accented english, “I do not have ghost sight or clairvoyance. I will need you to help me navigate this ritual Ashford. Are you having visions?”

Meanwhile the spirits seem far more interested in Seraphina than the two natural arcanists but then again they have not actually started meddling yet aside from Matias’s mixing oil and water to wake things up.

“Oh yeah,” Kai nods in agreement with Matias, he says as he looks around, “Still haven’t worked out how to hear them but I can see everything,” he makes his way back to Seraphina and Matias with a little grin, “This is bad ass, why are we stopping it?” he wonders and glances at Seraphina and the handprints left on her, “Siiick,” he mutters and snaps some pictures of her too.

Seraphina shivers with the cold unmanned hands touch at her neck. “Yes, Mister Hale did bargain with you for your reach to extend boroughs, and I understand why he did, too. No one but the Legionaires want to have their home held by Legion.” She pulls her hair back down, and even though she caresses one of the skulls in turn. And then picks one of them up, whispers of freedom, of release, of years of lonliness, and the sorrow of a life no longer fulfilled. Poor Yorick, how she knew him well. The skull is smashed in her hand with great ease. Leaving it a pile of bone dust on the floor, and to be carried about in the air as the wind continues to pick up. That certain whisper ceases. She turns to Kai fully, “Destroy those.”

“What do you see Ashford? How are the spirits reaching as far as another Borough? They are bound here, they should not be able to project into an unwilling mind over miles.” Matias explains to the college student arcanist with some insistence perhaps trying to get him to focus. “Once we know how they are doing it, we can bind them back to this Borough and this place of power. Whatever Miss Hawke is doing, she has a relationship with them. Obviously.” he says with a look at Seraphina where handprints appear from the cold touch of the grave as it were only to turn and give Kai permission to smash skulls. “Which those?” he asks with a look at all the skulls, one much like the other to his unschooled eyes.

Seraphina did not give permission to Kai to destroy skulls, but whatever snapshots he has taken. In fact, the raven haired beauty reaches a hand out for Kai’s phone.

Kai pulls his phone back from Seraphina’s reach, “Hey hands off. I’ll destroy them,” he says and deletes the photos, turning his screen to her to show just the pictures of the circle itself remain, he looks to Matias, “Uhh right now they’re a little vague and hard to make out, but I’m definitely seeing stuff. Maybe the ritual circle is stopping me from seeing all of it? I’m not really sure,” he admits.

Kai would see a spirit of a man, dressed in a red coat uniform, and his pleated hair tied back in a fashion long ago past. This is the spirit that has touched Seraphina’s neck. The handprint now forming on her throat, rather than the back of her neck. There is a gasp from the woman, but there’s no attempt made to stop the angry ghost from its assault. Not immediately. “Release me or I will never come back,” she threatens with a hard rasp.

The Latino Professo has yet to step fully into the circle in fact he stands outside of it, his foot over the line intentionally. When Kai mentions he cannot make them out, Matias steps completely into the circle and grasps the saint minted coin in a fist. The wind picks up centered on him pushing outward and then whirling around the edge of the room. There is a spanish litany being murmured for those that speak the language it appears to be a classic appeal to God to enlighten their lives, pull back lies and deceit, and provide revelation to mysteries. What it functionally becomes it a modified scrying ritual. As it proceeds and builds in power the visions of the shrines become clearer: A shrine hidden in the student union bookstore in the teacher’s lounge a candle everburning between two obsidian bookends etched with runes almost impossible to read. A marker for an unnamed victim of murder in the Independence Hill Cemetery, the grave dug up and left empty. Finally a marble plaque in a Mausolem but instead of a name and date on it, it is written in runes and amplifies the ghostly connection expanding it outward to the edge of the ocean.

Meanwhile the spirits are clearly trying to coerce and influence Seraphina not only with their desires but manifesting here in this place. Many of the skulls seem watchful, knowing, as if aware of the parallel attempts to limit their reach. “Now can you see Ashford, the shrines, the dominos between here and Bayview?” Matias asks at the end of the modified scrying ritual.

“Hmmm looks like a British redcoat bastard,” Kai tells matias, squinting as he looks at the figure that is making the handprint on Seraphina’s throat, “Let’s start doing banishments maybe?” he guesses, peering aside to Matias for guidance, “Oh uhh… let’s see,” he squints and says, “In the bookstore of the student union, in the teachers’ lounge maybe?” he hmms and says, “An unknown grave at a cemetery… looks like maybe Independence Hill. The grave’s empty and then there’s another in a Mausoleum somewhere.”

Released from being choked, Seraphina lands to her knees, and gasps for the breath that had been blocked off. “He needed to have multiple places of power in order to let them roam… and it has woken others.” she spits out roughly. She rubs at her nose with the back of her hand, then begins to stand, to walk toward the circle, to make it the power of three. But as far as the actual ritual, she appears to leave it to Matias and Kai. Somehow, there is some sadness in her eyes. “Yes, we should try to complete it so that the other spirits that he has rustled up from the dead are again at peace.

The whispering grows adamant and loud, a vibrant hiss of complaint and desire to be as Seraphina suggests to bind them once more to the room, the house. The house she has not been to in two days.

With Kai and Seraphina approaching the circle Matias holds his coin against his palm with a thumb but otherwise holds out his hands for either of them. How touchy feely. “Take my hand… Ashford focus on a banishment of the two graveyards, as long as you can remote view them you should be able to enact your will on them. I will handle the student union. Seraphina you will want to convince those spirits that belong here to be here when the banishments end otherwise they will be… Well banished.” he says in an obvious brazilian accent. Assuming one or both takes his hand he takes a breath beginning to murmur another spanish litany, a modified banishment rite which are all but instant giving Kai and Seraphina minutes or less to follow suit!

“Yes, professor,” Kai says as he heads over to Matias, he reaches out to take Matias’s hand and closes his eyes, his face pinched in focus as he concentrates, lips moving just a bit as he starts up a chant. The air pressure around him begins to increase subtly as the chant goes on.

There is desire here, hot and heady and Seraphina knows them. She has their desires. They are her own and there is no question of it from her, and no denial of it, either. On Matias’s words, and as Kai begins to focus his energies, the raven haired woman begins her own chant. To plead and bargain with those who want to say. Whispers swirl around each member’s ears. Some prodding them for sweet release, others threatening, others adding to the plea, to stay, to not fade into some forgetten space and time. Faces and bodies of spirits form before Kai’s eyes, some trying to break into the circle with no possible means to, some simply watching, some already beginning to fade, turning into a sparkling golden and brown glitter as they are released, as the closest shrine is focused on – the Student Union.

Banishments are quick and even the banishment of spirits linked to a powerful Necromancer like Thomas Hale are simply a fact of technique and ritual. Kai can feel his chant working. The furthest shrine is dismissed the runes on the marble plaque vanishing leaving it blank, the interior unoccupied and unused in the ancient mausolem. Then the open grave with the marker. Likewise it is a minute maybe a little more before Kai can see the market become clouded with dust and the wear of rain and wind all at once obscuring the writing. Matias has a slightly harder time with an everburning candle on a desecrated grave site. The Student Union Bookstore is a lovely structure and it is built on a cemetary here the banishment requires a little more oomph for the displeasure of so many spirits but the candle winks out after two minutes of spanish prayer, Catholicism is relentless afterall. That leaves Seraphina with the final piece… The dominos tip from ocean back inland. The banishments pulling spirits back, casting others into nothing, but it all comes back to the Ivory Quarter… This room. This circle of power… and it is not Matias as the leader of the rite which bears the whipcrack of returning energies but Seraphina the fixation of the original ritual itself that does.

Kai continues to murmur softly under his breath, the air pressure around him releases with a little outward gust of wind. He continues to murmur, air pressure building up for a second time as he prepares his magic for the next domino. Once he’s drawn the string of his will he releases it and takes down the second domino. He sags a bit from the effort and pants softly, as if he had just been running and looks between Matias and Seraphina, as if he hadn’t seen or heard anything they’ve said since he began.

“I will not leave you, and I will find a way…” Seraphina says, finally. A way? This is not described, perhaps whispers meant only for her. There is emphasis on the first word when she speaks again. “We will…” The power is within her and within this room. The buzz of it is electric, and the spirits that were strong enough, and willed enough to say, remain. They stand around the circle, pace around it. Some disappear again, spent of their energies trying to be seen and heard by all. All that remains now is the subtleties of spirits. The shift of empty sockets to focus on one person or another, that feeling of being watched, and once, outside the circle, the feeling of being touched and probed.

The rituals complete Matias exhales and lets go of Seraphina’s hand and Kai’s and then frowns at the fact they are still in an Underground, Necromancers tomb, with spirits trapped and able to manifest many of them seemingly aggressive or projecting their needs onto Seraphina. “Miss Hawke. I believe Bayview is safe, but are you safe to exit the circle and leave the House? Are you ready?”

Kai slips his hands into his hoodie pocket as he looks between Seraphina and Matias, his gaze lingering on Seraphina curiouly as he waits for her response from Matias’s question.

True to her nature, or perhaps the owner of the home’s influence having rubbed off on her, Seraphina says, “I will be fine.” Though, she adds to Matias and Kai, “There have been promises made, we will not be harmed. They, too, are also exhausted.