WHEN: 1943 Sept 25th, evening
WHERE: Mercer House
WHO: Calliope Hunter, Alfonse Bouchet, some resident spirits
--
[17:10] ᴄᴀᴇʟ (helio5igma): The house stood like an abandoned sea shell, empty and frail but inexpicably still present. There was no movement, no noise - at least not to human senses. Rotten wood and creaking windowpanes hid a swell of necromatic energy, heavy and cloying and spilling into the yard beyond the house's solid walls. If one paid enough attention faces could be seen in the windows, just drifting in and out of view, always darting away to hide when looked at. If one listened, really listened - they might swear they heard whispers.
A stone wall had been erected between the former boarding house, now House of Esher, and the smaller front yard of the Mercer House. Its wrought-iron fence laid out in the grass in a collapsed wreck, stone steps mostly sunken into the grass. The door, framed by loosely boarded windows, no longer existed - giving people a clear glimpse into the stairwell and the lower level.
[17:23] Alfonse "Fonz" Bouchet: approached the building with his body held low, nose sniffing, ears twitching, eyes darting back and forth and to and fro and over and under, everything about him one big line of tension. Even his hair seemed to bristle. "This is it for sure," he whispered to Calliope, eyes scanning the walls. "We should circumnavigate the perimeter and look for exits before we go in..." He stepped over the fallen iron gate carefully, eyeing the boarded up windows and the door as he naturally tried to take point. By the open doorway, he leaned over to peek in carefully, not getting too close. "... The thing's on the second floor, it's just sittin' there like a big glowy ball of boring. Not suckin' anything in, not pushing anything out. Necromancy and hermetic magic everywhere, though, soaking through the walls practically," he frowned, eyeing the walls with a deepening frown as he tried to determine whether or not he could, or should, just bust through like the cool-aid man.
[17:23] Calliope had spent not so long ago on the other side of that stone wall to escape the ghostly figures that Esher's shared sight had allowed her to see briefly, but now she's hopping right on over it, crouching down on the edge to peer up at the house. "So did you bring any holy water? What do you even need to fight the dead? I brought silver." Her hands are empty and her dress is sheer, so it's obvious there is not only no silver, there is no place to hide silver. "Also front door or climb up to the roof? Break in and spook the spooks?" She winces as she spies one ghost in a window. "You can still surprise someone even if they're staring right at you, right?"
[17:26] ᴄᴀᴇʟ (helio5igma): There are of course many ghosties. But they by and large seem to avoid the duo as they make their plans for assaulting the house. The house ITSELF does not seem particularly fond of the idea, giving a few direct and audible creaks. One rather loud THUMP is audible to them both from the first floor along with the scrape of nails on wood. That boy in the window though - he simply looks at them and shakes his head.
[17:38] Alfonse "Fonz" Bouchet: snorted as he looked over his shoulder at her, standing up and puffing up his chest. Not doing that was always the hardest part of stealth missions for him. "Course I got silver! And salt, and pocket sand... I didn't get holy water cuz I'm allergic I think... I guess all we really gotta do is not die," he frowned, squinting at the walls. "I wanna see what kind magic is protecting this place to make a decision like that. Normally, I'd ask Lucas to send a bird in, or Corbet to look at the magic and say what's what... but they ain't here. I could find like a squirrel or somethin and chuck it in?" he suggested. At her question, he grinned, huffing. "Sure ya can! Ya just gotta act like an idiot who has no idea what they're doing. Surprises 'em every time. Even if they already think that's what you're like."
Having missed the ghost in the window, he did not miss the thump on the first floor. He looked inside carefully, squinting, frowning. "Okay, maybe we could just jump straight up," he suggested. "I could carry you."
[17:43] Calliope had clearly 'brought' the silver sword that Fonz has on his back, clearly this is what she references. "Great! Sounds like you brought everything but the sink. Yea, considering how rickety this place is, I don't even need to turn the walls into matchsticks to break through, we can just WALK out of any wall, does that count as an exit?" When she hears banging coming from down below, echoing out from the first floor, she points downwards. "As long as we don't go down there... Which means that's where everything important is, isn't it?" She looks back up to that little ghost boy and makes a face. She pulls her massive ears out to the side, crosses her eyes and sticks out her tongue before grinning wildly while waiting to see if he does anything back. "You'll carry little old me? Jump all the way to the roof? Should I call you Prince instead of Your Highness?" She sways from side to side, visibly pleased with the idea.
[17:46] ᴄᴀᴇʟ (helio5igma): The child in the window flinched as another bang and scrape sounded off from the floor below. The wood of that door, surely, was splintering with how fiercely it was being struck from the other side. His stare was diverted to the bottom floor rather than at the pair until something alerted him to Calli's fierce face-making. That - well it made him giggle and grin and lol a big purple bloated, discolored tongue out of his mouth at her, pulling his lips back across awful teeth and chapped lips. From above them, something about the size of a foot tumbled from an overhead window toward Calli's head. ( Roll a suitable dodgey thing! )
[17:54] Alfonse "Fonz" Bouchet: squinted at the door. "Kinda wanna punch it through the door but it might have spikes or be made of acid or - OH SHIT," Fonz called as he saw the foot-sized thing coming towards Calli, running to move closer to her, though he did not intervene with either the foot-sized object or Calli herself yet.
[17:59] "To avoid the spikes and acid, let's go in the kid's window! Say hi!" She's so busy watching the horrible bloated purple tongue, with an expression of pure delight on her face, that she nearly misses the projectile, instinctively pulling back, the vines which make up her form not bothering to remain in a humanoid shape in its expediency to move out of the way.
[18:03] ᴄᴀᴇʟ (helio5igma): The foot-sized thing was indeed a foot! Only made of wood and polished - or was once polished. It had been sealed and smooth but was worn away with time, covered in dust and clinging cobwebs and slightly moldy. It was solid, though... on the inside. Sturdier and heavier than wood ought to be on its own. The boy was leaning through the window now, peering down at them and watching almost in concern. He seemed to have heard them speaking about coming up to his window... and in response he disappeared from it, footsteps sounding off toward the staircase.
[18:05] Alfonse "Fonz" Bouchet: frowned as he heard the foot impact the earth, squinting at it. "Well, that hit harder than something like that shoulda, right?" he clicked his tongue, got a stick from the ground, poked at the foot experimentally. "... Too heavy for its size, too solid on the inside... Maybe it's just like a mannequin? If the walls are like this, we won't be able to bust through," he said, going to touch the foot with the back of left ring finger to see if it would do any damage to his skin (provided that nothing bad happened to the stick;) if not, he'd pick it up, examine it. "... Fuckin' love the stretch armstrong, Luffy dodge, though," he grinned at Calli.
[18:15] Calliope looks up the foot that had nearly bonked her, but Fonz beats her to grabbing it up. Instead she snuffles and sneezes before yelling at the house. "You want to play fetch? You're supposed to throw it past the dog, not AT this dog!" A full body shake follows as her form pulls back together. "Are they resistant to being transmuted into toilet paper... Oh! Let's try!" While he plays with the foot, she moves to the house, a hand going to rest on a a loose wooden board. Though her expression is sharp and playful. "Yea? Just wait until you see what else it's good for. Quick Q, how bendy are you?"
[18:21] ᴄᴀᴇʟ (helio5igma): except just a bit warmer. There was no toxin, no spikes... but if his touch lingered long enough it did seem to twitch - as if it were only pretending to be still and having a hard time doing so with prolonged contact. And especially when Calli mentioned toilet paper. THAT made it leap out of Fonz's head, or at least try to. It wriggled and thrashed and wiggled its toes obscenely at Fonz just as that wooden board and the one above it sought to snap shut on Calli's fingers like a vice. Then of course, there's a sickly crack and pop of wood and the snap of something like bone and the foot snaps open and inverts, showing white porous solidness on the inside - actual foot bone, perhaps? Moments before it disassembles into an unspooling roll of toilet paper.
[18:29] Alfonse "Fonz" Bouchet: sniffed the foot hard, then made a face as he saw it beginning to twitch, stroking the sole of it experimentally. "I guess? I'm, like, single-jointed. But I can lick the back of my own knee and stuff," he said, as if this were a common measurement of flexibility. As the foot began wiggling wildly, however, he cursed, trying to wrestle it back into submission - until it fell apart into sheets of paper. "Shit!!!" he said, looking back at her. "Did you do the thing?" He turned around just in time to see the boards snap, but not in time to move.
[18:37] Calliope watches the foot unravel into toilet paper and laughs as the board snaps closed around her hand. The pain doesn't matter, when this is too funny. "Let's see if it works again! Hey house, question, do you want to hold on to me when it takes touching for me to turn wood into paper? When instead of you let go, we both get to watch Too Cool for School here bend over to crawl in your windows?" She stage whispers as the house crushes her hand, keeping her trapped for the moment. "He can LICK the back of his KNEE, did you hear that? Tell me you don't want to see that?"
[18:40] ᴄᴀᴇʟ (helio5igma): The house, still clamped around Calli's hand like an indignant alligator, went still. It did not creak nor did it move - though it did not exert the force required to crush and sever the digits it held in its grip. Calli likely got the impression it could, if it wanted to shift its weight a bit. It was a solid building after all - moreso than its decrepit exterior showed. So it wasn't going on crushing her but not quite desiring to let it go. In the pauses between their conversation the sounds of grunting and creaking rope could be still be heard from within, then quite suddenly there was a great crash of splintering wood from somewhere in the direction of the kitchen.
[18:47] Alfonse "Fonz" Bouchet: sighed, drawing his sword as he eyed the way the house restrained Calli's arm in its jaws like a well-trained hound. "Okay, door's open, a hermit seal broke, somethin' nasty probably comin for us now. HEY, HOUSE, YOU SEEM TO LIKE, JUST WANNA WARN US RIGHT NOW? DO YOU WANNA TALK OR SOMETHING?" he shouted up at it. "LET GO MAYBE?" As if it had not heard them clearly without the shouting. "Hey, you want me to like, smash it, or pull you?" he asked Calli, backing up as he held his sword in front of him in a narrow but solid stance, facing the doorway through which he could hear the happenings in the kitchen.
[18:56] Calliope shakes her head sadly. "Wow. Don't even want to see him bend over? I knew you're dead inside, but I didn't realize how bad it was! I can fix this, but House, are you protecting us or protecting Timmy upstairs?" Her words are a mindless distraction as she unwinds her hand so there's less to grab, with it no longer being a solid shape instead of wriggly vines that are much easier to pull free. 'Let's just get inside, you first, so I can stare at your butt on the way in."
[19:05] ᴄᴀᴇʟ (helio5igma): The house was unresponsive. It seemed a silent audience now that something was loose in its depths, the creature making herself known rather quickly as Calli pulled herself free from the pinching boards. Lanky, pale limbs moved at disjointed angles as the pale woman crawled from the kitchen doorway, pushing aside stacks of mannequin limbs and old furniture and trailing fetid hair in her wake. Parts of her skin, bits of the raggedy dress she wore trailed along on the floor as she moved and her lips, opened wide in an circular scream, did not so much resemble a mouth as whirlpool filled with dripping red and brown goo. She occupied the doorway in front of the staircase, two dangling feet visible on the landing swaying violently as the boy from upstairs tried to tug the hanging body down and off of its perch with increasing desperation. The pale woman lunged, claws grasping for Fonz in an attempt to scrape bits of him into her mouth.
[19:16] Alfonse "Fonz" Bouchet: nodded to Calli stoically, turning towards the door and slapping his ass at her once as he sank back into his stance, edging in front of the door carefully to keep his distance. When the shambling abomination of limbs and tattered cloth appeared in the doorway, his eyes opened wider for a split-second, fear surging in him high and screaming - but in the next, it turned into excitement, rage, and an awful, roaring joy as he leapt back, then forward, dodging claws and slashing down in a blur of sheer destructive power.
[19:23] Calliope of course, did not look at his butt once. Instead she's a little busy staring at the monstrosity he's dealing with. Trusting him to handle it, she shifts to dive past them, unraveling her form to make it easier to avoid the tangle of limbs and and claws as it will be easier to attack with her own rending claws tips once behind the deadly horror. It's an effort to also put herself between the boy trying to get that body down and the woman in the raggedy dress, protect the child!
[19:29] ᴄᴀᴇʟ (helio5igma): The evil lady was occupied and that was a good thing for Calli's wriggly dodge. She managed to get by as Fonz's sword went smack down and split the woman's ghastly head in two, flesh and bone coming apart in a clean slice. Two halves of her head lolled out to either side and for a moment she shuddered and spasmed as brownish-red gunk spilled onto the floor, a wet rattle sounding from her throat. She remained, split head down, body spasming, leaking and pooling that fetid odorous liquid but she did not go completely limp.
Though of course as her head was split the boy on the stairs screamed. He whined and pulled at the girl - only a few years older than he - hanging from one of the rafters just a few feet above the stairwell landing. The girl likely would have screamed, from the expression on her face. Bulging eyes and a swollen head, purple and inflated, her neck snapped sideways and her chest sucking in and out in uneven rasps. Her eyes were staring at the fight scene.
[19:40] Alfonse "Fonz" Bouchet: 's eyes flickered to the side and behind the awful woman-creature as it attacked, taking in the details as best he could; reaching for the chain harness draped across his torso, he tugged at a loose end, and a good half of the entire thing came off in a single strand as he sheathed the sword, began swinging the chain menacingly as he eyed the creature with a snarl. "So what were you, their mom?" He shouted at it. "You were a nasty piece of work before the necromancers ever even made you like this, huh? But ya gotta protect the family, right? Or the /house,/ at least. Do you know what I'm gonna do if I get through you?" he laughed suddenly as he backed up, taunting it, trying to get what was left of it moving forward towards him. "You got any idea? Come on! Wipe the smug fuckin' look off my face, lady," he growled, whipping out with the chain suddenly to try to tangle it around her torso, yank backwards and away from the house.
[19:45] Calliope seeing that Fonz is more than capable, and willing to handle what Calliope is certain is acting stand in for his own terrible mother at this moment, she bounces her way up the stairs to cut the hanging girl free and get her on her own two feet. "Okay you two. We're going to play the silent game, it's where we don't scream and draw the evil lady over to eat us, okay? You both point me at anything to help kill or seal away the evil lady and then go hide." Once more her voice is in a stage whisper, but now for the kids to hear over the fighting where Fonz seems to have the creature distracted enough.
[19:52] ᴄᴀᴇʟ (helio5igma): Fonz's chains wrapped around the womans' squishy torso, sinking into flesh and clutching at the bones that were no doubt somewhere underneath the layers of stained cotton and peeling skin. More of that red-brown gunk poured out of her as she braced herself against the floor boards, the two halves of her head flapping obscenely with side to side shakes. The house, at this point, seemed to rouse itself... the wood beneath her splintered up, forming braces and barricades to keep her from being dragged outside. Fonz was in a tug of war - and one that did not seem possible to win - but it did seem to take her effort and attention entirely.
The two children hushed up quickly - or rather the boy did, his quivering lips shaking as little bits of white foam spilled from the corners of his mouth. The girl, still rasping, darted her wide eyes from Calli to the woman then to the short hall and doorway that led to the kitchen itself (not part of this mini build) where the cellar door likely lay in pieces. The stare lingered before drifting slowly to the living room around the opposite corner, its doorway draped in curtains and rags and carpets, the appearance of cushions and pillows and some sort of nest of trinkets beyond.
[19:59] Alfonse "Fonz" Bouchet: huffed as he continued to tug, recognizing that he likely wouldn't be able to drag the woman out, but wholely devoted to keeping her away from the children, away from Calliope, and in some semblance of control. He jerked and feinted with the chain, trying to control his strength as he studied where it was along her form, trying to ensure that whatever was left of her was sufficiently secured by it. "Bet it's been a while since you been out of there, huh? Maybe it's time to get a new dress?" he taunted, teeth gritted as he inwardly wretched at the rot, the smell, everything about her.
[20:02] Calliope nods to the girl, with a question that is meant to carry to the vampire. "End goal, get her locked back in the cellar, but first I'll check back there for helpful items, sound right to you?" She doesn't even wait for a response, taking off quickly for the nest, throwing herself into the room without ever checking for anything but her destination and the goal. Find weird magic looking shit. she doesn't want to leave Fonz fighting it for long, but she also knows they don't exactly have anything to reseal those broken wards. Another yell follows. "If we can drag her down into the cellar even if I can't fix the magic, maybe we can set the sofa on top the broken door and I'll transmute it to a silver to cover the hole she crawled out of!"
[20:17] ᴄᴀᴇʟ (helio5igma): The grip of those chains slid into spaces not meant for holding. They tore - slicing right through her flesh and skimming along her ribcage before slipping right off of her. She was.... partially degloved, if one could deglove a body. But that bony frame and its dangling bits were still moving. And this time they were twisting around and flinging brown muck at Calli and the stairs. The boy screamed again, clinging to the hanging girl's legs as the woman scrambled up the first steps with clumsy, slippery movements hampered by the damage Fonz had done to her structural integrity.
In the nest of a living area Calli found carpets, cushions, pillows from the couch - everything collected together to make a cozy little nook. Books were scattered about, as were candles and chalk, collections of gems. Great things for a Hermetic ritual if one were so inclined - but otherwise, plenty of fodder to fill a hole with and make it something else.
[20:23] Alfonse "Fonz" Bouchet: snarled as his chain failed to catch her, grunting and pulling his chain back as he drew his sword; teleporting in front of her on the stairs, he roared savagely - "STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM THEM!" - and slashed down hard, trying to beat her back down the stairs. "DOWN! DOWN!"
[20:29] Calliope wraps up the carpet, rolling up anything that looks like it might be useful for a ritual up and carrying it back out to the hallway. "Can you do the wizard shit?!" She's already assuming he can't and dumps open the curled rug, keeping it in hand for now as it will make the perfect new cellar seal. So when the woman throws goop at her, most of it goes on the rug while Calliope shifts to avoid the worst of that muck touching her. Then she throws the rug at the woman, to help stuff her down while avoiding further goopening.
[20:37] ᴄᴀᴇʟ (helio5igma): The boy sobbed into the hanging girl's dress, dribbling foaming spit and bloody mucous onto the cloth interrupted only by Fonz's sudden appearance and sound slashing into the gangly woman's torso. She was split in two, both halves convulsing on the bottom steps as a shower of gunk spattered from her insides. Unfortunately near-impossible to wrap up in one carpet while still moving. Unbothered by the state of her body however her left side contorted and hopped, uneven and ungaily, straight up at Fonz while the other twisted to lunge its claws at Calli.
Once the goop from woman touched the kids they both spasmed, the boy gurgling and clutching at his stomach as he began to vomit foam from his throat - the girl twitching in the air as if freshly hung.
[20:46] Alfonse "Fonz" Bouchet: 's eyes widened as he heard the children suffering in their relived death throes, and something snapped in his eyes, every semblance of control lost. Roaring, he surged at what remained of the creature, positioning himself bodily between it and the children as much as he could, bringing his sword up to parry it again and again as he pressed forward, tried to fend it off and press it away from them at all costs. "DON'T TOUCH THEM! DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH THEM!" He screamed. "I DON'T CARE WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU! I DON'T CARE, I DON'T /CARE!"/ Neither, it would appear, did he care what happened to him; his normally controlled slashes were going wild.
[21:03] Calliope unwinds to avoid the claws, so what should be a deep strike instead meets only air, her form folding in the opposite direction, towards Fonz. There's a fierce whisper of a thought, the gentle touch of the mind's surface to give warning. 'Let's give her a bigger target to focus on and see if together we can't cut her to pieces so small even all the king's horses and all the king's men won't be able to put her back together again.' In her unwound state she wriggles to wrap around his torso, needing a moment to match the movement of his arms so she won't disrupt the wild swings.
[21:07] ᴄᴀᴇʟ (helio5igma) Her own vicious scratches don't land on them but into the wood of the house with sickly thuds. It darkens at her touch, a moist breath wafting over them as dual shrieks erupt from the halves of her throat. The poor boy gurgles and spasms on the floor for a moment before curling into a ball, evidently a bit recovered from his relived death but very much terrified at the closeness of the whole altercation. And the house. The house seems to be responding to her shrieks. Wooden clattering can be heard as things move in the other rooms, scraping and bumping across floorboards upstairs toward the stairwell from the topside.
[21:13] Alfonse "Fonz" Bouchet: grunts as he feels Calliope's form settle over him, surprised, but considerably heartened; as her presence brings his mind back to the present moment again, he finds himself finally able to focus, taking in the way the creature wounds the house, the directions in Calli's words. His growl is low and even as he surges forward at the remains of the woman again, aiming for joints, for claws, anything that still moves, as he aims to cut her down to a size where even what's left of her can't hurt them any longer.
[21:20] Calliope now wrapping around his arms, she feasts on that fury, offering whispered thoughts as she adds her strength to his. 'Any trace of her needs to be destroyed! The smallest drop of that gunk will make those children suffer, die all over again. Kill her! Cut her! Burn her!'
(( To Be Continued ... ))