chapter five ♔ it'll be a day like this one when the sky falls down

[eldritchweaver]

the blues - switchfoot

WHO || The Knights
WHAT || Failboat returns from the disaster in LA as the Knighthood goes on lockdown
WHERE || The castle, London
WHEN || Directly after this, Fall 2017
HOW || Actionspam

Hasmed's announcement does not brook any rebuttal: all Knights are recalled to the Castle, where they must remain until the Section Heads and Jack Chessing have spoken about the events in Los Angeles that have left the Knighthood without their usual leader.  

The entire Los Angeles area is now covered with a dark miasma that has interfered with any signals that might be sent out from phones, etc., leaving the whole world wondering what exactly is happening down there.  Final images showed horrendous monsters, a panic of citizens, looting and violence from humans and Shadowkind alike.  

Hasmed has warned of extra magical wards on the castle, and anyone arriving will immediately take notice of one very prominent one: above the entire roof of the excessively large building hovers a black and red sigil in the air, a pentagram in a circle surrounded by runes or words in an unknown language, stretching for miles.  

[ This is the social log for post-LA lockdown.  Failboat must complete the top log before being allowed to tag outside of it. ]

Comments

[druidisms]

[ gus has collected all the cleric junk, all the best of it, and he's waiting by felicity's side, idly smoothing her hair back. ] Let's do it, then.

[bluffcheck]

[Thoster isn't going anywhere, but he steps back to give them space to work at least. He's never been much for the gods, but he's praying to anyone that can hear that they bring her back.]

[layonhands]

[ risa nods, and moves to begin quietly praying over her, anointing her with the holy water and diamond dust. it's a long, solemn process, and she seems extra tense after how things fell out with myri.

finally, she intones the closing words: ]

Shine forth thy light
Drive back the darkness

Bring life where there was death
Bring growth where all was barren
Bring peace where there was strife
Bring warmth where clawed the fingers of ice
Bring mercy where there was none
Bring knowledge where there was ignorance
Bring comfort where there was fear

Let the sun rise!
Let the shadows flee!

Both in the world...
and in the minds of men

[ her hands still above felicity's head, as they hold bated breaths waiting for a response.

but there is none, and her eyes remain shut tight. ] ... I... I'm so sorry.

[druidisms]

[ gus leaves felicity's side to touch risa on the shoulder. ]

This isn't your failure.

[ that's all the comfort he manages to offer before scooping up his own bowl of supplies.

the anointing happens in much the same manner except instead of holy water and diamond dust, he touches her with sweet smelling oils mixed with a strange, viscous substance. the marks he leaves on her are druidic in nature, resembling runes, and as he circles around her -- avoiding thoster and risa, but always touching some part of her -- his own prayer begins in a language completely foreign to all of them. the majority of gus' spells are cast in a spanglish version of druidic and korean, but now it's wholly druidic and although the druids of history are described as irish, there's very little gaelic about the long consonants and short vowels of the secret language.

the casting itself takes ten minutes of the incantation, gus summoning the power of nature itself to heal the woman that became his surrogate sister so long ago. no matter how it happens. if felicity's soul wants to come back, gus is going to try to give her that chance.

and if she doesn't. she doesn't. ]

[layonhands]

[ as gus completes his ritual, a visible green light ripples across felicity's body and risa's eyes widen a bit as she watches, holding her breath in anticipation of the reaction.

gus, connected to that magic, feels something - some kind of force that feels like felicity - strengthen with that tide, and then...

it doesn't vanish. but it leaves. it seems to shoot away like a slingshot. ]

Did... did it work?

[druidisms]

...I don't know, [ gus admits, looking at the body of his fallen sister. truth be told he's never performed a reincarnation before. naturally he left it to crunch time. ]

Her spirit isn't gone, not really, it's just not.. here. Right now.

[ her frowns. ] I think it worked. We just have to wait for her to find her way back.

[layonhands]

Way back? You mean, she...

[druidisms]

It's not a resurrection, I'm not capable of that. She's been reincarnated. [ into... some other body. ]

[layonhands]

Reincarnated? What does that... mean, exactly?

[druidisms]

Her soul goes into a new body. [ he literally copy/pasted her somewhere ] I'd always thought it would be brand new but.

[bluffcheck]

[Thoster steps forward.]

We have to find her. There's no telling where she is or if she's safe. We have to... We...

[He can't finish the thought, fighting back tears.]

[layonhands]

Do you have any way to... to track her?

[druidisms]

I can scry for her, she's still Felicity. [ but like she might be a newborn baby? ] We should be able to, barring being in another anti-scrying field.

[bluffcheck]

Whatever it takes. We need to find her. [Not that he can really help. He doesn't do that kind of magic.]

[layonhands]

Then let's try it. What do we need?

[druidisms]

A stream. There's one in the woods.

[ and off gus goes to find the stream he'd used to scry for her before they'd all came back to the castle. ]

[bluffcheck]

[Thoster doesn't ask permission to go with him. He just quietly follows behind. He's too nervous and needs to be there the moment anything new is learned. Sorry Gus. You have a shadow for now.]

[klep]

[And as they're walking, there'll be a ring ring ring Gus phone.]

[druidisms]

[ literally the only person he can imagine would call him right now is malina so he picks up without looking. ]

Kinda busy right now.

[klep]

Gus?

[The voice isn't one he'll recognize, unfortunately. Downsides of having a new body. But the panic might be something that gets through to him, and she can only hope he's going to believe her as she speaks rather than assuming she's fucking with him, but the relief at having something actually familiar, even if it's just over the phone, has tears slipping down her cheeks.]

It's Felicity. I know ... I know it doesn't sound like me, but something happened on my mission and I don't know ...

[Okay, now it may be more tears than words, she's not having a good day.]

[druidisms]

Felicity, [ he says it with a relieved sigh. reaching out to clap thoster on the shoulder. of course she isn't going to sound like her, she's in a different body but it sounds like a female one so that's one less thing to worry about. ]

I know. Listen kiddo, something really bad happened on your mission and you didn't make it out. [ no use sugar coating it. ] Your resurrection didn't work so I reincarnated you. I know this is a lot but I'm going to need you to accept that for the time being, you can freak out about it later.

This is you, this is your body. Now where are you so we can get you.

[bluffcheck]

[Thoster's mouth falls open at the mention of her name. He reaches a hand over to grip the one Gus places on his shoulder. He doesn't want to interrupt but gods he wants to talk to her.]

[klep]

[You didn't make it out.

The words hit her like each of Buffy's blows did earlier, hard and fast without warning, but she doesn't really have enough time to process that before the next bits of information hit her.

This is your body.

The problem is, this isn't her body. This is the body of a girl named Julia who has a family and a life far away from the Knighthood. How was she going to explain this to any of them? Did she have the right to just steal their daughter, their sister away from them?

Does it really matter, since the damage was already done?

Somehow, she manages not to have a complete breakdown at all of that hitting her at once (will save nat 20), through sheer force of needing to get out of here and get home, to find Vi and make sure that the rest of the group was okay. She glances up, looking at the rest of the room to see if she can try and find the name of the hospital on somewhere she can see it (spot 20 total).]

I'm ... I'm in a hospital. The ... the body I'm in was in an accident. I'm not sure where, just ... give me a minute.

[behindcloseddoors]

[ she sees a brochure on the end table, on which is the name "Central Middlesex Hospital" ]

[klep]

Central Middlesex Hospital.

[And provided she can't reach the brochure from where she's sitting, she's going to follow up with:]

But whether that's Middlesex, England or Middlesex, New Jersey, I wouldn't be able to tell you.

[There's probably only one of those hospitals, right? She hadn't spent much time in Jersey, but she's pretty sure that wasn't one of the big hospitals.]