Zombiedude101

The Symphony: Modern Magic

---

As expected, the resident maitre'dealer was of no help.

Not that he expected it.

BUt there was more proof in front of his own eyes that there was more than just smoke and mirrors. The Archivist had demonstrated with the light show, a web-work of fluorescent strands dancing over their heads. If this was an illusion, it was a good one... and the fact there were people that didn't belong here together.

He and the town dealer were evidence enough of that.

".. I can’t answer your question. You will answer that yourself. Do you want to be a trained mage? Or do you want to die?”@NoriWasHere

Archivist

Kenny had some choices ahead...

Try and control the dwarf, lose my mind in the process.

Let the dwarf have his way, also lose my mind in the process.

Or die. Maybe then I'm still stuck with the dwarf.

Those three weren't particularly appealing.

-or buy into the mysterious elf bachelor's secret circle and throw what little career you have away. Maybe the dwarf goes away. Maybe not. You're on the run from a secret society that has been around longer than anything you've ever known.

And that was assuming this wasn't a coma-induced stupor, triggered by slipping and smashing his head on a barstool, and this was just the last few flickers of life in him before he became a certified vegetable. Or he was entering own personal hell, punishment for what he did the night this all started.

That almost sounded easier to swallow than the news that came next - when the Archivist led them to the study..

---

Lots of 'fucks' followed the footage of the raid on the cabin.

Kenny, for his part, kept his mouth shut and abstained from joining the chorus, he was too busy sizing up the place and trying to make sense of it all. 'Fuck. Maybe there's a real fight, eh?' Ivar was his stand-in for that

These 'Witch Hunters' guys were collectively better armed than anything he could've found in the station armoury, maybe better armed than the state police for that matter. Between the drones, the AR pattern rifles, and the body armour... it took him a moment to see past the tacticool... it struck him that at least one of them looked like a kid costumed up for paintball. Some looked serious, but not all.

'Not how I'd want my suckling dressed,' Ivar guffawed at the silver-haired Hush, wearing kevlar ill-suited for her chunky form. Kenny almost found that one funny, was about to exhale a snort of air through his nostrils, when- 'You should be ashamed to die to that lot, boy.'

Ruined the moment.

"Which one of us is breathing, dick?" Kenny muttered back, and shook his head like a dog shrugging water off its coat. He really needed a drink. Maybe there was a liquor cabinet here? His eyes were searching for it in the periphery.

Young, upstart idiots.

The Elf had that right, at least, but this was still serious. Kids with guns, still had guns. Any idiot with a gun could kill someone, and there were about two hundred years of American history to prove that fact.

And when he dropped the Ravensmere name... a few things clicked.

It definitely explained why he got the impression of old money in more ways than one. 'Ah, Ravensmere,' Ivar grunted making yet another ptooey gesture off to one side, 'Knife-ears that think they piss wine and shit mounds of silver.'

Kenny jabbed a foot out where the spectre's shins would've been in response to the disparaging comment, prompting a spectral murmur of which he could only interpret the word '-cunts.'

The dwarf's coarse opinion was neither welcome nor helpful, and if Pom Evergreen could hear him, how long before someone else did? Besides... he felt the chalky façade of his own psyche erode every time the ghost opened their dead, scarred lips.

"That.... algorithm thing they're talking about. Is that real? Do you think it actually works? I'm guessing they'll find something better soon."

Even with the offer of money, it seemed sketchy at best. The elf-... Ravensmere had made it clear that he was supposedly one of two experts on these affairs, the other being his own brother, off somewhere in Shangri-la.

The short, Scottish girl seemed to fill in the blanks on the Ravensmere name, which along with the bitter, fuck-you old money impression painted a much murkier picture of their supposed benefactor. All of the above aside, he doubted whether the ties to the elf would find ways to bite them.

“Oh, and we need to destroy our cellphones! You bastards can track us through them, can’t you?”@Atrophy

Pom

He couldn't believe that he and Evergreen were on the same page, at least when it came to the paper trail, and being traced. That girl - woman he corrected himself, just remembering that bad situation with the lake, remembering all of a sudden how long she'd been around, longer than him, even. That she was an old widow.

Pain in the ass she was, nobody deserved that.

"'You' bast-..? Nevermind. Sure, whatever." He shrugged, not wanting to pick an argument, "How much real authority do these kids actually have? Maybe what, a couple hundred, thousand years ago, sure - but are you really telling me everyone with a badge is going to sit back and let these... 'Witch Hunters' go and shoot up their local town? What happens when this stuff gets on the news, when this gets reported up the chain?"

That was the skeptic in him, the cop, the instinct to defer to his old habits. Thoughts moved back to the element of money, work, paper trail.

"How does that work, we all suddenly just pick up new jobs working for you. You ever heard of RICO?" Kenny voiced his concern, "If these people are serious, more than just stupid kids playing paintball in the woods... won't that just draw attention to 'us', put 'us' all together? And.. shit, I've still got a job. A real job, responsibilities... not some part-time summer crap, I got duty hours, I can't just drop everything, all my-..." -because you're obviously a rising star. Get serious.

'Go on, lawman, your balls haven't dropped off yet.' This time, Ivar's goading had paid off. A cumulation of a constant, dull headache, the lingering BAC in his system, and the inadvisable addition of pain medication had loosened his inhibitions in efforts to dull the migraine.

And why were the shadows moving?!

Frustration boiling, Kenny lurched forward to vent that rage at the dwarf, grasping at the spirit's incorporeal form, "Screw you!"

To Kenny, Ivar's spectral form appeared to dissipate, if only for a moment.

To the others, he just came across as a man who's grasp on sanity was about as firm as Pom Evergreen had sobriety. He had just cursed at the thin air, after all. Though, for a moment, his eyes flickered a faint green iridescence - not that he knew it.

It didn't last long, though.

A hideous, toothy grin formed across the dwarf's disfigured features as he reformed a few feet away, 'By a thread, boy.' Ivar raised a reforming spectral hand, closing his thumb and forefinger together as though he was dangling something, then pivoted away, satisfied.

Asshole got what he wanted.

At that point, Kenny's reservations about this whole thing were being waylaid by the greater need to suppress his own, literal demon. Any longer, and he was liable to drive his car into the lake for a swim and enjoy some peace and quiet with the old man he'd been thinking about earlier. Sorry, bad joke.

Not to mention he'd have been joining the other loose end he'd left there, the night this all started.

Collecting himself, he realised he wasn't the only one on the track to losing their mind, "-so how am I supposed to figure what I can do? All I know is that this bearded cocksucker won't stop talking off my fucking ears. What's my specialty, giving dead dwarves the chance to haunt me?"

Ivar, for his part, grabbed at his crotch and threw his unwilling host a lewd gesture. Maybe this was punishment after all.

The Symphony: Modern Magic

---

It didn't seem right to introduce himself. Those who recognised him probably had their minds set already, like Mrs 'I know my rights!' or the girl who'd given him the stink eye a few weeks ago, just because he'd not gently caressed some piss-ass drunk causing a scene on Coney Island. The rest... what did it matter? Kenny listened with a wary expression, the chatter snuffed out by the silver-bearded elf that had invited them here.

It was a lot to take in.

Magic... a week ago, he wouldn't have believed it. Hell, he barely believed half the stories they used to tell. There were explanations, surely. The lost kingdoms, fallen empires, there were plenty of documenatries he'd fallen asleep to in a self-induced stupour, the TV left tuned to the History Channel. But how else did he explain the dwarf, and the other specific detail that the elf had called out?

Or the other weird shit going on in the room.

He almost wished this was just a really bad dream, but for whatever reason, perhaps the evidence that seemed to be literally flying in his face in some instances, Kenny kept his feet firmly planted on the carpet.

Witch Hunters.

Like the old fairy tales? The same sort of crazy shit tweakers would spout about after a trip gone bad. And the phrasing there... Root and stem? Didn't take a genius to figue out what that meant.

“I was born to carry on that mission and I did until I was ousted by their leader three months ago."@NoriWasHere

Archivist

He got the impression he was dealing with someone who was almost definitely an accessory to, if not outright committing homicide. Murder. The word was branded against the back of his consciousness, uncomfortably so. And who did that extend to? Just random people that happened to show up in a family tree? Someone that looked wrong?

Perhaps, more concerning was how comfortable the old elf was with it all. There was no guilt, shame or any sense of contrition.

So, why the change of heart? If the old man had been raised into this death cult, bought into the kool-aid and then some, surely it wasn't just self-preservation that drove him here, the way he acted so dismisive towards his old acquaintances-

".. and supposed tech geniuses who are drugged out of their minds every single day speaking as if his word is gospel. What they had was money, and they leveraged it to remove me. "@NoriWasHere

Archivist

-and there it was.

Someone was definitely bitter about that particular fact. Kenny was willing to bet a week's bar tab that the elf had specific names in mind when it came to grudges. Maybe he and the fucking dwarf can start a book on that.

A few of the others beat him to asking the questions that sprang to mind, which at least spared him from making it obvious. But the other thing that came to mind, as more answers spilled out...

Clairvoyant. He saw everything. Everything.

The thought alone was enough to make his stomach lurch forward and bring about another mouthful of last night's bile.

If the man wasn't full of shit.... another loose end, just fucking great. Unlike the last one, this wasn't something he could sweep away. But then agian.... they seemed to have a common interest here. All of them. Mutually asured survival.

If it was true... how were these witch hunters actually going to pull this off? Some of them, sure. Nobody was going to question if Pom Evergreen lit up a joint and managed to set her mattress on fire while she was riding the unicorn, but what about someone with a public face?

Someone like him. He was a cop. Not the finest, but... still a cop. Even the notion of attacking law enforcement was likely to bring the big, swinging dick of the law like a helicopter down on whoever had such a stupid idea.

Because a secret society is really going to pull a drive-by on the station, and not something where you're out on your ass in the middle of nowhere with people you don't know a thing about. Real fucking clever, Ken.

Subtly, Kenny's hand brushed over his waistline, as though he were feeling for the outline of his sidearm beneath the waistline. Feeling exposed, it was the closest he had to a comfort blanket, but it would probably mean screw-all if it came down to brass tacks, as the saying went.

The truth was, he'd discharged his sidearm a handful of times on the job, a few more in anger, and never really acquitted himself well in either instance. He'd done far more damage with his hands, a few times with a car, and sometimes with a flashlight, although his Uncle Mitch used to boast the new maglites didn't pack the same punch they did back in his day.

Whatever the case, he was no Ralph Friedman. He'd done his time as a city cop, washed out, settled for this. The only reason he'd got the job here was because of good old Uncle Mitch.

At least he got to keep the house, in the end.... not that it mattered, if the cult were coming for them all. All that time, work and money up in smoke.

Ivar, for his part, cackled with a near-spiteful amusement at the news, 'Yer' hear that? Sounds like you and the rest of these teat-sucklers will be breathing less 'n me before long.' He flashed a hideous grin at Cailean, 'Before it comes, see if you can steer that one my way, just for a taste.'

A thought Kenny didn't want to imagine, for his and the halfling's sake. Luckily for them....

”You were either real good at what you did, and something fucked up happened, or you weren’t and these guys aren’t that scary. And why didn’t you just shoot yourself when you suddenly became part of the problem?”
@Blizz

Mason

The teenager was to the point, and even Kenny couldn't help but stifle an amused snort of air. He vaguely recognised the kid... Max, Mason, Matteo? Something beginning with an M.] He'd pulled him over once or twice when he was out on a bike, something about missing a stop sign here, or stupidly cutting through traffic there, though the kid swore it wasn't him. Ken remembered telling him to cut that shit out and get out of his sight.... maybe once or twice he'd been in a bad mood, or had one of his migraines come on.

Probably doesn't even remember me.

Ivar, for his part, had taken notice of the boy. 'That's the fighting talk that, boy probably has some grit under his foreskin somewhere up the family runes.'

-and that was another one for the mental picturebook that he hadn't asked for.

If Kenny was going to learn anything from this old bastard, he hoped it would be how to put a gag on the dwarf's fissured mouth, if not outright ditching the miserable asshole. At least he was in good spirits, pun intended.

Or at least, was-

“I want to keep it. I’m not gonna fight nobody and I’m not gonna hurt nobody, but I want to learn. Maybe I'm not the quickest, but I can learn things. Like how his can talk!”@Atrophy

Ivar's attention had been diverted towards the town's resident greengrocer, the perpetually sneering revenant thumbing back in her direction with his particularly colourful dialect that seemed to blend the best of Dwarven Vernacular.

'Who does the slattern think she's pointin' at?'

Oh, fuck me.

Because Pom just had to be the only other person in the room who could see his second shadow,

'Ye' wanting to cop a backhander?!' The dwarf indignantly growled, taking a few steps towards the not-so-wisened she-elf. 'I'm the fuckin' Barber and not nobody's ye' leaf-lovin cun-'

Ken broke Ivar's train of thought by swatting a hand through his incorporeal form, like he was wafting away a bad smell. It didn't fully smother the dwarf's ranting, but Kenny's own voice did the rest as he talked over the spirit's impotent rage.

"He's dead, I'm stuck with him, you don't have to deal with him all the time." Kenny's voice was a resigned acceptance that the moment of respite was over, "So for once... exercise your right to shut up, he's already trashed my place."

The others were probably looking at him as though he had two heads. A green irridescence briefly flickered behind Kenny's gaze; although it wasn't something he was conscious of.

'.. can't take a fucken' shite without scuffin' up some longlugs...' Ivar grumbled, instead sauntering off across the room, the rest of the group oblivious to his existence. Cailean might have briefly felt a whisp of something cold brush across their backside as the dwarf made an exaggerated groping gesture, before silently stomping towards a bookshelf across the room and haphazardly pulling the closest article to hand out of place, hitting the ground with a startling thud.

Kenny dragged a palm over his weary, hungover features, "Really?"

He glanced at Pom, his expression saying it best.

See what I'm putting up with?

The Symphony: Modern Magic

---

Splash.

Kenny watched in silence as the bag, weighted down with gravel and the broken half of a cinderblock, disappeared beneath the surface of Lake Ontario, waves rippling outwards from the impact site,

A light shone back at him, and for some reason he felt compelled to look. He dropped to a knee, and.... bones?

No.

Skulls, a sea of them beneath water., so many that they formed the lakebed. The rippling didn't give in, and the skulls almost seemed to rise en-masse until they were mere inches beneath the water. Kenny blinked, and it all stopped. The water was still again, only the reflection-

-the face that stared back wasn't his own. Weathered, stout, with a thick beard and a sneer divided in two by a gash that split the two lips into four.

"What are you looking at, gobshite?!"

---

Ambience

He jolted awake, sheets soaked with sweat, the real world bleeding back into view.

Nausea overwhelmed him, and he burst forth from the bedspread half-naked, then emptied last night's supper - or was that breakfast? - into the toilet bowl. A few more retches and he was done with that, the acrid contents of the bowl having left a burning sensation in his throat on its way out.

"You're like a ton of shite stuck in a half-ton sack." A voice, half-growling, half-jeering behind him.

"Yeah, I'm real peachy..."

"Ah, spare me your bellyaching." It offered no sympathy.

"You never had a shitty night?" Kenny fumbled for the cord and pulled, so he had some degree of light to work with.

The four-and-a-half foot silhouette stood in the doorway had both arms planted on their waist, making a ptooey gesture. "Must be some fine fuckin' work being a lawman these days, paid to sniff shite and sit on your arse, then still complain. That featherbed not good enough for you, boy?"

Ken wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist and shrugged, "Guess not."

The dwarf wouldn't know or care for the difference between a standard mattress and whatever anqituated trash he'd used back in his day, but Kenny was past the point of arguing. He'd learned enough about the dwarf in the week since his.... emergence, to know that he had to pick his battles. This wasn't one of them.

Fact; Ivar the Barber had earned his name by a litany of different means, as Ken had been subjected to several times means, as Ken had unfortunately heard at least a dozen times by this point. For the more obvious point, the dwarf had a hideous gash that split both lips at a vertical angle, leaving him with a permanent sneer and a patch of scar tissue along the lower jaw where his beard appeared to split in two. That he claimed, was from the sixth attempt on his life, not even close to the last.

Fact: Ivar was a real bastard when he was at work, a mobster who could've put the likes of Bugsy Siegel and Al Capone to shame. Although it was hard to verify, he gathered some of that from the dwarf's general mannerisms, including the boasting that he had, at one point, cut away the beards of those who wronged him and nailed them to a wall like an indian collecting scalps. Local rumours, folklore from some of the old folks had even corroborated those tales.

Fact, both fortunate and infuriating; the dwarf was dead, and had probably been so for at least fifty years, if not even longer. That particular concept was still a work in progess and one that prompted a torrent of verbal abuse and outrage.

Ken had heard the stereotype that dwarves held onto grudges, every slight and insult cast into a mental stew until the offended dwarf had the opportunity to enact their vengeance. Those were old stories, from a time before society had mostly figured out better ways to handle differences.

Ivar hadn't got the memo on that, it seemed.

This shitty feeling had to go. Ken pulled himself up to the sink, ran the faucet to splash some water across his stubbled face, then popped open the cabinet to grab a faded white pill bottle, squeezing and twisting at the lid so he could withdraw and down a double dose of the contents. Far outside the recommended dosage, but he needed something to dull the constant headache of the dwarf's growling.

"Enough sweeties in there for you?" Ivar cackled as he replaced the bottle in the cabinet. Pivoting, Kenny saw the specter in the light now. Somewhat translucent, for the most part he looked like one split between two worlds, the old warrior's way and that of the roaring twenties. A leather coat, hand-tailored, interwoven with metallic patches that looked like scale or mail armour, and a tan flat cap. beard extended to around his waist, tapering off just below the sternum with an iron band.

Will this guy shut up? Every direction he turned, the dwarf was never far out of sight, bellowing a constant stream of venom or waxing anecdotes

Tired of the noise, Kenny pivoted walked through the dwarf's spectral figure to exit the bathroom. A cold chill washed over him, but he knew the dwarf liked it even less. Between the reminder of being dead - a concept the stout specter was almost oblivious to - and the insult of the matter, it was Ken's own 'fuck you' that couldn't be countered with an equal retort.

Except for whatever he just broke. From the adjoining room, Ken could hear what was probably another glass splintering against the drywall. Ivar had figured out he could sometimes pick things up and nudge the along, or throw them if he really tried.

Not even sleep was an escape. His dreams had been polluted with a vision of skulls beneath the water, so many they formed a lakebed of their own. That couldn't be true, but it had felt real at the time.
For someone who was dead, he seemed more belligerent than he had any right to be.

During a call for some rough behaviour on his last graveyard shift, a local barfly had told Kenny he was acting like he had two heads, the dwarf running their mouth all the while he hauled the man off to the station to sleep it off in the drunk tank. He was just glad he'd been able to talk the bossman into giving him a few nights off...

The letter. He'd read it, shook his head and tossed it in the trash when he first read it. Maybe it was the dwarf, whatever this was, screwing with his head. But the more this went on.... no, it couldn't continue. Ken fished through the trash bin, eventually finding the stained and crumpled paper beneath some two-day old leftovers.

While half of the letter was unintelligable at tis poimt, the important part was there.

...questions, and I have answers to them. I know you are dealing with the dwarf, and he isn't just in your head.

Come to 13 Mourningdove Lane. Midnig...

Kenny did have questions, and he hoped there would be answers to them. Like how to get rid of the fucking dwarf. Any more of that inane gibbering and he would be driving his damn cruiser into the lake.

Peering through the blinds of his front window, he could see the night hanging overhead. How long as he out?

Didn't matter. It wasn't too late. Ken pulled his wrist up to squint at his watch, it was only...

Shit.

---

In a rush, he'd thrown on a jacket, some pants and left without even bothering to shower off the hangover. The stench of deodorant and hastily gargled mouthwash clung to him the whole way.

He pulled up a distance away from the address, not wanting to make a spectacle of himself. Leaving his car parked off safel to one side, Ken patted at his waist. He wasn't necessarily expecting trouble but just in case.... he'd kept his holster concealed beneath the belt ine, covered by his jacket.

The man squinted as he approached, then crossed the wrought iron gates. He must've cruised by here a thousand times and never noticed anything off. There were plenty of places like this dotted all over the county, hell - the state, even. Why would this be cause for suspicion?

And off to one side, the dwarf trailing behind him. For now, Ivar had no comment on the matter. When he drove, he saw the split-jawed dwarf sneering at him through the rear view mirror, or otherwise stood outside glowering at him. No matter how far he moved, Ivar was never far behind.

For all intents and purposes they were tethered to one another.

Approaching the door, he was again about to rap his fingers against the heavy doorknocker when, to his bemusement, the doors parted without any contact being made. The faint wafting taste of pie lingered in the air, along with a herbal pungence that lingered on the senses, faintly burning at his sinuses.

There were others here? He hadn't completely expected that.... and for a moment, with all of the above in mind, he wondered if this was some kind of setup.

Ivar seemed to verbally nudge him on, conscious of the fact that only Kenny could hear the bile he spewed. "What were you expecting, a spitroast?"

It was too late to pull out, Ken reasoned, and stepped in.

Some of the faces here were... vaguely familiar. Maybe he'd collared someone here at one point. The elf girl.... woman.

Pom Evergreen. That explains the herb stink.

Her presence alone was enough to make him reconsider being here, if only to avoid the 'I know my rights!' spiel she'd throw at him. The baggies of ground up leaves, mushroom and other fruits of the forest he'd had to take in off the girl could've filled his fridge... but she was stil a better alternative to the toothless boys in the trailer park downstate, and hadn't gone out of her way to fuck with his orders at the diner she waited at.

"Yer can't piss without hittin' a knife-ear somewhere can you?" Ivar opined, and that brought him back to Earth. Fuck you, short-stop, he thought, his lips parting to mouth the words in contempt. He almost forgot he wasn't alone, nearly said it aloud. That it seemed to annoy the dwarf was enough to make him hang around, with Pom in their presence.

Things moved on, and before long Ivar was again running his mouth, and leering at a short girl.... a halfling, maybe? "I bet this one would break in half over my knee, but I sure wouldn't mind breaking that in."

Ken swat a hand outwards, that same cold chill running through his fingers. Ivar bristled, grumbled, but did nothing else. To the others, he looked as though he was swatting the air for no reason.

The Symphony: Modern Magic

Kenny

__________________artb_____________________________ Kenneth Burton Him | 37 | Male | 5’10 | 198 lbs _______________________________________________ Wasted. _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents ___________________________________ [+] Casework ⫻ TPPD is too small to employ a full time crew of investigators, so most day-to-day work is handled by the department’s own officers or handed off to state police as needed in the case of more serious work. For his part, Kenny has a decent set of instincts with years of policing under his belt... when he can be bothered to use them. )

Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ An endormorphic man crossing the threshold towards middle age, with coarse, charcoal textured hair that isn’t styled so much as routinely shorn by a #1 or #2 razor. If it isn’t kept rhat way, it starts to form a shaggy proto-mullt. He keeps his jawline in the same fashion, periodically trimming it back, but usually leaving a layer of cropped stubble to grow Kenny’s certainly no athlete, but he’s still got a degree of tone to his extremities to demonstrate he doesn’t spend the entire day sat in the cruiser or leaning against a barstool. That said, he gives the impression of someone who will develop a paunch in the next decade or so.

_{Psychology
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔}}

MAIN GOAL ⫻
Coast on by, keep his paycheck coming in, and try building up his pension and under-the-counter retirement fund in case something falls through.

And get rid of the fucking dwarf.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻
Kenny’s view is apathy at best, nihilism at worst. If you asked him during a forthcoming moment, he might reflect in crude terms that most of his career has amounted to nothing and human nature would inevitably kick in whether or not you tried to stop it, and that energy was best directed towards steering it down the path of least resistance.

SECRETS AND FEARS ⫻
Putting it mildly, Kenny has not kept his nose clean while working as a small town cop. He’s bargained with enough lesser evils to the point he’d stopped caring, sometimes enriching himself on the side in the process. He had his heart and mind set on being a cop for so long that now, so far down the hole, it’s hard for him to imagine doing anything else, even if he knows he’s a terrible example to follow - and in turn he knows there are things he needs to keep swpt under the carpet if he wants to carry on that way.

There is a part of him that wants to live up to the idealistic spectacle of what a cop should be, that he thought his uncle was, but that’s been buried beneath a layer of apathy and self-loathing over the matter.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Plenty of short-term things but nothing that’s ever lasted long.

WHAT WAS THE FIRST DAY WITH MAGIC LIKE? ⫻ Poorly timed. Kenny was dealing with a loose end when the resurgent powers manifested when he unwittingly summoned the spirit of some long-dead dwarf bastard who’s remains had been dumped somewhere close by, years before his time. Said dwarf specter, Ivar, proceeded to haunt his waking senses, spewing the kind of poison you might expect from a dwarven crime boss

FLAWS ⫻
Boy are there. The most outstanding is his lax approach to self-medication of his personal issues, real or imagined. Alcohol? Check. Under the counter painkillers? Check. He’s not at the level of shooting heroin into his ass or snorting coke through a silly straw, but given his position... that’s not a massive difference.

Having a contemptuous, revenant specter of some mid-century dwarven crime boss has not eased that problem by any measure.

_{Backstory
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔}}

Kenny’s a local through and through, born and raised in town, and spending most of his life there, barring a city stint in his twenties.

His old man died before he hit double-digit ages in what could be best described as as industrial accident, aggravated by poor decisions - alcohol had played its part in that instance, and truth be told his old man had hardly been the pinnacle of fatherhood.

Therefore, Kenny’s need for a father figure was rapidly substituted by his uncle, who at that point had a storied career. A policing veteran who had ‘retired’ upstate to a senior role in a smaller local department after years as a city cop.

Kenny followed the example he thought had been set for him, eventually moving to the city himself and pushing himself through the local police academy, wanting to do the same and make something for himself. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long.

What started as a ‘promising’ career, he realised, was just a facade. Even with honest intentions... the nature of the job, the pressures it put him under, he made mistakes, handled some situations rougher than he should’ve... and felt inadequate, growing disillusioned over time as things didn’t work out as they should. He crossed paths with other people, worse than him and better at it too. A particularly egregious error of his own making kicked off the dominos, with the eventual tipping point being his learning that, yes, Uncle Mitch had really been a former city cop, that much was true, but former for a reason. He’d been a piece of work who had taken his share of bumps, taken things too far, and made the police union rankle at his behaviour to the point that a transfer to some relative quiet backwater town upstate had been a quiet way to shuffle a problem character aside without making waves.

Ken quit the city and went back home to Twin Pines. One last dirty favour from his uncle was a job with his hometown’s police department, and then a little while after that the old man suffered a heart attack and died on the shitter. In the seven years since, Kenny did his job, just about.

Locals knew him as a man who’d collar someone for starting bar fights, only to be throwing a few blows of his own after having a few too many later on that same night. And that wasn’t getting into some of the other overtime work he was pulling. Some people got more leeway than others, depending on who you were.

The night his magic first manifest itself, he was dealing with a loose end - someone who had tried, failed and got into misfortune on the wrong side of him. Kenny had gone too far, and in that moment he’d been trying to avoid the repercussions of what he’d done, disposing of the evidence out on the lake. In that moment, he happened to be close enough to the sunken, weighted remains of a long-dead dwarf, known infamously in life as Ivar Cleftbeard. Ivar had been a crime lord and figure of ill repute in their time... and the name had double meaning, as Kenny learned to his horror when the spectral visage of said dwarf mobster stalked his every waking moment.

Now the two of them were stuck together, and neither happy for it. Ivar having only recently grasped that they have been dead for the better half of a century and were now attached to some cretinous gobshite lawman, and Kenny for being stuck with a poison-spewing revenant urging him to violence at nearly every step.

_{Magic
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"Spooky scary skeletons."

MAGIC ⫻ Necromancy

MAGIC DESCRIPTION ⫻ A grave power invoking the physical matter and consciousness of the deceased to return to animated form. It also has the side effect of invoking the ghost of a particularly nasty dwarf who died mid-century after carving out a decades-spanning trail of blood. Sheriff Ivar is a story still whispered among local folklore

LIMITS ⫻ Kenny is not about to summon war bands of long dead Iroquois from the earth to attack his foes. Perhaps, with time, there might be some approximation of that which could be achieved, but only by someone with the right mindset. As for Sheriff Ivar, the specter has a limited capacity to interact with the world within Kenny’s range, nudging small objects. Bodies of the dead, or those near-death, could theoretically be possessed

WEAKNESSES ⫻

^{Other
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Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree [Complete]

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree [Complete]

Luca @FernStone, Adora, Doggo, Greenwood @Mixtape Ghost N & LaylAlizee, Aislin @Estylwen

---

Clancy shrugged off Adora's dismissal. She hadn't asked for his opinion nor demonstrate anything to suggest she'd follow it, and for all his efforts at trying to keep some of them alive, he wasn't her keeper.

For his part, he’d try and keep the pressing danger in front of them at arm’s length-

ambience

-too soon.

Alizee and Layla, the bound girls, rushed forward before the rest were ready, the dog's stone form grinding into motion.

What happened to the plan?!

It was too late for that now.

Before the boy could press forward on the offensive, Luca and a few others slipped past the corner of his gaze, too close for comfort as the dog snapped and bucked until it was crashing across the floor, threatening to bowl over them and Layla. Clancy's first instinct was to offer a layer of separation between them and the dog.

As he moved alongside the beast, a loose strand of chain dangled from its side, and for a half-second the boy grasped at the link and pulled in hoping to steer the dog in the opposite direction, only to feel the burning,hains flensing away at his strength.

As quickly as he'd grasped the white-hotmetal link, he let it slip through his grasp, the dog still flailing, and now moving ever-closer to Layla with each gesture to buck off the chains. Stupid girl. The only other instinct that came to him was a stupid idea, but it was likely no less idiotic than what he’d seen already.

Changing direction, the boy shifted back into a sprint - circling around as Layla was just narrowly pulled out of harm’s way by her new guest, then dropped to the floor, sliding along the marble floor so he could get around the creature’s bucking hindquarters as it kicked into the air, and then leaped onto the outcrop that counted for its neck and shoulders.

Clancy’s legs swung over the dog’s upper back as it rotated again to an upright position, heels digging in hard as the flailing creature shifted position in presumed response to his presence. The boy pressed his form downwards, one arm reaching to coil under the dog’s chin, while the other free hand temporarily grasped onto the stone facade of an ear for grip, uncertain of whether the strength and sheer force being exerted would just outright snap it off.

Whatever the dog’s intentions, whatever its strength, he intended to drag its attention onto him, force it to deal with him, if it could.

Buy them time.

”Meat!” he growled, an ancient, primal energy amplifying his voice, barely audible over the din of barking, snapping, snarling and stone crunching against stone.

Fingers dug into the marble with equal strength, raking through the stone facade like nails to chalkboard. As Aisilin moved to make her play, with the chains falling away and giving him a window to force a movie, Clancy jammed a third of his forearm into the creature’s jaws, again to force its attention on him, only him, the wretched flea atop its back.

”MEEaAt!” he snarled, his voice distorted in its repetition of the word, as the ceiling collapsed atop them both. Along with the dog, the boy disappeared beneath a cascade of darkness, dust and debris.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree [Complete]

Declassified.

Clancy Patrick

obligatory theme

_______________________________________________ Clarence Patrick He & Him | 12 ½ | Irish-American | 4'9 | 84lbs _______________________________________________ Lonely _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents ___________________________________ [+] Lockpicking ⫻ Surprisingly, Clancy has some nimble fingers and can pick through some of the more basic locks out there. Outdoorsman ⫻ Hitchhiking hundreds of miles from home, and being raised by a military man with some hard old-fashioned values has taught Clancy a ways of how to behave in the wilderness. If you left him out in the woods, odds are he wouldn't struggle too much. Clancy's hiked his way far enough to at least have a rough idea of what's safe and sane. Grift ⫻ Clancy has a natural grift for getting a hold of items & getting into places he shouldn't. Lifting stuff off shelves, climbing into locked buildings, slipping under a gap in the fence to get into private property.

Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Clancy carries the frame of a pubescent boy, no older than twelve or thirteen, with a voice that just about veers on the cusp of breaking. His features are smooth, with not even a wisp of body hair apart from that found on his head - an unkempt mass of charcoal fuzz. His eyes possess a dull, ice blue tone, resembling flinty chips of ice - and his skin is a pasty white, more likely to burn than tan. A length of puckered skin runs along the underside of his left arm, from the elbow to halfway up the sleeve; a consequence of a bicycle mishap when he was a little younger. Some time on the road had taught him to dress sensibly; Clancy wore a mottled-green flannel lumberjack hoodie over a khaki-tone undershirt, with navy cargo pants & a laced pair of sneakers. Sometimes with a pair of gloves, if the weather wascold. Among his possessions was a denim knapsack which he was often seen lugging about, containing whatever goods he can snag off store counters when nobody's looking. Since the incident at the strip club, he's been forced to undergo a change of clothes, wearing a green hoodie bearing the likeness of a state sports mascot best described as a poor man's Donald Duck, and a pair of oversized denim pants with sleeves that have been obviously torn at the edges in an amateur attempt to adjust them to the wearer's shorter height. When not containing his inner-self, Clancy's monstrous form hides within his body aa a skeletal shadow, oily black, with sharp and angular features. Fingers and toes become claws. His face a featureless oval that opens to form a jagged maw.

_{Psychology
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MAIN GOAL ⫻ Clancy had sought out one of thw few family connections he had left in Ashley, only to lose her. His upbringing and background has left him missing out on the much needed familial ties and friendships. Now? He wants the person who killed her, and to make sure they pay for what they did. Once Father Wolf is dead, he wants the Apparition Killer in hopes of finally ending the entity which forced this 'life' upon him, and then find a way to end his own perpetual existence once and for all.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Self-reliance is something Clancy has come to depend on as a consequence of his upbringing, even to a fault. Trust is something he struggles with, as his own family situation made it difficult to make connections, and the only person he really connected to - his sister - died after a long battle with a terminal illness. He's still going through the grief of losing a sister and working it out in his own complex way. Authority figures aren't something which carry an automatic respect.

SECRETS ⫻ Clancy isn't just a child, not anymore. He looks like a child, but his mind is far older than what anyone would guess. Some time in the sixties, he was taken, subsumed and spat out to serve as the puppet of a greater predatory entity. His family died out over the years, starting with his brother in Vietnam, his parents in the nineties, and his elderly sister a year ago.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Not something Clancy even considers.

FEARS ⫻ Failing to find the person who murdered Ashley, and by extension failing to find a way to end his own perpetual existence and the entity which made him what he is.

REPUTATION IN OLD COVEN ⫻ He's an unknown to the Coven, having never been around during the fight with the Stygian Snake.

ROLE IN THE BATTLE AGAINST THE STYGIAN SNAKE ⫻ N/A

FLAWS ⫻ Despite his age, in many respects Clancy is still very childlike, approaching the world from a perspective that was twisted and contorted at a key developmental stage in his life. Emotional baggage stemming from a loss of his childhood, family and the tiring perpetual existence of predation also weighs upon him to the extent that he forces himself to project an emotionless facade, but the truth is that he is a 12 year old boy who was subjected to a nightmare beyond human understanding and never had much of an opportunity to grow past it.

_{Backstory
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Clancy's upbringing wasn't anything outstanding, as the youngest of a brood of three. His parents were old fashioned, but not outright abusive - having undergone their own formative trials in Europe during WWII. His father, an Irish-American serviceman, was present at European theater, present at the discovery and liberation of a concentration camp , while his mother was a Polish Jew who lost most of her family to the Holocaust.The family they raised consisted of three children; their eldest son, Frank, their daughter Judith, and their youngest - Clancy.

Self-reliance was a simple fact of life for the time, although Clancy's relationship with his family was healthy, and normal by the standard of the times - the sixties. He got roped into stupid stunts by his brother. His sister looked out for him. He had friends, and did things that most children did, like riding through a suburban forest trail on his bike, and it was on such a normal occasion that he happened to stumble across an entity that far outlived the European settlement of the Americas.

This entity, itself a powerful being in its own right, consumed Clancy in a tortorous, agonising experience, feeding on body and soul. As part of its 'lifecycle', this entity would periodically use the memories and consciousness of those it consumed to dispatch puppet hosts that, while not directly under its control, were driven by an instinct to hunt, kill and feed, which would in turn nourish the host. This was a matter of pragmatism, not kindness; the homonculi it released would return to their communities to predate upon their fellows, and in truth that was the origin for many of the local folklore in the Americas around wendigo and other monstrosities.

Clancy was selected as one such example, essentially spat back out into the wilderness as a hollowed out instance of his former self, with memories and consciousness the only true thing remaining, his maker buried at the base of his mind. He looked like a child - that was the point - but he was in truth a hollow shell, timeless, cold to the touch, and driven by base instincts. At first, he stumbled through the wilderness in a state of disorientation, cold, hungry, alone. Desperately trying to return home, the first thing that he stumbled upon was another family on the trail, and the imperatives branded upon him drove him to tear them apart and feed on their fresh corpses.

Terrified, the thoughts of his family came to him as just meat - he purposely exiled himself into the wilderness, slowly losing himself into a devolved, half-feral state, driven by instinct and automated function. His conscience and other thoughts remained repressed, months stretched into years, the body count extending past the double digits. Hikers, hunters, the odd family - it didn't matter. He tried to die, several times, throwing himself in front of cars, off bridges, under trains, each time coming back with worse consequences for anyone close enough at the time For periods, Clancy found a part of himself, but without any ability to control the urge to feed, the cycle would repeat - and the only thing he knew was that he would not inflict himself upon his own family. H

What truly broke this cycle was a chance event. As another hiker fell victim to his imperatives to feed and nourish the ancient entity which had forced this existence upon him, the sound of music from the cassette player his victim had been carrying. A song he and his brother had listened to together, enough to bring him back from the brink. It formed a window which allowed Clancy to claw his psyche back from the repressed, feral abomination he had become. He sought to try and impose limitations upon himself, with some initial failures.

He could not refuse to eat - that would invoke the imperatives to feed, and he would have no control over that part of his self. He could choose his victims. Not always - sometimes desperation forced his hand, but he tried desperately not to slaughter random people en-masse. He shifted tack to the cities, wandering the streets as a homeless child amidst the crack epidemic. Sometimes it was a drug pusher or a gangbanger. Sometimes it was a homeless person.

Through trial and error, he selected those targets he felt were more acceptable - less likely to be missed. Criminals. Scummy people. Sexual predators became a favourite target, if for nothing else then because it felt as close as he could find to hitting back at the entity that had targeted him. He had rules and a working system. He didn't stay in one place for long. He shifted, town to town, city to city, carefully quieting his appetite for temporary periods.

It was a lonely existence, but he had no other choice - kill a few people, or kill many people. It was the lesser of two evils.

Over time, he tracked his family. He learned that Frank had been drafted and died in Vietnam, just over a year after he disappeared. His parents, grief-stricken, would spend their last days in nursing homes, perishing in the mid and late nineties respectively. His sister - the last real connection he had, would eventually suffer from alzheimers that would rob her of her mind, and later a terminal cancer that would rob her of her body. Though he had forced himself apart from his family, both for fear of traumatising and harming them, he broke the rule just the once for Judith's sake, visiting her on her deathbed.

Several months after Judith's death, he learned that she had surviving family - a granddaughter, his great-niece, Ashley Stone. Clancy did his homework, and broke another rule. He reached out to her, and with slow progress, a trust of sorts formed between them.

As it happened, Ashley herself had experienced a lifetime of horror in her hometown of St. Portwell through the Stygian Snake, and the shared struggle was a bonding point of sorts, although neither explicitly spelled out the step-by-step details of their lives. Clancy knew Ashley had wielded power, and been involved with a group of similar people. Ashley came to realise that Clancy was not the anonymous cousin he had claimed, and that he himself was cursed with some affliction that could not be cured by conventional means.

Clancy, through Ashley, learned of the Apparition Killer. Learned of a possible means to end the entity which forced this malformed existence upon him, finally end the tiresome existence he'd suffered.

Except, Ashley was murdered. Clancy found out the hard way, losing contact until he stumbled upon an obituary about the murder.

Seeking answers, he travelled to St. Portwell, learning of the Father Wolf case. Learning of Ashly's old friend circle being picked apart. His arrival in St. Portwell was not without noise. Within 48 hours of arriving, he'd proven himself to be far different to the expectations of any onlookers, with a trail of blood and broken bodies following him. He was present at the death of the Wolfpack's Club "President", Judas, and subsequently evaded the PRA raid on the Reformed Coven's hideout. A week in, and still, very little is known about him - save that he isn't just a kid. Surving gunshot wounds and a wooden cane through the eye was proof enough of that.

More encounters with Ashley's old coven led to him inserting himself into their ongoing investigation, willing or not. He was present at the church raid, at the decimation of Kari Wilson's house by 8th Street, and later formed some connections of his own, perhaps for the first time in decades.

That also brought him into conflict with St. Portwell's less svaoury denizens. His investigation into the Dollhouse lead, prompted by Judas, put him in conflict with Shayton, and later incurred the wrath of their agent Shaquita - spearing him with a crystalline shard that invoked pain and neutralised his strength. Were it not for the intervention of Luca, he might have been incapacitated.

Clancy's motives remained unchanged, but as he joined the group on a raid, he found himself questioning whether it was just retribution he sought.

His accent is hard to place, save that he comes from same place north of the Ohio River - possibly Chicago or Cincinatti? Maybe even further out west, like Bellevue

_{Abstraction
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ABSTRACTION ⫻ Cannibal



ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ A long time ago, Clancy took a wrong turn on his way home and fell into the awareness of an old, predatory entity of inhuman origin. Strigoi, Jiangshi, Wendigo - different cultures would've named it thus. The entity devoured Clancy, and salvaged his consciousness and memories to create a 'puppet' of sorts - a shell with the memories and appearance of a 12 year old boy, the Cannibal entity sat somewhere.deep within as a core imperative.

If you wanted to be coy, he's perhaps as close to the urban legends as you can get. He doesn't age. He doesn't change. In a somewhat uncanny sense, any damage or change afflicted to his body gradually shifts back into the form he had when he was subsumed in the wilderness - an effect which works to a fault. That scar on his arm would've probably faded if he'd aged out naturally, but instead he's stuck with a personal reminder that he is frozen in time. He doesn't sleep, he doesn't need to breathe, and his skin is cool to the touch. A few half-hearted attempts at dying over several decades have proven that he can't naturally die; falling off a bridge into a frozen river and being hit by a train among the two that stand out, with the only thing to remember either being his own scathing memories of the experience. That, and a distant vestigial view of the Void are generally not good for one's mental health.

Uncharacteristically, while his form is that of a child, his actual capacity is... more so. He can handle heftier burdens than a boy of his age and height should, and has a stamina and dexterity that would put an athlete to shame, able to run, vault and climb into spaces. But the true power, or whatever one would call it - Clancy's core self is a vaguely humanoid shape of skeletal shadow that alternates between bipedal and quadrupedal movement, buried beneath the facade of a child. It's faster, stronger and hungers - projecting a form of around five feet, depending on Clancy's hunger and stress levels. While Clancy in his original body is strong enough that, bare handed and with some effort, he can crack bones to get at the marrow, his exposed-self can uproot trees, bisect mammals and twist an adult human being's head clean off. It can scale trees and buildings, and slip through grating and fences due to its somewhat intangiable nature.

LIMITS ⫻ Clancy has to feed on others. If you wanted to get into the science, or specifically, the Lux behind it - the material isn't so much the physical matter as the essence behind it. Fresh blood and meat, it's all part of a living creature's experience. Who they were, where they want, their memories - it feeds the entity which malformed him. Gutting a rabbit is some base sustenance - like eating a cracker, or stale brea, but people are inherently nourishing - even to the point that for a moment, he retains a brief glimpse into the mindset & warm sense of self of those he consumes. A cooked meal, or a candy bar, on the other hand, is about as nourishing as eating flavoured sand

Additionally, longer he remains in this form, the more Clancy's sense of self-control and identity begins to loosen, and if he doesn't feed, then the point that the smoky shadow projection that uses him as a sheath starts to manifest without regard for autonomous control in an effort to sate his appetite. The hunger doesn't discriminate either - animals, children, decent people and otherwise are all just prey - so the less he manages it, the more likely he is to start indiscriminately lashing out and feeding on others. It's happened before, and at this point, he has a body count to rival the combined figures of some of the world's worst serial killers.

WEAKNESSES ⫻

^{Other
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Clancy knows.

PRA casefile

Anecodtal commentary on Case 74-00184 from an unknown PRA official.



For as long as records last, the PRA and its preceding agencies & organisations have been aware of paranormal activity stretching from the Midwest to the Great Lakes. Among these, a range of perculiar sightings and events have occured, poorly documented due to the vast expanse of wilderness between developed urban sprawl. One such case that has arisen from this region, with sightings said to go back almost fifty years, is that of C74-00184, where victims have been found dead. In each instance, the victim(s) were mauled, dismembered and partially consumed, with injuries comparable to wolf & bear attacks. Although one could easily dismiss these as a consequence of animal attacks in the wilderness, evidence tampering and eye-witness accounts of a humanoid presence close to the scene suggest otherwise.

A key example is that of a party of four hunters, of whom three were found dead in late November 1968. The sole surviving member of the party reported that one of his companions had encountered a child who fled upon being sighted. Although a description of the child has not been consistently captured, the second-hand description suggests they were a caucasian male aged somewhere between nine and thirteen years old, wearing torn and bloody clothing and in a state of apparent distress.

Although the survivor was not present during the attack, having remained at camp while their companions formed a search party, they reported hearing' panicked screams for help and arrived on-scene to find the rest of the party dead, exhibiting injuries consistent with being violently mauled and partially consumed.

Although the sighting of this child was among the earliest sightings, other sightings have been recorded in the following decades, most prevalent between 1968 - 1982, with the last known sighting being recorded by a Wisconsin park ranger in 1987. Although the number of deaths in the wilderness matching this profile have decreased rapidly since this period, the agency has now linked a spate of murders along the Great Lakes region within developed areas of urban sprawl, most of which span from Erie to Duluth.

In each instance, the attack profile remained similar; violent dismemberment, remains partially consumed. While the victim profile seems to make no discernment between age, occupation or race, most if not all victims documented since 1982 have been identified as adult males, with approximately 42% of subjects holding some form of criminal record tied to organised crime, gang-affiliation, or sex crime. Subsequent review of witness accounts, surveillance footage and the implausability of animals in such a location (as per the case of C74-00184-69, where the victim's remains were found on-scene in the bathroom of a Detroit gas station) indicate a clear link to C74-00184.

Strigoi, Jiangshi, Wendigo - different cultures would've named them thus, but the latter of the three is perhaps the best match for this case. Such instances have historically been documented among the Algonquian peoples in the form of oral storytelling and cultural mythology, and it is expected that C74-00184 is a direct manifestation of one such regional myth.

The concern here is - contrary to the theory that victim numbers are decreasing since the 1980s - the subject of C74-00184 may be simply getting better at covering their tracks. For this reason, I would like to make the case for the agency increasing resources towards addressing this issue. We are dealing with a body count that dwarves that of some of North America's worst serial killers and have nothing to show for it, nor any counter to prevent further deaths occuring. In the absence of reliable intelligence, the agency should shift investigation towards urban sprawl and co-operate with local law enforcement wherever possible.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree [Complete]

Luca @FernStone, Sloane @Atrophy, Britney, Adora @Mixtape Ghost N & Everyone Else

---

”... Sorry about that, Clance.”

Britney

Was that sarcasm?

Britney had earned herself another half-assed clap from the boy's grimy palms, payment in kind for the equally half-assed comment, although Clancy avoided giving in to the temptation to suggest where Britney could aim her [i]next[i] spear - he left that unspoken.

”Sure.”

Faint green light spilled from the other Greenwood girl - Kashmira - washing over him with no effect, Clancy chose not to join the brief huddle that formed, instead setting his attention on their supposed destination as Autumn stepped up to lead them on. He kept an eye on Luca and, to a lesser extent, Adora. They weren't in their best shape, and he had considered they were already in bad shape with unfriendly eyes on them, and this was all before they'd reached the vault.

That soon changed at least. Greenwood girl led them out of the tunnel and into something out of an art gallery.

The others probably had their eye on the vault, the overengineered mechanical system that would've looked old by his grandparents' standards, never mind the people in the room. Whatever its workings, it would be difficult to get through.

Probably.

The vault was their problem.

Clancy's gaze, on the other hand, was set on the statue of the dog. The Starving Dog, although to look at it, the model from which its likeness had been sculpted was probably better fed than most dogs he'd met. What it was really made of was a question present in mind. Marble, maybe? He wasn't a rock expert, but he knew that the stuff was heavy, but also easier to crack open than something like granite.

Then again, this was a magical statue that didn't follow logical rules or reason. Sounds familiar, right? The irony wasn't lost there, either.

”I'm the only one who can give Luca or Sloane an opening.”

Adora

Clancy rolled his eyes as they considered their plan of attack. Why wait for Father Wolf when you can just get eaten by his cousin? For Adora's sake, he cut in.

”Nice try, but you weren't there when some of the stupor friends met me at the biker club. They had dogs that size, too.” Or something like that. ”And maybe you hit your head a little too hard back there and forgot which one of us is still walking around without some glowing green bullshit to fix things.”

It wasn't intended to be mean spirited, but being blunt and direct came across as subtly as a lead balloon.

”How much can you handle like this, Clancy?”

Luca

He looked at Luca, shrugged, then glanced downwards at the shadowy abyss yawning through his torso. It was starting to close up, pale flesh gradually edging back over the underlying skeletal shadow, not unlike watercolour spilling across a canvas. It would take a while before it cleared up, and would probably not make it in time before they had their next punch-up.

”If you’re less hurt than Adora then… you’ll be able to hold it back best.”

Luca

The boy realised, perhaps a few seconds slow, that Luca was asking if he was capable of stepping up so Adora wouldn't have to. That she was in far worse a shape than he was or would ever be.

"I'm not hurt." It was easy to forget how bad things looked, sometimes.

Irritated was a better description, present company accounted for. The damage was superficial, an interruption at best. Outside, it meant people asked questions, but in this circle there was no illusion to keep up with. Perhaps in part that was a relief, what made it easy. Not that he wanted to go through the experience of peeling himself off the end of a large wooden tree-trunk again, "But I think you're right, he gestured back to Luca, then nodded over at Adora, "Could say a lot of stuff about you both. You're not okay, and you still have getting out of herle to worry about when this is done."

”If Layla, Alizée, Aislin and Britney can immobilize the statue… I could also destroy it. It’ll erode like any other stone I bet. Then we won’t have to deal with it on the way back out. Unless we’re hoping for a secret passage inside the vault, or a perfectly timed teleporter?”

Luca

"How long would it take you to get through stone?" It was a rhetorical question, mostly.

Too long, too much risk. Clancy shook his head, giving voice to his feelings on the matter, "Not worth it."

When the biker had set the deer-goat-dog things on them at the club, he'd slowed them down, hurt at least one of them bad enough it didn't get up, They weren't too different in size to the statue either, either, but they had still been living things, made of meat, blood, bone.

Could he stop it? Of all of them, he probably had some of the best chances, and had nothing to lose. Could he break it? 'Maybe' was his best answer.

[b]"Here's a better idea. Sloane was right about trying to hold it down, immobilise it. While that's happening, I'll try and hold it, hit it, break pieces off if I can. I don't know if it's smart enough to know it can't hurt me. Doesn't feel like it's really ‘alive’ like that, but I'll keep it busy.”[b]

Like a big cat sizing up prey, the boy pivoted a wide berth around the stone canine, easily dwarved by its size, a puppy by comparison. The only thing it was missing was a coat of red paint Funny, he considered, without betraying a sense of humour to the others.

Thinking back to Sloane's suggestion, he added onto the strategy. ”Adora and Luca should save it for the way back unless they don't have a choice. You'll just get in my way.” A half truth, equally blunt as before.

”l can still do as much damage as I can. If you've got anything for me, like a stick to play fetch, now's your chance. Otherwise, do what you need to open the vault and slow Clifford here down. Get what you need and run. If it doesn't stay down, I'll catch up when you're too far to be outrun.”

Then, after another seconds pause, he shot a comment in someone's general direction, ”Try not hitting me this time."

Clancy, for his part, was as ready as one could be.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree [Complete]

King Corpse, Aislin@Estylwen, Luca @FernStone & Everyone

---

For all its power, the corpse-king was still just that. A corpse. Dead, rotting meat and old bones.

Useless, the instinct at the base of Clancy's consciousness reminded him. There was no sustenance to find here, only a problem to be dealt with.

While it appeared to remain unaware of him, the boy had made to maul the towering creature, small hands grasping and tearing at exposed bone and the residual tissues contained around it. He meant to bisect the royal skeleton, one hand plunged elbow deep in an effort to grasp at what passed for backbone. Fingers grazed against vertebrae, then-

Snap.

The boy's limbs seemed to drop, dangling limp at one side as the two of them were speared through by a great wooden length, the skeleton through its ribcage and the boy from waist to sternum. Clancy's gaze shot downwards, trying to make the scale of it.

It looked bad, horrifying even. The stake as thick as a tree tunk, more as like to be just as strong. Thick enough that it seemed less the case it had speared through him, than he'd been smeared around it, like a human donut.

The only times he could recall things looking worse than this were oout on the train tracks, a long time ago. He could only guesd how it looked to the others, even if he felt nothing of it save for the presence of something that didn't belong there.

The corpse-king wasn't down yet either; impaled through the ribcage, and pinned to the wall a few feet abead of his own position, uust narrowly out of his reach, Clancy could see the glow forming in its twitching, bony digits as it invoked another surge of elemental wrath, fire and storm bound into one Although he didn't have enough room to twist around, or even glance backwards, the boy could hear the panicked voices, urgent shouting.

Getting free was a good idea, except he was suspended midair, far enough of the ground that his feet were dangling in the air, no floor or wall to kick off, and the corpse-king still a few inches too far away for him to properly grapple with or pull loose. One hand clutched at the wooden length drigen through him, palm barely wide enough to curl around a fraction of its circumference, and dug in.

Definitely a tree trunk.

Legs swung out, fingers dug into the wood, cracks and fissures forming where they bedded in, and then, before he or the corpse-king had a chance to lash out at the other, darkness enshrouded the both of them as the roof came crashing down, a shroud of dust and detritus swallowed up half of the tunnel with them.

---

=-”...Let's get outta here. I dont think it's dead.”

Aislin

Aislin's relief appeared premature when another hand burst through the mound of debris. Smaller, paler than the last, it appeared to reach backwards, pulling free a looser section of the rubble, exposing the still-impaled Clancy, skewered upon the visible length of wood.

Perhaps by some stroke of luck, the debris wall had given him something to kick off. Knees brought as high as they could, he kicked off against the debris wall while fingers dug into the wood, pushing himself backwards until he slid off the blunted end of the stake, landing backwards on his rear with both palms splayed across the ground.

When the boy stood, the foot-wide tear in his abdominal cavity was near-imppssible to miss, ligHt dimly spilling through the great puncture for a few seconds before a shadowy, skeltal layer filled in the space, underlying the pale facade of flesh that had been displaced. Human donut wasn't too far from the truth, complete with a coating of grey-brown dust that smeared his charred and tattered clothes. The only part of him that seemed to retain any dustinct colour was the crooked, yellow sneer of the torn cartoon mask, now smeared with blood.

”Great work.” Clancy clapped both palms together with a sarcastic cheer, nodding downwards at the shadowy hole in his torso, ”Thanks."

Although his expression betrayed nothing of his sort, his gaze searched for the others out of concern for their potential losses. Adora and Luca were definitely on rough shape, but they were alive at least, judging by the latter's suggestion they move forward, ”Yeah, before I run out of stuff that fits."

Then, he shot a look at Britney and the Greenwood girl, "Unless you think the dog can fetch me another shirt.” His voice was bristling, laced with venom, but lacking most of the guttural rumble that had characterised his other imhuman backslides into instinct.

For now, anyway.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree [Complete]

@Estylwen edited my post slightly to reflect that Clancy is also going to get Van Helsing'd by Britney's stake