Encounterlogs
Sams Odd Encounter Sr Ritsuka 250419
In an intricate roleplay set against the backdrop of a luxuriously eerie mansion, a character named Seamus navigates through a dream realm that blurs the boundaries between desire and reality. The mansion, with its dark lacquered wood, crimson velvet, and an atmosphere thick with an intoxicating blend of jasmine, sandalwood, and cloves, becomes a character in its own right. It entices Seamus, pulling him deeper into its embrace with promises of wholeness and comfort he has long craved. As Seamus, now bearing the grace of another persona, Oskar, wanders through the mansion, he encounters a grand bed beneath a stained-glass dome, upon which lies the embodiment of his desires. The scene sets a stage for an encounter that challenges the boundaries of Seamus's reality, presenting a woman of shifting beauty - her appearance transforming with his desires, suggesting a deeper, perhaps more sinister entanglement with the dream realm.
The narrative takes a turn as Seamus senses something off about this lavishly adorned mansion and the dream-beauty before him. Despite the mansion's allure and the promise of eternal comfort and peace, a thread of doubt weaves its way through his consciousness. This is not the familiar terrain of his usual dreamworlds but a construct aimed at capturing his deepest desires. The creature or force behind this seductive illusion targets Seamus's unexploited longing for possession and wealth, revealing a complicated interplay of his identities and desires. The struggle within Seamus emerges as he begins to realize that this dream might be more of a trap, designed to feed upon his energies by keeping him ensnared in a web of his own fantasies. The dual nature of his character, split between Seamus and Oskar, along with the depth of his unexplored desires, sets the stage for a deeply psychological exploration of dreams versus reality.
(Sam's odd encounter(SRRitsuka):SRRitsuka)
[Fri Apr 18 2025]
In the lobby of the recovery wing
This waiting room has been designed for comfort, with carpets in a
pleasant neutral beige underfoot and the walls painted a cheery pale yellow.
Seating has been arranged along the walls, chairs picked for comfort and
showing local nautical bird patterns on the upholstery. Light, forgettable
music plays on endless loop in background noise and the scent is anti-septic
though not unpleasantly so. Pictures of local families with the doctors
display a home-town vibe and nod to local medicine.
It is night, about 57F(13C) degrees, There is a last quarter moon.
"We'll have to head to the forest, so that's going to be fun." Sam nods over to Elam, tapping at his phone as he works. "God damned comms are all disrupted, so I can't reply too much on forward scouting." The jock sounds more than a little annoyed as he grabs a ceramic vest and a crossbow from a stash at one of the intersections.
"We'll make this quick."
It isn't exactly clear when, but Elam had just went out for a bit - and he already has a starbucks cup of hot chocolate and whipper cream - with marshmallows swimming in, in one of his hands. He plays with the straw, as annoyingly as one could possibly make it be, grinding it up and down. "Uh-huh, uh-uh." Elam is only affirming of Sam while close on his heels. Every step, every motion cracks like porcelain -- this thing doesn't need armor, he already /is/ armored. And too busy stuffing the straw in his mouth to slurp up some hot coco through the bandages.
"We'll start at the gate. Camp white Oak." Sam looks to Elam, and sighs. "We'll need to take your car. My bike's at the gate still, from last night."
He looks at Elam, a somewhat amused look on his face as he plays with a ring around his finger: A charred dragon biting it's own tail.
"Easy," Elam fishes out a set of keys from his pocket - and it looks /damn/ sleek. He twirls them around a digit once, clicks - and a very muscular, next year's model Porsche 911 starts to warm up its seats before anyone is even in it with the engine roaring to life. A demon, after all, is a demon anywhere, and luxury of an excellent sports-car cannot be understated. Elam chucks the keys for Sam to catch. "You can drive, boss-man. My hands are full." And they are, because Elam has his cup of hot cocoa in one, and the straw he annoyingly grinds up and down to make 'Hoot hoot' noises in the other.
A hand goes up, and Sam catches those keys. He just rolls his eyes, and takes a seat. He does take a moment to appriciate the heated seat... his own outfit is less than ideal: Torn, ripped, and blood-strewn. The jock himself, though, he seems ALIVe. Like someone injected cocaine into his bloodstream.
Either way, off towards the gate on Suncrest Lane Sam goes, one hand fishing out a rather human-looking fingerbone, on a silver chain from under his combat gear. He sniffs the air, and narrows his eyes.
Meanwhile Elam is there for the ride. If Sam is the brains, the arts, the user of the Ways -- Elam is the catalyst. He has his legs kicked out on the dashboard, with the straw stuck between his bandages and presumably in his mouth- hopefully in his mouth - while he reaches out to tap a few times at the ten-inch screen in between the two of them, occupying a good portion of the coupe. "This is nice. Bonding. I looove bonding." It sounds like Elam is half-whispering to himself, in some sense of warped notion that swims in his head. It isn't long before the Friends opening starts to play on the screen. Season four - episode twelve. So very specific, too.
WHOOO the wind does batter against the building outside. At least it is not throwing around cars and make it worse. And the lesser robust buildings do manage to continue standing out and about.
The winds do try to pick a fight with Elam's full hands over the hot cocoa as they do try to pass through for their way towards the vehicle.
The rest of the journey is quite simple without much of a disturbance only needing to weight against the pushing wind at some turns.
Once at the gate to the Other, Sam does get to work, and looks around. It would take a few precious moments to detect the singular strand and it is indeed something that his own magic does align with. It relates to the undead in some fashion. From his extensive knowledge about the occult, he deduces that it is a strand that collects something, pulls it together, forces it to hold it. Trailing after it would mean to trail into the forest, but the link may also be cut here with enough effort, and protection from any monsters that might be deciding to come by to say a terrifying kind of hello.
Thank God- or Satan, if one is Elam, for long, peaceful drives through the forest. Elam stares at the screen with the sitcom in complete, utter silence like a transfixed child, and the bandages as well as the shade do not betray an inkling of emotion. Mirth, or nothing - he is only staring, completely, totally motionless throughout the whole drive. His hot chocolate, the one he wrestled with all of his might - and it is a great, deceptively strong might - remembered only when they do get out into the forest, Elam pops the cap off, chugs the whole thing through his bandages, and wipes it against his gloves to really spread the smear. "Alright, boss." In only a few steps, Elam starts unbuckling his trousers. "I'm ready, let's do it."
The ride is mostly silent, tough Sam does seem vaguely bemused? Amused? Either way, he is mused, by Elam's bonding experience. "Yeh. Good times." He gets out of the car.
A pause, and Sam tilts his head aside. He sniffs the air, and his expression darkens. "Fucking necromancy? Really?" He looks over to Elam, and nods. "Defensive perimiter, please, Mister Graves." He starts to prepare a ritual spot: Out of the way enough to maintain the Understanding, but close enough to the gate to be able to maybe steal a little from the Other. Magic is magic, after all.
He starts to trace a triangle of blood around himself, one hand grasping into that strand. The shadows around Sam's body quiver, like trembling serpents raring to strike.
"Let's see..." He mutters softly, extending his hand as that charred dragon ring glows up.
"Man, but I was gonna.." He was going to - what? Whatever it was, Elam seems dejected enough that he's buckling up his pants once more, and striding out several paces with a rough, hissed sigh. What he does, is similar, though perhaps more vile. "I'll get you some magic too, boss-man. Use it well." And that last part sounds like a boon, a gift, with a payment due. Elam's hand lifts to untangle the lower-portion of his bandages, reveal why exactly he has it on through a mouth as wide as his face, as large as the whole lower potion jaw-hinge to jaw-hinge. And Elam - this royal thing, direct spawn of the devil, he bites his own wrist - extends it out, and starts walking. A complete, perfect circle drawn in a large radius around Sam and his little flower, in his blood, that boils, bubbles, smells of sulphur and roils like gunpowder waiting to explode.
But just as it wants everything else, too, it still wants that now empty cup, and throw what little drips it has at someone's face. It definitely feels as if it is being pulled at but the wind also pulls at everything else, too.
As Sam grasps for that strand, he does very much recognize that there is necromancy in it. The spirits are pulled away, into the forest, which, from the singular document would mean towards the Black Camellia. At least if the document's code was properly deciphered.
The triangle is set, and there is a sudden pull, the cup that Elam is feeling he is holding tries to push towards Sam, and there is, of course, also a manticore that is being pushed from the southwest, and them past. It hisses at Elam and Sam, and then tries to scramble forward towards them, which then turns to be easier as some of the nearby wind is being pulled towards Sam.
"Well bargained." Sam nods towards Elam, and he tilts his head, looking towards the gate as he remarks. "The Fae are artists... sculptors of Fate, of will, and of many other things." His hands ball together invisible strings of energy, and soon, a small, shadowy flower of his own is put down in the middle of that triangle. It's a black flower, but this one is a lotus.
A line of blood is drawn from each of the jock's triangle's corners, to the edge of that sulphuric circle, and Sam speaks. "Malice and the lust for pain... fuelled by violence... and death."
Sam's eyes go to that manticore, and Elam gets a nod, as if the jock is unbothered by the beast approaching him... perhaps because a larger, older beast is right next to him.
The empty cup flies away - sure. Whatever. Not like Elam loved it anyway. Not like he shared his joys and his wonders, his secrets and his fears with it. Piss off, cup. Elam never needed you in the first place. However, the manticore appears like a friend - a big, cuddly, buffy of a three-headed kindred. It makes Elam smile. The long, wicked teeth cast in his mouth to dominate his face in the image of his royal father, and Elam begins to snarl in what may be anticipation. That doesn't mean it isn't a terrifying sight, one directed, aimed singularly at the approaching creature as Elam begins to subtly lean forward and dig his heels in against the current to root himself to through against the buffeting wind. "I got the puppy, /you/ piss on the flower, boss."
Elam says "Fuck, you just know what to say to get me turned on."
SPLAT, a singular drop of the cocoa flies towards Sam, in what might most definitely be the most wet of attempts today, and the cup flies past him and then around him and then lands on the ground, rolling around, unable to settle, it does only barely smear around some more of Elam's blood, where it touches, rolls, then gets pulled, lifted and dropped again.
It is a pretty harsh FLOP when the first ghost, Yurei, whatever the name, gets pulled into the lotus, a few more go, and Sam can feel the magic begin to try and struggle, the link begins to shift, but the winds also begin to grow stronger directly around him, trying to push him southeast as a result.
The manticore hisses, tries to jump and gets to 'fly' above Elam, twists, tries to turn towards 'food' Elam but then keeps moving another moment towards Sam. Out of the forest, there is then a golem that stomps in, moving a little wider in its stance as the winds barrel it towards the ritual.
"Hahaha!"
Elam cackles. Abruptly, suddenly as the manticore flies overhead. "Fuck you, bitch- you don't do that!" He's pointing at the thing like it's just doing something wrong - and it isn't heard, perhaps, not directly by anyone or anything save for the manticore. There are a thousand whispers in its ears, a million notions, a hundred urgings all telling him wonders, greatness, of loss and of more. It is enough to confuse a man, let alone a monster - and lash out.
It just so happens that the bewilderment makes the swipe going for Sam to be a miss. Not quite there. Not exactly in the right distance. Which gives Elam enough time to charge in from the side like a fucking truck- or a leech. This monstrosity goes straight for the jugular, with veins bulgings, muscles straining. All within that porcelain crack of his skin. His gaping maw of a mouth full of fangs already seeks the lionine throat while the rest of his body seeks to only overpower the manticore, and straight into the ground.
To eat it.
Alive.
A moment of pause, and Sam wipes the cocoa from his face. He shakes his head, and takes a firm stance on one of the traingle's points. His stance is like a rock, the jock trying his best not to move. The manticore gets no attention: CLearly, the expectation is that Elam, as they it, has this.
Instead, Sam presses his hand onto the triangle, shadows starting to coil and writhe around two of the triangle's sides, creating a funnel of sorts to trap the ghosts that come in.
Meanwhile, the circle around it seems to quiver, feeding off of the violence provided by Elam and the manticore.
There is more hissing now from the magic as Sam is working, the golem comes to a still, as if to analyze both Sam and the manticore-that-is-hissing-and-struggling slaying Elam. The thing screeches, its stinging tail trying to pierce Elam from behind.
The winds continue to blow, balancing an element within the spell to go against it and it does show to work. The winds hassle a little less and less in the immediate around Sam, the cup turns out to be the biggest proof to this. It begins to spin less and less.
A shift, and Sam moves a hand up, and, like squeezing shut a tube, or perhaps a vein, Sam reaches for that strand of energy, roughly trying to tug on the energy, while severing the link to the Other.
"I will pull whatever it is towards us." Sam speaks, then he looks to the golem, and tilts his head aside, lessening the earth energy he is channeling in that corner of the rite, hoping to either blow it away, or draw it into the funnel, with the ghosts.
And in that swirling wind, Elam is absolutely tearing the manticore a new throat. He's feasting. He's eating. He's devouring it one torn flesh at a time, fur and bone be damned, he's caving it in. One of his hands shoot up in time and tune with the descending, poison tail as if it expected it- to catch it midair, just before the tip grazes his own neck. And Elam smiles for it. All too wide. All too fanged in every teeth in the macabre cavern of his mouth. This is not his first tousle with a manticore - not even the first thousandth, perhaps.
There is only a scratch at Elam's throat for it - a bare graze that heals on its own near immediately. He is a creature meant to outlast - down from last cell, to reform, to recreate, and he is of porcelain, he is of stone and armor. He yanks to tear the tail off while red, wound-like eyes hike up while he has the manticore's windpipe in Elam's maw. Slowly released to stare at the stilled golme that just waits to assess.
With blood dripping alongside drool out of his mouth, he hisses the rasped words - the ashen, burnt voice spilling like acrid ichor. "I'm going to make a hole in your head." But he doesn't stop, to explain the graphic detail of exactly what he will do while his knee rests where his mouth was- to press, to begin cracking the beasts neck under his deceptive weight and power. "Then I'm going to stuff this guys bits in it, just so I'll have something soft to fuck when I play with your skull." An audible crack ensues through the whines and whinnies of a creature dying, and Elam's hand, gloved as it may be but now torn to reveal his claws at the edge of his fingers, slice into the manticore's skull, seeking the brain while one of his thumbs edge into its eye. "Come closer, bitch - you get a taste of this too." It sounds like he barely hears Sam in his lust for fear, for animosity, in deranged desire for wrath and lust combined, nay, runs in his make and creation, in the marrow of his bones.
And just as Sam announced, the golem is starting to be pulled closer again, being shoved by the wind towards Sam, and that sees another ghost being sucked into the flower again. The golem does begin to hover, and the winds begin to batter more, starting to threaten to shove Sam out of his ritual circle while Elam has definitely put the manticore into a state of shock where it becomes unable to move, or act, or really be, as living beings tend to do when it becomes too much.
A poison - more like a drug. Elam gets off on it. His own pain, of others - be it animal, human, or anything in between. The man-like face of the manticore is given one last look -before it is gone. Elam's maw opens wide to revea lthe endlessness within once more. The starved, pitless hunger of an abyss inside his throat that he slams down upon the creature's face for one last bite. He devours its face whole, eats it like he has a vengeance for everything that has a face, like how he does not have one himself.
Past the crunch, the break of bone, the torrent rising, he too ascends with a slight sway. Like a marionette on strings, he's up on his feet, and intent on doing exactly what he intended to do. One second, he's there, and in the next, his body coils like a strung up spring. The launch sends him forward, catapult in a slight blur straight at the golem that's being drawn in - and he plummets on it like a sticky leech with legs wrapped around its torso, and arms that pin its shoulders, to slam the whole stone-creation onto the ground.
The oversized, stretched, bloodied manic grin remains ever plastered -- and it remains, even as Elam starts to slam his head down on the golem's torso. "Give!" Elam chants, again, and again, and again. He speaks of its core, no doubt, the very thing that holds it together, tries to get inside with teeth, with headbutts, with scrapes and growls and snarls that only become more animalistic as he forsakes every single bit of self-injury that may be sustained in how he repeatedly slams his face into cracking gaps within the golem's torso to get at the magic-heart imbued right in its stone shell. "I'm going to fill your core with piss and gore, and chocolate syrup when I'm done with you you whore!" Maybe he doesn't even know he's speaking to just animated stone.
"Gotcha." Sam remarks, and he places both hands onto that triangle, closing the last open side of the barrier. He jumps back, and disappears from view, pathing away a small distance before he holds up his hand.
Snap his fingers snap, a unneeded gesture, but one he enjoys anyway. Demigods and showing off. Typical. He sends his own power into that demon-circle, drawing onto the concepts of malice and the violence of Elam's fighting.
Speaking of, whom... Sam looks around, checking if Elam has stepped out of the blast radius. Elam, is, after all, made to withstand. He'll be fine. RIght?
The golem stumbles and comes to stand very close to the shaped triangle and the lotus that blossomed there is drawing more and more winds, until it begins to topple over, with blood running down across the back of its toros and the cracking of Elam's skull against it. Teeth are likely bitten out, but such a creature cares not for it, they just come back, after all, and at worst, can always beat some rich pulp into affording some replacements at worst. There is a few more FLOPS as something invisible disappears inside the flower, and then, the light pulse and the shift in the air before the flower visibly wilts - and then a burst of winds clashes from it, exploding outwards, combusting with the surrounding demon-blood.
Wind turns into flaming wind, the stone of the golem is ripped to shreds from the front, and cracked piece by piece from the behind. By the end of it, the core is visible from both sides, one being burnt, the other at Elam's disposal. The shattering stone does get pushed back and the breeze carries along far beyond the here. A single last breeze and the wind draws to a still.
(Your target is attacked by a dream stalker who subjects them to their greatest fantasies in the dream world in order to keep their body passive while it's energies are fed upon. They need to, possibly with the help of allies entering their dreams, resist the temptation long enough for other allies to find them or for them to wake up.
)
Seamus sits in his library reviewing casefiles, a stack of Scout reports on his lap as he reads over them smoking a cigarette and drinking a whiskey, his arm in a sling.""
The library in Seamuss house is dimly lit, all golden hush and dust motes dancing like ash in the lamplight. The scent of leather bindings, cigarettes, and aged wood lingers in the air. Hes curled in his favourite chair that has molded to his shape over weeks (yes weeks!) of reading, the upholstery smooth where his elbows usually restthough tonight, one arm hangs limp, cradled awkwardly against his chest.
His shoulder is dislocated, and the pain hums low in the backgroundpersistent but distant, dulled by exhaustion and the soft warmth of the fire crackling in the hearth. Hed tried to read, a thick, weighty tome splayed open across his lap, but the words blurred at the edges of his vision. His good hand rests on the page, his thumb tracing the loop of a printed g over and over again.
He slumps deeper into the chair, legs folded beneath him, breath slowing. The world narrows to the warmth of the fire and the scent of paper, and thenimperceptiblyhe slips under.
One moment he was sleeping in his library.. the next he was at the Mansion.
The walls are dark with lacquered wood and crimson velvet, the air thick with warmth and perfumejasmine, sandalwood, something faintly spicy like cloves. Everything glows as if lit from within, the sconces casting a honeyed light that pools in corners and kisses the curves of carved banisters.
The floor beneath his feet is marble so dark it reflects him in ripples, like oil. Every footstep sounds muffled, intimate, like a whisper in a cathedral. The corridors dont just windthey wind around him. They draw him in. Mirrors line the halls, but none show his injury. Here, his body is whole again, loose with grace, clothed in midnight silk and bare feet. He moves not like himself... but the man who his mind has split to become. Oskar.
The walls pulse with music too subtle to namelow strings, maybe, or the breath of someone asleep just behind a door. Velvet curtains brush his arms as he passes through them. The rooms open like promises: a parlor with a couch shaped like lips, a staircase that curves as if its dancing, a hallway that narrows until he must turn sideways, his shoulder grazing warm wallpaper embroidered with gold thread.
In the salon, a table is set with crystal glasses full of dark, viscous wine. A phonograph plays, though no record spins. Laughter echoes distantlyfeminine, amused, familiar. He turns a corner and finds himself in a room that smells of jasmine and candle wax. Silk hangs from the ceiling. A fire smolders in a sunken hearth. There is no one there, and yet he feels eyes on him.
The house touches him gentlydoors that open just before he reaches them, curtains that sway in his wake, floorboards that groan with pleasure. It wants him there.
It cradles him.
And in the center of it all: a grand bed beneath a stained-glass dome. The light above flickers with every color of desire. The bed is not empty but instead, the girl of his dreams lay there. At first, Seamus thinks her hair is purple... then as his desires change so too, does the figure on the bed. Eventually, a woman is lying there on the black silk, eyes half veiled by lashes, her body dressed in a delicate white nightgown. Long blond hair flows to her waist, hanging in large ringlets over her body.
"Are you here? To stay at the mansion?" Dimly, Seamus might realize this is not quite the mansion that he's used to. There is none of the usual ...decoration that exists in that particular dreamworld. Almost as if someone had taken the thought 'mansion' and decided to make something of it.
Around him, the gentle music increases, softly as if violins playing as the woman sits up on the bed, her hand caressing the silk of the sheets. Her head tilts and her face is that of one of unearthly beauty. "To have peace and comfort for the rest of your days?" The voice that speaks to Seamus is soft but echos all through his mind as if she is doing more than just speaking to his ears. Golden eyes stare up at him, framed by sooty lashes that blink and then suddenly they're no longer gold but a deep sapphire blue... only for a moment... As whatever it is... tries to capture what Seamus's deepest desires are.
Seamus is more than comfortable in dreamworlds most of the time but this, this seems off to him. Wrong. Wrong on a level he doesn't quite know but that nagging doubt starts to seep in in the back of his mind. The creature would have a tough time figuring out which 'Seamus' it was getting a read on, as the many dream patters flickered around in his brain but ultimately one lands. It is a small one, not used, but it has a strong pull towards posessing and owning, particularly money. A hunger for gold and things that can only be bought.
The narrative takes a turn as Seamus senses something off about this lavishly adorned mansion and the dream-beauty before him. Despite the mansion's allure and the promise of eternal comfort and peace, a thread of doubt weaves its way through his consciousness. This is not the familiar terrain of his usual dreamworlds but a construct aimed at capturing his deepest desires. The creature or force behind this seductive illusion targets Seamus's unexploited longing for possession and wealth, revealing a complicated interplay of his identities and desires. The struggle within Seamus emerges as he begins to realize that this dream might be more of a trap, designed to feed upon his energies by keeping him ensnared in a web of his own fantasies. The dual nature of his character, split between Seamus and Oskar, along with the depth of his unexplored desires, sets the stage for a deeply psychological exploration of dreams versus reality.
(Sam's odd encounter(SRRitsuka):SRRitsuka)
[Fri Apr 18 2025]
In the lobby of the recovery wing
This waiting room has been designed for comfort, with carpets in a
pleasant neutral beige underfoot and the walls painted a cheery pale yellow.
Seating has been arranged along the walls, chairs picked for comfort and
showing local nautical bird patterns on the upholstery. Light, forgettable
music plays on endless loop in background noise and the scent is anti-septic
though not unpleasantly so. Pictures of local families with the doctors
display a home-town vibe and nod to local medicine.
It is night, about 57F(13C) degrees, There is a last quarter moon.
"We'll have to head to the forest, so that's going to be fun." Sam nods over to Elam, tapping at his phone as he works. "God damned comms are all disrupted, so I can't reply too much on forward scouting." The jock sounds more than a little annoyed as he grabs a ceramic vest and a crossbow from a stash at one of the intersections.
"We'll make this quick."
It isn't exactly clear when, but Elam had just went out for a bit - and he already has a starbucks cup of hot chocolate and whipper cream - with marshmallows swimming in, in one of his hands. He plays with the straw, as annoyingly as one could possibly make it be, grinding it up and down. "Uh-huh, uh-uh." Elam is only affirming of Sam while close on his heels. Every step, every motion cracks like porcelain -- this thing doesn't need armor, he already /is/ armored. And too busy stuffing the straw in his mouth to slurp up some hot coco through the bandages.
"We'll start at the gate. Camp white Oak." Sam looks to Elam, and sighs. "We'll need to take your car. My bike's at the gate still, from last night."
He looks at Elam, a somewhat amused look on his face as he plays with a ring around his finger: A charred dragon biting it's own tail.
"Easy," Elam fishes out a set of keys from his pocket - and it looks /damn/ sleek. He twirls them around a digit once, clicks - and a very muscular, next year's model Porsche 911 starts to warm up its seats before anyone is even in it with the engine roaring to life. A demon, after all, is a demon anywhere, and luxury of an excellent sports-car cannot be understated. Elam chucks the keys for Sam to catch. "You can drive, boss-man. My hands are full." And they are, because Elam has his cup of hot cocoa in one, and the straw he annoyingly grinds up and down to make 'Hoot hoot' noises in the other.
A hand goes up, and Sam catches those keys. He just rolls his eyes, and takes a seat. He does take a moment to appriciate the heated seat... his own outfit is less than ideal: Torn, ripped, and blood-strewn. The jock himself, though, he seems ALIVe. Like someone injected cocaine into his bloodstream.
Either way, off towards the gate on Suncrest Lane Sam goes, one hand fishing out a rather human-looking fingerbone, on a silver chain from under his combat gear. He sniffs the air, and narrows his eyes.
Meanwhile Elam is there for the ride. If Sam is the brains, the arts, the user of the Ways -- Elam is the catalyst. He has his legs kicked out on the dashboard, with the straw stuck between his bandages and presumably in his mouth- hopefully in his mouth - while he reaches out to tap a few times at the ten-inch screen in between the two of them, occupying a good portion of the coupe. "This is nice. Bonding. I looove bonding." It sounds like Elam is half-whispering to himself, in some sense of warped notion that swims in his head. It isn't long before the Friends opening starts to play on the screen. Season four - episode twelve. So very specific, too.
WHOOO the wind does batter against the building outside. At least it is not throwing around cars and make it worse. And the lesser robust buildings do manage to continue standing out and about.
The winds do try to pick a fight with Elam's full hands over the hot cocoa as they do try to pass through for their way towards the vehicle.
The rest of the journey is quite simple without much of a disturbance only needing to weight against the pushing wind at some turns.
Once at the gate to the Other, Sam does get to work, and looks around. It would take a few precious moments to detect the singular strand and it is indeed something that his own magic does align with. It relates to the undead in some fashion. From his extensive knowledge about the occult, he deduces that it is a strand that collects something, pulls it together, forces it to hold it. Trailing after it would mean to trail into the forest, but the link may also be cut here with enough effort, and protection from any monsters that might be deciding to come by to say a terrifying kind of hello.
Thank God- or Satan, if one is Elam, for long, peaceful drives through the forest. Elam stares at the screen with the sitcom in complete, utter silence like a transfixed child, and the bandages as well as the shade do not betray an inkling of emotion. Mirth, or nothing - he is only staring, completely, totally motionless throughout the whole drive. His hot chocolate, the one he wrestled with all of his might - and it is a great, deceptively strong might - remembered only when they do get out into the forest, Elam pops the cap off, chugs the whole thing through his bandages, and wipes it against his gloves to really spread the smear. "Alright, boss." In only a few steps, Elam starts unbuckling his trousers. "I'm ready, let's do it."
The ride is mostly silent, tough Sam does seem vaguely bemused? Amused? Either way, he is mused, by Elam's bonding experience. "Yeh. Good times." He gets out of the car.
A pause, and Sam tilts his head aside. He sniffs the air, and his expression darkens. "Fucking necromancy? Really?" He looks over to Elam, and nods. "Defensive perimiter, please, Mister Graves." He starts to prepare a ritual spot: Out of the way enough to maintain the Understanding, but close enough to the gate to be able to maybe steal a little from the Other. Magic is magic, after all.
He starts to trace a triangle of blood around himself, one hand grasping into that strand. The shadows around Sam's body quiver, like trembling serpents raring to strike.
"Let's see..." He mutters softly, extending his hand as that charred dragon ring glows up.
"Man, but I was gonna.." He was going to - what? Whatever it was, Elam seems dejected enough that he's buckling up his pants once more, and striding out several paces with a rough, hissed sigh. What he does, is similar, though perhaps more vile. "I'll get you some magic too, boss-man. Use it well." And that last part sounds like a boon, a gift, with a payment due. Elam's hand lifts to untangle the lower-portion of his bandages, reveal why exactly he has it on through a mouth as wide as his face, as large as the whole lower potion jaw-hinge to jaw-hinge. And Elam - this royal thing, direct spawn of the devil, he bites his own wrist - extends it out, and starts walking. A complete, perfect circle drawn in a large radius around Sam and his little flower, in his blood, that boils, bubbles, smells of sulphur and roils like gunpowder waiting to explode.
But just as it wants everything else, too, it still wants that now empty cup, and throw what little drips it has at someone's face. It definitely feels as if it is being pulled at but the wind also pulls at everything else, too.
As Sam grasps for that strand, he does very much recognize that there is necromancy in it. The spirits are pulled away, into the forest, which, from the singular document would mean towards the Black Camellia. At least if the document's code was properly deciphered.
The triangle is set, and there is a sudden pull, the cup that Elam is feeling he is holding tries to push towards Sam, and there is, of course, also a manticore that is being pushed from the southwest, and them past. It hisses at Elam and Sam, and then tries to scramble forward towards them, which then turns to be easier as some of the nearby wind is being pulled towards Sam.
"Well bargained." Sam nods towards Elam, and he tilts his head, looking towards the gate as he remarks. "The Fae are artists... sculptors of Fate, of will, and of many other things." His hands ball together invisible strings of energy, and soon, a small, shadowy flower of his own is put down in the middle of that triangle. It's a black flower, but this one is a lotus.
A line of blood is drawn from each of the jock's triangle's corners, to the edge of that sulphuric circle, and Sam speaks. "Malice and the lust for pain... fuelled by violence... and death."
Sam's eyes go to that manticore, and Elam gets a nod, as if the jock is unbothered by the beast approaching him... perhaps because a larger, older beast is right next to him.
The empty cup flies away - sure. Whatever. Not like Elam loved it anyway. Not like he shared his joys and his wonders, his secrets and his fears with it. Piss off, cup. Elam never needed you in the first place. However, the manticore appears like a friend - a big, cuddly, buffy of a three-headed kindred. It makes Elam smile. The long, wicked teeth cast in his mouth to dominate his face in the image of his royal father, and Elam begins to snarl in what may be anticipation. That doesn't mean it isn't a terrifying sight, one directed, aimed singularly at the approaching creature as Elam begins to subtly lean forward and dig his heels in against the current to root himself to through against the buffeting wind. "I got the puppy, /you/ piss on the flower, boss."
Elam says "Fuck, you just know what to say to get me turned on."
SPLAT, a singular drop of the cocoa flies towards Sam, in what might most definitely be the most wet of attempts today, and the cup flies past him and then around him and then lands on the ground, rolling around, unable to settle, it does only barely smear around some more of Elam's blood, where it touches, rolls, then gets pulled, lifted and dropped again.
It is a pretty harsh FLOP when the first ghost, Yurei, whatever the name, gets pulled into the lotus, a few more go, and Sam can feel the magic begin to try and struggle, the link begins to shift, but the winds also begin to grow stronger directly around him, trying to push him southeast as a result.
The manticore hisses, tries to jump and gets to 'fly' above Elam, twists, tries to turn towards 'food' Elam but then keeps moving another moment towards Sam. Out of the forest, there is then a golem that stomps in, moving a little wider in its stance as the winds barrel it towards the ritual.
"Hahaha!"
Elam cackles. Abruptly, suddenly as the manticore flies overhead. "Fuck you, bitch- you don't do that!" He's pointing at the thing like it's just doing something wrong - and it isn't heard, perhaps, not directly by anyone or anything save for the manticore. There are a thousand whispers in its ears, a million notions, a hundred urgings all telling him wonders, greatness, of loss and of more. It is enough to confuse a man, let alone a monster - and lash out.
It just so happens that the bewilderment makes the swipe going for Sam to be a miss. Not quite there. Not exactly in the right distance. Which gives Elam enough time to charge in from the side like a fucking truck- or a leech. This monstrosity goes straight for the jugular, with veins bulgings, muscles straining. All within that porcelain crack of his skin. His gaping maw of a mouth full of fangs already seeks the lionine throat while the rest of his body seeks to only overpower the manticore, and straight into the ground.
To eat it.
Alive.
A moment of pause, and Sam wipes the cocoa from his face. He shakes his head, and takes a firm stance on one of the traingle's points. His stance is like a rock, the jock trying his best not to move. The manticore gets no attention: CLearly, the expectation is that Elam, as they it, has this.
Instead, Sam presses his hand onto the triangle, shadows starting to coil and writhe around two of the triangle's sides, creating a funnel of sorts to trap the ghosts that come in.
Meanwhile, the circle around it seems to quiver, feeding off of the violence provided by Elam and the manticore.
There is more hissing now from the magic as Sam is working, the golem comes to a still, as if to analyze both Sam and the manticore-that-is-hissing-and-struggling slaying Elam. The thing screeches, its stinging tail trying to pierce Elam from behind.
The winds continue to blow, balancing an element within the spell to go against it and it does show to work. The winds hassle a little less and less in the immediate around Sam, the cup turns out to be the biggest proof to this. It begins to spin less and less.
A shift, and Sam moves a hand up, and, like squeezing shut a tube, or perhaps a vein, Sam reaches for that strand of energy, roughly trying to tug on the energy, while severing the link to the Other.
"I will pull whatever it is towards us." Sam speaks, then he looks to the golem, and tilts his head aside, lessening the earth energy he is channeling in that corner of the rite, hoping to either blow it away, or draw it into the funnel, with the ghosts.
And in that swirling wind, Elam is absolutely tearing the manticore a new throat. He's feasting. He's eating. He's devouring it one torn flesh at a time, fur and bone be damned, he's caving it in. One of his hands shoot up in time and tune with the descending, poison tail as if it expected it- to catch it midair, just before the tip grazes his own neck. And Elam smiles for it. All too wide. All too fanged in every teeth in the macabre cavern of his mouth. This is not his first tousle with a manticore - not even the first thousandth, perhaps.
There is only a scratch at Elam's throat for it - a bare graze that heals on its own near immediately. He is a creature meant to outlast - down from last cell, to reform, to recreate, and he is of porcelain, he is of stone and armor. He yanks to tear the tail off while red, wound-like eyes hike up while he has the manticore's windpipe in Elam's maw. Slowly released to stare at the stilled golme that just waits to assess.
With blood dripping alongside drool out of his mouth, he hisses the rasped words - the ashen, burnt voice spilling like acrid ichor. "I'm going to make a hole in your head." But he doesn't stop, to explain the graphic detail of exactly what he will do while his knee rests where his mouth was- to press, to begin cracking the beasts neck under his deceptive weight and power. "Then I'm going to stuff this guys bits in it, just so I'll have something soft to fuck when I play with your skull." An audible crack ensues through the whines and whinnies of a creature dying, and Elam's hand, gloved as it may be but now torn to reveal his claws at the edge of his fingers, slice into the manticore's skull, seeking the brain while one of his thumbs edge into its eye. "Come closer, bitch - you get a taste of this too." It sounds like he barely hears Sam in his lust for fear, for animosity, in deranged desire for wrath and lust combined, nay, runs in his make and creation, in the marrow of his bones.
And just as Sam announced, the golem is starting to be pulled closer again, being shoved by the wind towards Sam, and that sees another ghost being sucked into the flower again. The golem does begin to hover, and the winds begin to batter more, starting to threaten to shove Sam out of his ritual circle while Elam has definitely put the manticore into a state of shock where it becomes unable to move, or act, or really be, as living beings tend to do when it becomes too much.
A poison - more like a drug. Elam gets off on it. His own pain, of others - be it animal, human, or anything in between. The man-like face of the manticore is given one last look -before it is gone. Elam's maw opens wide to revea lthe endlessness within once more. The starved, pitless hunger of an abyss inside his throat that he slams down upon the creature's face for one last bite. He devours its face whole, eats it like he has a vengeance for everything that has a face, like how he does not have one himself.
Past the crunch, the break of bone, the torrent rising, he too ascends with a slight sway. Like a marionette on strings, he's up on his feet, and intent on doing exactly what he intended to do. One second, he's there, and in the next, his body coils like a strung up spring. The launch sends him forward, catapult in a slight blur straight at the golem that's being drawn in - and he plummets on it like a sticky leech with legs wrapped around its torso, and arms that pin its shoulders, to slam the whole stone-creation onto the ground.
The oversized, stretched, bloodied manic grin remains ever plastered -- and it remains, even as Elam starts to slam his head down on the golem's torso. "Give!" Elam chants, again, and again, and again. He speaks of its core, no doubt, the very thing that holds it together, tries to get inside with teeth, with headbutts, with scrapes and growls and snarls that only become more animalistic as he forsakes every single bit of self-injury that may be sustained in how he repeatedly slams his face into cracking gaps within the golem's torso to get at the magic-heart imbued right in its stone shell. "I'm going to fill your core with piss and gore, and chocolate syrup when I'm done with you you whore!" Maybe he doesn't even know he's speaking to just animated stone.
"Gotcha." Sam remarks, and he places both hands onto that triangle, closing the last open side of the barrier. He jumps back, and disappears from view, pathing away a small distance before he holds up his hand.
Snap his fingers snap, a unneeded gesture, but one he enjoys anyway. Demigods and showing off. Typical. He sends his own power into that demon-circle, drawing onto the concepts of malice and the violence of Elam's fighting.
Speaking of, whom... Sam looks around, checking if Elam has stepped out of the blast radius. Elam, is, after all, made to withstand. He'll be fine. RIght?
The golem stumbles and comes to stand very close to the shaped triangle and the lotus that blossomed there is drawing more and more winds, until it begins to topple over, with blood running down across the back of its toros and the cracking of Elam's skull against it. Teeth are likely bitten out, but such a creature cares not for it, they just come back, after all, and at worst, can always beat some rich pulp into affording some replacements at worst. There is a few more FLOPS as something invisible disappears inside the flower, and then, the light pulse and the shift in the air before the flower visibly wilts - and then a burst of winds clashes from it, exploding outwards, combusting with the surrounding demon-blood.
Wind turns into flaming wind, the stone of the golem is ripped to shreds from the front, and cracked piece by piece from the behind. By the end of it, the core is visible from both sides, one being burnt, the other at Elam's disposal. The shattering stone does get pushed back and the breeze carries along far beyond the here. A single last breeze and the wind draws to a still.
(Your target is attacked by a dream stalker who subjects them to their greatest fantasies in the dream world in order to keep their body passive while it's energies are fed upon. They need to, possibly with the help of allies entering their dreams, resist the temptation long enough for other allies to find them or for them to wake up.
)
Seamus sits in his library reviewing casefiles, a stack of Scout reports on his lap as he reads over them smoking a cigarette and drinking a whiskey, his arm in a sling.""
The library in Seamuss house is dimly lit, all golden hush and dust motes dancing like ash in the lamplight. The scent of leather bindings, cigarettes, and aged wood lingers in the air. Hes curled in his favourite chair that has molded to his shape over weeks (yes weeks!) of reading, the upholstery smooth where his elbows usually restthough tonight, one arm hangs limp, cradled awkwardly against his chest.
His shoulder is dislocated, and the pain hums low in the backgroundpersistent but distant, dulled by exhaustion and the soft warmth of the fire crackling in the hearth. Hed tried to read, a thick, weighty tome splayed open across his lap, but the words blurred at the edges of his vision. His good hand rests on the page, his thumb tracing the loop of a printed g over and over again.
He slumps deeper into the chair, legs folded beneath him, breath slowing. The world narrows to the warmth of the fire and the scent of paper, and thenimperceptiblyhe slips under.
One moment he was sleeping in his library.. the next he was at the Mansion.
The walls are dark with lacquered wood and crimson velvet, the air thick with warmth and perfumejasmine, sandalwood, something faintly spicy like cloves. Everything glows as if lit from within, the sconces casting a honeyed light that pools in corners and kisses the curves of carved banisters.
The floor beneath his feet is marble so dark it reflects him in ripples, like oil. Every footstep sounds muffled, intimate, like a whisper in a cathedral. The corridors dont just windthey wind around him. They draw him in. Mirrors line the halls, but none show his injury. Here, his body is whole again, loose with grace, clothed in midnight silk and bare feet. He moves not like himself... but the man who his mind has split to become. Oskar.
The walls pulse with music too subtle to namelow strings, maybe, or the breath of someone asleep just behind a door. Velvet curtains brush his arms as he passes through them. The rooms open like promises: a parlor with a couch shaped like lips, a staircase that curves as if its dancing, a hallway that narrows until he must turn sideways, his shoulder grazing warm wallpaper embroidered with gold thread.
In the salon, a table is set with crystal glasses full of dark, viscous wine. A phonograph plays, though no record spins. Laughter echoes distantlyfeminine, amused, familiar. He turns a corner and finds himself in a room that smells of jasmine and candle wax. Silk hangs from the ceiling. A fire smolders in a sunken hearth. There is no one there, and yet he feels eyes on him.
The house touches him gentlydoors that open just before he reaches them, curtains that sway in his wake, floorboards that groan with pleasure. It wants him there.
It cradles him.
And in the center of it all: a grand bed beneath a stained-glass dome. The light above flickers with every color of desire. The bed is not empty but instead, the girl of his dreams lay there. At first, Seamus thinks her hair is purple... then as his desires change so too, does the figure on the bed. Eventually, a woman is lying there on the black silk, eyes half veiled by lashes, her body dressed in a delicate white nightgown. Long blond hair flows to her waist, hanging in large ringlets over her body.
"Are you here? To stay at the mansion?" Dimly, Seamus might realize this is not quite the mansion that he's used to. There is none of the usual ...decoration that exists in that particular dreamworld. Almost as if someone had taken the thought 'mansion' and decided to make something of it.
Around him, the gentle music increases, softly as if violins playing as the woman sits up on the bed, her hand caressing the silk of the sheets. Her head tilts and her face is that of one of unearthly beauty. "To have peace and comfort for the rest of your days?" The voice that speaks to Seamus is soft but echos all through his mind as if she is doing more than just speaking to his ears. Golden eyes stare up at him, framed by sooty lashes that blink and then suddenly they're no longer gold but a deep sapphire blue... only for a moment... As whatever it is... tries to capture what Seamus's deepest desires are.
Seamus is more than comfortable in dreamworlds most of the time but this, this seems off to him. Wrong. Wrong on a level he doesn't quite know but that nagging doubt starts to seep in in the back of his mind. The creature would have a tough time figuring out which 'Seamus' it was getting a read on, as the many dream patters flickered around in his brain but ultimately one lands. It is a small one, not used, but it has a strong pull towards posessing and owning, particularly money. A hunger for gold and things that can only be bought.