[Having solved the puzzle of the Stonecutter's room, thanks to the brilliance and insight of... well, Christian... the group proceeds down through the newly opened door in the wall and down a hallway!] [As they do, they begin to hear music playing. An odd mix of orchestral and what sounds like metal guitars. No organs, though.] [It gets louder as the group moves down the hallway; obviously, you're getting closer as you reach a T-intersection, branching out left and right.] [Redcoat, looking a bit more anxious than you're used to seeing her (read: at all anxious), suggests that she scout out left while the rest of you go right, since she moves fairly fast and can deal with any traps/locked doors/etc.] [Well, for a value of suggests equal to 'states hurridly as she heads off that way.'] [The rest of you, meanwhile, are left... to head right.] [Session Start] * Horus watches her go, then mentally shrugs and heads right, lighting the way. Dimly. * Abby glances off to the left before floating along with Horus. "You've got to admit, if you're gonna mock masonry, doing it with their own song is pretty ingenous." It's hardly 'their own song'. * Christian heads down as well. "I still think puzzle rooms are fuckin' stupid." [After a minute or so, you get a comm from Redcoat, saying that she's found what looks like an alternate entrance leading back into the sewers, along with what looks like a sizible blood trail leading further in, and that she's gonna search further.] * Abby frowns and says, "More blood than we've got. How the hell?" Might be the others of the group...dammit, this whole thing is all *kinds* of stink. And I don't mean the sewers. * Horus comms back, "Okay, Red, but if you need back up don't fuckin' hesitate." [After walking for another minute or two, you round a corner and see... light. Not much, but some, coming from what looks like a drainage grate in the ceiling of the hallway about forty yards down. The music sure sounds like it's coming from above there.] * Horus cuts her own light and hovers slightly above the ground now, floating over to the grate. [The music's definitely coming from there. Through the grate, you can see a room, well lit by what appears to be torchlight. Ornate, with lots of marble and columns, but you're limited in what you can see through the grate.] * Abby floats closer as well, looking up at the grate. Probably to see if it can be opened without breaking. [Upon close inspection, it appears as if the grate is anchored pretty solidly in the floor. Nothing that couldn't be corrected with sufficient force, but...] * Horus comms quietly to Redcoat, "Think we found something. Grate down the hallway to the right," and she gives an approximate distance. * Jacqueline carefully plucks another feather from her headdress, hands it over to Horus and says simply, "Camera." Beat. "If you'd /like/ to get a look up there, anyway." [Redcoat responds that she's found something too, and to pass along details when you have them.] * Horus takes it and nods, then floats up to the grate and, well, uses the camera... feather... however that works. [More specifically, she's 'found' a set of stairs leading up. At the end of a long hallway. A long hallway which is almost assuredly heavily trapped. She's working on disabling.] [Horus sticks the camera up through the grate, and a holographic image is projected from Jacky's comm card...] * Jacqueline 's goggles are taking care of actually panning the camera's view to something useful, of course. [The room is appropriately Masonic and ornate, with ornate torch holders and huge columns and beautiful statues and such. In the middle of the vaguely rectangular room is a large cage with about a dozen costumed men and women in it, looking rather scared and none too thrilled to be there.] [And rightly so. Standing nearby and jamming on a guitar with a hockey stick as a neck is Badgerforce, in his shirtless, long-haired 'glory'. Every riff of his guitar is accompanied by huge sparks of electricity.] [Standing nearby is another man, thickly built and bearded in a dark brown three-piece tuxedo with tails. He appears to be conducting a series of floating orchestral instruments, which along with Badgerforce, are producing the music.] [All the way on the other end of the room, past some sort of shimmering energy sphere that covers a good chunk of the room to the wall, is... an organ. Made of organs. It's as huge as any church organ you've ever seen, made from intestines and arteries and other body parts strung together. It should not be, in more ways than one, but somehow it is.] [And it works too, as suddenly a remarkably pure, beautiful organ sound is added to the music.] * Jacqueline frowns just a touch as she murmurs, "There are /women/ lashed to that thing." * Horus makes a vague noise of disgust, then hits the comms, "They're here. We're going in." She looks down at Christian and points up, dropping down to the ground. * Christian nods slightly and scrunches up his fist. "No need to be subtle, yeah?" * Abby grimaces and nods, saying lowly, "Something's.. going on at the top of the organ." [Redcoat, who's getting the video through her comm, calls for you to wait a sec.] * Christian stares at Redcoat for a moment but waits for what she apparently has to say. He's visibly edgy though. [Based on the layout, she's pretty sure her path leads into the area near the organ that's surrounded by that energy sphere. But the disarming mechanism for the hallway she's in would take too long to deal with, so she's going to have to deal with the traps the old fashioned way.] [She vigorously suggests that you guys get up there and buy here a couple of minutes to get in there and either free the women, take out the Organist, or both.] * Christian nods and checks to make sure everyone's ready. * Christian takes a quick glance, noting the lack of objections and then grins slightly as he draws back his arm, sheathing it in kinetic energy and then flying towards the grate. He swings to smash it in and then continues his ascent to leap into the room proper. [Christian leaps into the room in a shower of granite and marble tile! All the music abruptly stops, and the three villains (as well as the caged folks) turn towards the kinetic explosion.] [Meanwhile, the grate, which has been sent flying across the room, bounces off the sphere of energy surrounding the organ.] * Abby flies in after him and glares at the musicians three, staff held tightly in her hand. "How dare you twist music like this, you... monsterous, sickening villians!" * Jacqueline drapes an arm over Horus' shoulder, meanwhile; she looks up at the grate, then at Horus, expectant. Yeah. Show's over, fucktards. No encores neither. * Horus puts her own arm around Jackie's waist, and they fly up together. * Horus drops her off on the ground, once they're high enough. Her glow is still unusually dim, and she looks around, scowling. [The Organist looks over the lot of you, then turns back to his organ and resumes playing. The women in the organ writhe. "Deal with them, gentlemen? I've waited a very long time to play on an instrument this... pure."] * Jacqueline takes a moment to transfer another feather - non-explosive, non-sensory, just bright and glowing - from her headdress to behind Horus' ear, once they've touched down, and afterwards she retrieves her gun from its hiding place against the small of her back. ["You won't interfere!" screams Badgerforce, lightly strumming on his guitar and surrounding himself once again with sparks, a slight chill flowing through the wind. "All of these bastards..." He gestures back to the folks in the cage. "... sabotaged my American tour! I lost my music because of them! So when we're done here, I'm gonna make them beg me to let Devourak at them!"] * Horus floats backwards, landing lightly on the ground behind everyone else. * Christian tilts his head to the side slightly. "You mean it wasn't just because you fuckin' suck?" * Abby grimaces, then replies, "How selfish and cowardly can you be!" ["And with the money I'm being paid... I'll be a star again!" He glares at Christian. "I was the lead singer and guitarist of Canada's greatest metal band! My opus to The Great One is unmatched!"] Well, ya sure got the lungs for it. All ya do is talk. ["The cold of the tundra flows through my veins! The heart of the grizzly bear beats in my chest!"] ["My very bones are made... OF THE HARDEST METAL KNOWN TO MAN!" *GUITARRIFF*] 'Canada'. 'Metal band'. I /hope/ you at least had the decency to murder the rest of your band in some shocking and highly publicized fashion. * Horus looks to the captives, trying to figure out how to best free them. * Christian grins and pounds one hand into the other. "I think it's about time that metal met fist. Whatcha think?" [Badgerforce seems like he's about to start up again when Devourak speaks up, calm and smooth and with a thick Czech accent. "Now now. We can hardly start brawling until we've been properly introduced, can we? We are not barbarians."] ["In my time, I have been known as the Plague of Prague. The Butcher of Bucharest. The Maimer of Minsk. But you may call me by my true name... Anterior Devourak."] [There's an unsettling crunching sound, like bones breaking, and Devourak's jaw dislocates, his mouth opening wider... and wider... and wider, until it hangs practically down to his knees, filled with rows of finger-length teeth. "Now we can begin."] [The various orchestral instruments begin to float around him once more.] * Christian ignores the progression of instruments and crouches down for a moment before going to test the hardest metal known to man. He slams into Badgerforce, wrapping his arm around his waist and taking off at full speed towards the other side of the room. * Christian smashes his body through a couple of the support pillars and enduring the arcing electricity, to land him on the other side of the room, smashing him full speed against the forcefield. [Badgerforce keeps playing as Christian takes him for a ride, pumping Christian full of electricity before Christian slams him into the forcefield. Christian too tough to be much affected by the cold... though the impact seems to have done less harm to Badgerforce than one would've thought.] * Horus spreads her wings and takes to the air once more, flapping up and backwards as a bow and arrow, both made of pure light, form in her hands. She aims for Devourak and fires, hitting dead on in a brilliant explosion. [The light chars Devourak's side, as he apparently wasn't quite expecting that. "Ah, the bright lights... how I've missed them."] [Meanwhile, Badgerforce drags himself to his feet and begins thrashing on his guitar, a large nimbus of energy gathering around the hockey stick neck. He swings the guitar like a hockey stick and send the nimbus flying at Christian! "SLAPSHOT OF THE GREAT ONE!"] [Meanwhile, Devourak rushes at Jacky and tries to bite her! And a large orchestral drum set goes flying towards Horus!] * Christian dodges behind a pillar quickly, letting the electrical nimbus slamming hard against the stonework instead of him. * Horus does the best she can to avoid the drum set, but she's noticeably slower than normal, and it slams into her shoulder and chest as her aura flares to life. She lets out a little shout of pain and surprise. * Jacqueline is bitten right on the arm, eliciting a scream; that is the bad news. The /good/ news is that it's her gun arm, and it's sort of inside of Devourak's mouth, now. And jittering wildly with barely contained energy. And possibly creating a very subtle glow visible through his skin, at least before it's all discharged. [Devourak, ignoring a rather sage piece of advice he once got from Tesla to never eat an energy field bigger than his head, gets blasted the fuck across the room, bouncing off a pillar and coming to rest near the cage, smoke pouring from his mouth as he gets to his feet.] * Abby glares at the Organist, and then says, "Your shields will not protect you from the justice you so richly deserve! Air spirits, arise and strike at he who fouls you with his breath!" The air inside of the forcefield actually coalesces slightly, and then can be seen blowing hard against the organs, slicing them and the man playing them while avoiding the captive women. [The winds tear at Organist, who barely manages to keep from being knocked from his stool. The organ, however, is unharmed, as the winds seems to be drawn into one of the women, momentarily raising the volume of the organ.] [Organist cackles. "Attacking me with air! How droll! Especially now that I've realized what I'd always been missing! Two of your 'heroes', controlling the air flowing through the pipes and the blood to keep the organs fresh!"] * Christian hehs at the damage reduction and then dashes out behind the pillar, zooming right up towards Badgerforce. "Strongest metal known to man, huh? Meet the sharpest sound known in the fuckin' Bronx." His arm whistles and crashes past his guitar to smash right towards his jaw. He's taking more of the electricity and cold, but he's insane so what does he care? * Abby replies with cold, righteous anger, "I'm not surprised you torture for your desires, but music is supposed to approach divinity, not this abomination." * Horus rubs at her shoulder, where the drum set hit. "If you like bright lights, you're gonna fuckin' love this," she says as she slowly floats higher, spreading her wings. Sunlight bursts down from the ceiling - maybe through the ceiling? - filling the room and giving the group confidence. [Badgerforce isn't so good at this dodging thing, apparently underestimating Christian's pain tolerance as Christian bounces him face-first off the force field again. Christian, however, is shocked and chilled in the effort.] [Badgerforce slaps launches another large nimbus of energy at Christian with his guitar!] [Devourak, meanwhile, leaps at Abby to try to chomp at her as a piano goes flying towards Jacky!] * Christian tries to duck the nimbus but is just a hair too slow. He looks a little bit more seriously at Badgerforce as he scowls a bit. "Now ya done it, punk." * Abby tries to put her staff in the way of the teeth, but can't quite do it as they tear at her skin. She grits her teeth as she glares down at it. * Jacqueline , despite her bleeding, is pretty well capable of leaping onto the incoming piano, running across its top and pulling the trigger of her gun; the stream of photons and too-small-to-see reflective surfaces travel according to her goggle-given coordinates, forming oddly twisting beams that course towards Devourak. [Devourak, busy trying to eat Abby, gets blasted in the back with several converging beams of energy, knocking him stumbling away from Abby.] [Organist, meanwhile, regains himself and resumes playing the organ. "Now, my dear wind princess, banish this pretender's servant!" And the air twists in and around the air kami, disrupting its form.] * Jacqueline is then caught between the piano and a pillar, because her last name isn't 'Chan', unfortunately. * Abby 's kami maintains its form mostly, and she looks back to him. "Your wind princess? She does not belong to you!" She windmill swings her staff with one hand to smash the wolf in the face. "And keep your teeth out of my business." * Abby 's kami doesn't let up in its windy assault, either, tearing at the Organist and still trying to cut at the organ, its own noises getting slightly louder, more... keening. [Abby gets all up in Devourak's business with a staff to the rather-spacious kisser, sending him reeling back. At the same time, more high winds tear at Organist, who continues to play through the pain.] [As he does, the two women lashed into the organ... the 'air hero' and the 'blood hero'... begin to look pale.] [Session End]