closed | the casque of antiva

[portalling]

WHO: Strange & Wysteria
WHAT: Investigating spooky basement activity
WHEN: Sometime in Harvestmere
WHERE: An Antivan vineyard along the Viverna River
NOTES: OOC notes

Strange has never slept well, but this really takes the cake.

Nightmares and fraying tempers on all sides; people around Kirkwall town being pushed to the edge, and even moreso around a rifter and a magic-user like him; he’s started to wear gloves again, to his distaste, to disguise that tell-tale shard in his palm.

All things told, he jumps at a chance to get out into the field and travel for a while. Even if, in the mornings, he has to go for a walk and narrate his dreams into a sending crystal like he’s taking dictation notes, his voice a low murmur. He can’t bring himself to ask his traveling companion to write them down for him.

So— crotchety and sleep-deprived as he is, Doctor Strange is more bleak and sarcastic next to Madame de Foncé’s indefatigable conversation. But once they eventually arrive at their destination, he finally brightens. They’re welcomed through the front doors as agents of Riftwatch, and people even seem relieved to see them. Standing in the sprawling stone foyer, they listen to the winemaker explain the trouble they’d encountered in the castello’s basement expansion, the renovations unearthing something terrible; and even while the man is talking, there’s the sound of a particularly loud crash down below, as if a chair just hit a wall.

The Antivan winemaker tosses Wysteria the key to the basement and then, with a rushed, “I’llbeinthekitchenifyouneedme,” he’s gone, vanishing down a corridor and scurrying away to the other side of the castello.

“So. Not rats, I take it,” Strange says dryly, looking at the door leading downstairs.

Comments

heart emoji

[portalling]

He’s clutching his face, his stinging nose, that blossoming pain in his reddening cheek. The nose doesn’t feel broken, thank god, but the skin along his cheekbone feels raw and bruised from that solid impact. That might be a black eye come morning.

“That was a hardcover,” Strange mutters, sounding more aggrieved and irritated than frightened. “Books shouldn’t be weapons—”

And then, a moment later remembering the shelves upon shelves of dangerous arcane texts at Kamar-Taj and a certain cursed book which had almost unraveled the multiverse, he amends, “Well, I mean, they’re often weapons. But not like this. Blunt force trauma is so passé.”

Thump, thump, thump goes the door. He pinches his nose, and looks over at Wysteria. “If I were back home, I would conduct a routine exorcism, but I doubt I have the capability any longer. Are exorcisms a thing here, do you think?”

[heirring]

"Certainly not," she says with every appearance of confidence. At the very least, she has never heard of something so ridiculous as all that and she has been in Thedas and dealing with all manner of spirits and demons for quite some time, thank you very much.

"Although I believe that spirits can sometimes be bargained with. And if it cannot and is inhabiting an object of some kind, we likely need only destroy the object to be rid of it. De Foncé and I have in the past had some difficulties with that sort of thing. Would you care to sit there at the bottom step for a moment and consider our options? I don't mind waiting if you feel at all dizzy."

She says all this cheerfully enough despite the recent assault on his person and the intermittent percussive thumping from beyond the door which suggests that there may be other items being strewn sulkily about by whatever spirit is waiting for them. Her hand too has remained firmly on the door's handle so she might wield the whole door a little like a shield. This unconscious defense mechanism is entirely rational right up until the moment that the door is dredged forcefully open and Wysteria is yanked into the cellar with it with a startled squawk.

[portalling]

The man bristles at that inadvertent sleight, his metaphorical feathers puffing up. Excuse you: “Ma’am, I’m fine to continue. I’m not sure if you registered when I said that this really is any regular Tuesday for me. I’m perfectly capable of—”

And then the door finally slams open and Wysteria vanishes, and he’s left blinking owlishly at the blank space which had been occupied, a moment earlier, by his Riftwatch colleague. Then, swearing, Strange hauls on that door until it lets him slip through and then barrel straight into the basement, red cape fluttering decoratively behind him.

And seeing the room again in full view, it really is a mess. He shakes out his hand and the hum of his own magic joins that acrid smell of it in the damp air, a taste in the back of the throat. He summons a glowing shield, and uses it to bat another flying piece of scholarship aside (fleeting glimpse of the title: Beyond the Veil, oh, he’d read that, it was a good one).

“De Foncé!” he shouts. “Or— spirit! I’ve come to bargain!”

This is a reference that is lost on both Wysteria and the spirit, if it’s listening. Instead, that invisible energy scales up and heaves a chair at him.

It doesn’t seem very interested in bargaining.