The Stormcrow, A Superhero's Tale Options

[Acadian]

Yike! Captured by Higherpants (you go, Renee! ).

Pull away the curtain from the Great OZ wizard and there is just an old fat man desperate to outsmart the march of time. A very, very powerful wizard of an old man that is.

And things are dire.

Jan is wise to keep him babbling to buy more time. I agree with her in thinking her foe is foolish to deal with a Daedra Lord Lich. That’ll turn out well for him. Not.

It seems she may still retain the advantage that he doesn’t know Jan = Stormcrow. Hopefully his thinking he is dealing with a gamer nerd instead of a superhero will be his comeuppance. I’m hoping that her magic continues to recover to the point she can somehow break free or at least contact Blood Raven.

[SubRosa]

I should also perhaps note that my inspiration for the Hierophant - at least his appearance - was Aleister Crowley. Though I cannot find any pictures of him from his final years in the 1940s, which is how Higherpants the Hierophant would actually look. Older, rubberyer, and more withered than Crowley in that pic. OTOH, imagine current pics of Joe Rogan and you won't be far off either.

[WellTemperedClavier]

I haven't read that book, but I do remember the movie Shadow of the Vampire dealing with this. They're speaking to Orlock at his castle, and Orlock marvels that Dracula would even remember how to use silverware. Immortality does bring up a bunch of issues. The human brain can only remember so much, so unless the immortal's memory is also enhanced, they may well have a lot of weird gaps in their memory.

And what a nightmarish situation for January! Great job in building up the suspense, with her noticing her strange new environment detail by detail. Now she's surrounded by monsters and seemingly beyond help. The Hierophant is a petty and narcissistic man, which alone actually makes him pretty dangerous. Such people can do a lot of damage. With his powers on top of that, you have a very deadly foe. Fortunately, it seems like he loves talking about his plans and himself, so January can at least buy a little time doing that.

[Renee]

Crowley is the guy who was involved with one of the most famous modern Tarot decks too. I forget its name though.

Good lord, look at this pic.

[SubRosa]

Crowley was a member of the Hermetic Order Of the Golden Dawn for a while, a magical order from the UK that got started in the late 1800s. It drew inspiration from Theosophy. But where the Theosophists were more theoretical occultists (they preferred to think about how magic and the occult worked. But they believed one had to be pure in order to do it without harmful repurcussions. By pure I mean any of: a virgin, non-drinker, non-smoker, non-drug-user, etc...)

The Golden Dawn was made up of people who wanted to actually do magic, instead of just think about it. So right there it was a reaction against Theosophy. But also Theosophy put magic and mystery in the East, namely Tibet. That is where the enchantment was in the world (and by enchantment, I mean it had not been colonized by Westerners, all of its secrets revealed, and reduced to being just another ordinary place on the map filled with ordinary people living ordinary lives.). The Golden Dawn took their magical inspiration from Egypt instead. Which they considered to be part of the Western world at this point. So again, they were reacting against Theosophy in that way.

Which is my way of saying you will see people like Crowley decked out in a lot of faux-Egyptian gear because they felt that was where magic came from. Mainly in the form of Hermes Trismigestus (Hermes the Thrice Great). Basically the ancient Greek god Hermes, with a bit of a facelift. He is where the term Hermetic Magic comes from, which is the basic template for modern Western magic, like that used by the Golden Dawn, but not only them.

[Acadian]

Between Renee's christening our foe Higherpants and SubRosa's picture that reminds me of. . . Uncle Fester from the Adams Family, I'm afraid our foe's Big Bad image has taken some hits.

[SubRosa]

Renee: Higherpants does not know that January is Stormcrow. He is literally only doing this because Julian wanted to kill her. As you noticed, for all of his meticulous research on Nátthrafn's bloodline, he never picked up on that. It shows his priorities. He only wanted someone of Nátthrafn's, so they could get him a copy of the Rauðskinna. Beyond that, he just did not care.

I was just listening to a podcast that was talking about Iran-Contra, and how the CIA facilitated flooding the inner cities with crack by turning a blind eye to the Contras selling drugs in America, and one of the hosts pointed out exactly what you said about supervillains. A narcissistic person needs an audience, to show off how great they are. The whole world revolves around them, so they cannot resist peacocking over their master stroke.


Acadian: You are picking up on all the things I wanted to convey about Higherpants. The Great Oz (perfect analogy btw.), who in actuality is just a old man afraid of dying. But that does not make him a joke. It makes him extremely dangerous.

The Dark Lord does not share power. As the Hierophant will learn soon enough.

Likewise, his massive oversight about January's other identity will indeed bite him in the ass. Jan will be working on that this post.


WellTemperedClavier: That is right. I have seen Shadow of the Vampire 3 or 4 times now. I love that film. It is so delightfully bent. "You can't eat the writer, he has to finish writing your lines!"

I have not put a lot of thought into what you said about the immortal brain, and how accurate its retention might be. While this story has vampires in it (well, one), it is not a vampire story. So I have not put a lot of effort into working out all the details where that is concerned. I just know enough to consistently portray Blood Raven as a supporting character. Given what I have introduced about the unreliability of normal human memory vis a vis the Hypnotic Voice spell, it does not look good for the immortals though.

The Hierophant is indeed petty and self-centered, and very dangerous. I wanted him to have some simple motivations that everyone could easily identify. He's basically a bag of dicks. We have all known people like him. Just without the magical powers.





January's Theme - VNV Nation - Illusion


Gebo Rune

Jera Rune


Book 10.6 - Alliance

"Are we nothing but tools then?"

A familiar voice brought January's head around. It was an old woman's words. But the body they issued from was that of a raven-human hybrid. Her legs were long and bent backward, like a bird's. Her feet ended in talons, as did the fingertips that sprouted from the leading edge of her silky black wings. Even her head was clearly that of a raven's, with its characteristic heavy beak and gleaming black eyes.

Gola!

January had not seen the raven mocker since she had left her in her new home on Garden Island,
far in the northernmost point of Lake Michigan. She had done so after Gola had learned that she no longer needed to feed upon human years to maintain her existence. The raven mocker had confided in her that the Summoner had tried to recruit her. Or had that been the Hierophant? Whichever one it had been, apparently they had not taken no for an answer.

January had been so busy that she had never thought to even check in on Gola to see how she was doing, let alone what she was doing. She had simply left Gola a phone. If only the raven mocker had used it the second time they came for her. Had something happened to the phone? Or had Gola deliberately betrayed her after all? Was this her reward for sparing the raven mocker's life?

Gola stepped from the shadows, and began to stalk around the fringes of the summoning circles. Her beady, bird-like eyes locked with January's for a moment. Then she looked to the runes that girded the magic circles, and back to January again. It was almost as if she was trying to tell her something...

"What of the things we have been promised?" Gola looked back to the Hierophant when she began to speak once more. "Are we to receive our rewards? Or shall we tools be discarded as well?"

"Blood and souls," the antlered figure rasped with a sound like bark scraping against stone.

"You gotta break this curse on me fam," the Dogman rumbled.

The wolf-bear merely growled, and the Paulding Light glowed more brightly. Other voices murmured still more demands, for power, for killing, for vengeance...

Their demands turned out to be so, banal, so common. That is when January realized that for all their strangeness, these were entirely earthly creatures. They were magical to be sure. But they were magical creatures of this world. In her mind that stood in stark contrast to the Hierophant's ultimate designs, which was to call up a creature of what was truly the outermost darkness. A monster from beyond what we knew of as reality.

But then of course they were all from this world. Where else was the Hierophant going to recruit a pack of henchmen from, Wonderland? There probably were not too many flying monkeys that one might lay one's hands upon in North America...

"All in time," the Hierophant raised both of his hands in a placating gesture. He turned here and there to look at his coterie of monsters. "All of you will receive exactly as you deserve."

January's eyes shot back to Gola. Once again, the raven mocker looked down at the runes, and then back to January. Then she turned her gaze back to the Hierophant.

"What we deserve?" Gola scoffed. "Every time a white man has said that, it ended badly for the Keetoowah People."

January stared at the runes. They were simple drawings made of powder. So close, but so far away. Still, they were beyond the reach of her hands, and of her magic. They may as well have been on the moon.

Or were they?

She stared at the nearest character. It was the Gebo rune, looking like an ordinary "X" in English. January knew it meant "generosity" or "gift". It represented the balance of giving and receiving in friendships.

In this case, January wondered if it meant the "giving" of her body and life force for the ritual. If that was the case, would there be a corresponding rune within the Hierophant's own circle, one that was its counterpart? Could she reverse the polarity between them? It had certainly worked for Doctor Who more times than she could count.

She cast her eyes that way, and in no time at all she saw that yes, it was true. In the very same position in the opposite circle there was a Jera rune, looking like a pair of offset arrows pointing in opposite directions. It symbolized the harvest, reaping rewards, and completion. Her gift would be his harvest. Her death was his triumph.

Could she switch them?

Gola's voice droned on as she continued to press the Hierophant. The raven mocker prowled around the far side of the summoning circles, and drew the wizard's attention to her. That also meant that his back was now to January, and whatever she might try.

Their argument faded from January's awareness as she closed her eyes and meditated. In her mind's eye, she was a child again, sitting on her mother's lap. They sang together, counting the crows they saw fluttering and croaking around the front porch. Not all of them had been crows of course. They had been birds of all sizes and colors. But they counted them all the same.

One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret never to be told.
Eight for a wish,
Nine for a kiss,
Ten for a bird,
You must not miss.

She found her energy. It was still weak. Still wavering like a leaf in the breeze. But it was there, and it still responded to her will. But this was not the great hurricane of power that she had in previous times been able to draw a torrent of strength from. She was not going to be able to break the stone blocks under her feet, much less the magical boundaries that hemmed her in.

But it might be enough to do something more subtle, something less overt. The magical barrier that held her in clearly blocked her from physically leaving. It also prevented her from calling her armor, and probably most other forms of magic. But it did allow sound to pass through it. Otherwise she would not have been able to hear the Hierophant's voice. It also allowed air to pass, otherwise she would have suffocated by now.

Air! That might be the one oversight in the trap!

January concentrated on the runes, and became Air. She was a ghost, a breeze, a breath, wafting through the atmosphere. The flow of air she sent forth gently caressed the tiny granules of the cornmeal. The yellow grains fell over one another, piled up, and rearranged themselves. Soon one rune vanished, and another took its place.

January moved on to the next rune, and realized that the Hierophant himself had made this possible. If he had not found a way to strip down the ritual to its barest components, she never would have been able to reverse its intent. The original summoning circles she had seen in the Rauðskinna were far too complex for this. But thanks to his efforts, it was now just a simple circuit. All she had to do was reverse the output between its two power sources.

She briefly considered just wiping all of the runes bare. That would stop the ritual from working at all. But then she shook her head. He would notice that soon enough. Then he would simply fix the runes, and do it anyway. Probably after knocking her unconscious with more of that poison he had used in Avery's back yard.

No, stopping it was impossible. All she could do was subvert the sacrifice, so that she might survive.

Thanks to Gola, the Hierophant never noticed what she was doing. The raven mocker had the wizard's complete and frustrated attention. So too did the other monsters, who were now all worked up by the Cherokee medicine woman's efforts. They grumbled and clamored, until finally the wizard shouted them down.

"Enough!" he cried. Then his voice took a low, sharp tone. "You shall have your rewards. If that is not enough, then step forward. We shall renegotiate our agreements here and now."

The monsters fell silent, and stared from one to another. None moved, until finally the Dogman pressed forward. His knuckles were white as he gripped his flail in one of his giant paws. January could swear that she heard them pop with barely constrained effort.

"You talk a lot of talk," he quite literally growled. "But what have you actually done for us? Where are the receipts bro?"

January was surprised at how colloquial his speech was. Weren't all magical beings supposed to speak with Victorian polish and correctness? Or was Blood Raven building up impossible expectations for everyone else to live up to? If she had not known better, the Dogman might be any guy standing in line at Burger Baron.

Come to think of it, he had mentioned a curse. Had he actually been a guy at Burger Baron at some point, only to be turned into this? Gola had not always been a raven mocker. She had been a regular, human woman once. That made January look across the pack of creatures with new eyes. How many of them had once been as ordinary as she was? How many had always been as they are now?

"Very well then, here is how you shall know my power."

The Hierophant curled a lip at the cryptid, and gestured a finger in the canid-monster's direction. January could sense no magic beyond the barriers that hemmed her in. But she did suspect that something happened between the two. A moment later a series of boils or bubbles began to appear all across the Dogman's hide.

He staggered, and fell to one knee. The flail that he carried clattered to the marble floor. After just a few more moments he writhed in agony, and his howls rang off the walls all around.

Then one of the boils burst open. Out crawled an army of beetles. Their legs clashed together in an unwholesome racket. Their mandibles flashed and bit, devouring all in their path. Another of the bubbles popped open, and another, loosing even more of the tiny creatures. In no time at all the Dogman was completely wreathed in the giant insects. He writhed and squirmed. But no matter how many he swatted with his claws, or bit with his teeth, hundreds more sprang from his flesh.

In no time at all the cryptid collapsed to the floor and fell still. There was nothing left but a writhing mass of beetles. With one small gesture of the Hierophant's finger, they skittered away in all directions. They poured past the assembled monsters, and in moments vanished into the darkened corners of the room. Within just seconds, they were completely gone. The only sign they or the Dogman had ever existed were a few bloody tufts of fur left upon the marble floor, and that giant flail he had carried, now awash with his own gore.

"Now, would anyone else like to renegotiate their contracts?"

The Hierophant grinned triumphantly. Not a single voice rose against him now.

"Very well, it is time to finish this," he declared. "Be on your guard. I will summon Nátthrafn in moments. Be prepared when he arrives. He shall treat with us, or pay the price for his intransigence."

"No," January shook her head. "Don't do this. You don't have to do this."

"Your whining won't save you," the Hierophant sneered. "Be silent, and at least die like man."

"This won't end how you think it will," January pleaded. "It will destroy you. Remember what Stormcrow said on TV. Everyone who tries this dies."

"Don't talk to me of that upstart catamite!" the Hierophant snapped. "His time will come too, just as yours will now. Now be silent, or else I shall gag you."

With that he began the ritual. This January felt, as the magic filled the spaces between the lines that circumscribed and connected the circles. The raw power melted into the runes. There it was transformed, given purpose and direction by the script. January could feel the spell it formed, and the Hierophant's terrible will behind it all. She had studied these summonings after all. She knew them inside and out. She knew what was coming.

Then she felt something unexpected. A point outside of the summoning popped into her awareness, like a lighthouse seen far out from sea. It touched upon the fringes of the spell, and responded to it. More than that, it immediately began to send a warning across two very specific channels in the astral, a private transmission that only two people in the entire world could ever hear.

January recognized it, for she was one of those recipients. She had made this beacon with her own hands, and sealed it with her own blood. It was Sibyl, one of the magical early warning poppets that she and Blood Raven had enchanted. She had set this one in the old abandoned zoo on Belle Isle herself.

Even as she felt the spell touch the summoning circles, she sensed Sibyl's call sidestep the barriers and connect with her aura. It warned her, just as the poppet Thetis had warned her of the summoning at Jobbie Nooner. January almost laughed at the irony. It was not like she really needed the heads up now.

But then she remembered that she was not the only one who was receiving this warning. She thought back to something she had asked Blood Raven when they had created the first of the poppets.

"I can feel the cord of energy that ties us to Cassandra here," January said. "I take it others can feel that as well? Can another magician use that to find us? Or cast magic through that link, and directly into us?"

The answer had been yes of course. The poppets were each directly tied to her and Blood Raven's auras. That was why they had to be careful lest the magical dolls fall into the wrong hands. Another mage with one of the poppets in their possession could use it to cast magic directly into their auras. But January did not need to physically hold the doll. It was already active and connected to her. That also meant that through the doll, she was now directly connected to Blood Raven.

January marshaled what magical power she could, and reached out across that link. She hoped that Blood Raven could answer in time...

* * *

[WellTemperedClavier]

Really good thinking on January's part for that rune. The Hierophant needed her to have air if he was going to do a proper sacrifice, and that gave her an opening she could exploit. Another villain foiled by his own complicated deathtrap. Well, partially foiled in this case, since the outcome is not yet decided.

So what's Gola doing here? Some of her actions seem to hint that she's not on board with the Hierophant. Maybe this is a ruse? Or maybe she's crueler than January thought.

I'm also wondering what the deal is with all the other creatures. Unfortunates who fell afoul of the Hierophant's enchantments? Or willing servants who didn't realize how deep they'd gotten in?

Regardless, it looks like January's early planning with the poppets will pay off. Just need to make sure that someone sees the warning, and will get to her in time. Failing that, altering the rune could at least buy her some time.

[Acadian]

It seems Gola is quietly on Jan’s side, as she both eyeballs the keys and distracts the Hierophant. And that is all the break our heroine needs as she exploits her magical prison’s weakness. This should create a very interesting ritual now that Jan has swapped those runes.

Yikes, dog eating scarabs!

And one of her and Blood Raven’s poppets pops as the Hierophant begins to spin his ritual magic!

Can’t wait to see how this sabotaged ritual goes, and if the poppet will indeed allow communication and possibly even magic flow between the Stormcrow and Blood Raven.

[Renee]

January's theme song fits her just perfectly. Whoa, Gola is back! What a moment this is. Huh, looks like the big bad Hierophant is about to have the tables turned. What will this do for his Big Evildoer Speech Moment, though? He'll have to improvise.

Jan's wondering about Gola's burner phone. I wonder if that thing's still got batteries! This scene's pretty creepy, Florens. 👍👍

Ah, she's channeling Air. Nice. She's messing with the cornmeal. That's odd, by the way, that a foodstuff so common would be used for such a ritual. What is the reason for this?

"ENOUGH!" Hierophant yells! Classic. There's always that moment when every supervillain says "enough!" or some similar word or phrase, after being interrupted and embarrassed!

Ah, I see where this is possibly going. So if she's able to contact Branwen and if Higherpants is able to summon Nátthrafn...

[SubRosa]

WellTemperedClavier: I had this in mind when I wrote the description of the first summoning circle at Ferndale Pride. I always knew January was going to be put in a position where she would have to reverse its effects. We will see how successful she was soon enough.

Gola is back! Everyone comes back for this book.

Unfortunately I could not get into the details on all of the Hierophant's minions. Gola serves as our best example, being a magical creature that Julian had awakened from her torpor in Eloise. I used their sparse dialog to throw out some hints as to what drives them however. One wanted a curse lifted, another one blood and souls, etc... In any case, they are all going to find out that they have gotten themselves into much more than they had bargained for.


Acadian: Gola returns, with some unspoken hints that the runes which make up the summoning might be the keys to January's survival. And a very timely distraction of the Hierophant to give her time to sabotage the ritual.

When I was doing my later drafts on this, I realized that I had not really shown the Hierophant's power. He's the spider in the web, but we never saw him actually eat any flies. Aside from how he betrayed Julian of course. So I went back and added in his gruesome murder of the Dogman in order to establish his street cred. Now we know he is a scary dude.

As I said with the summoning rituals, I planned all along to use the early warning poppets this way. That worked out better than I had imagined, given Blood Raven's own ability to reach across that link and tie herself directly into January's blood, as we shall see today.


Renee: That is Blood Raven's regular theme. I love the old-time pirate feel that the instruments have. It feels like something from the 1700s. She has a second theme that I linked today, her fight song. She has a lot of killing to do today.

The batteries in that burner phone are going to prove to be absolutely critical. Thank you for pointing that out a long time ago. It is going to matter, and may be the biggest blunder that January has ever made.

I think the cornmeal is commonly used simply because it is cheap and easy to find, and works really well for drawing out symbols. The same for salt, or rice.

The Hierophant is about to deliver his master stroke, and his henchmen are yammering at him about their paychecks? Enough! You can bet Sauron never had to deal with labor strikes.








Blood Raven's Fight Theme - Imagine Dragons - Demons


As always the James Henry Thornwell house can be found on the Stormcrow Google Map



Pic of the Thronwell house

The Naked Mile

Fairy Star

Solar Wheel

Pentacle

Eye of Horus

Wight




Book 10.7 - Alliance

July 8 (Evening)

The home of James Henley Thornwell lay across the street from the sprawling expanse of the University of Michigan golf course, and of course, the nearby Michigan Stadium. The house rose up two stories into the skyline, and was painted a deep shade of charcoal. In another place that might seem odd. But this was a college town, and a black house was trifling when compared to the spectacle of students running the Naked Mile through the streets.

Unlike the last time she had visited, Blood Raven made no attempt at stealth or circumspection. She flew straight down to the front door in her armor. With a wave of her hand a stream of aion disengaged its locks and caused it to creak open. She strode inside without a second thought, and manifested Samhain in her hand.

"Remind me, is Thornwell the one who has been on sabbatical? I do not recall interviewing him." Blood Raven asked.

"Yes," Cray answered after a momentary sound of plastic keys clacking away in her ear. Clearly, he was summoning the information on one of his numerous computers. "He's been out for several months now. But you investigated the house last week, and found nothing. Julian has not had any of his classes for years, so he has been low on the priority list."

"Yet clearly Julian has been quite adept at covering his tracks," Blood Raven mused. "Far more so than I had previously given him credit for. Perhaps he learned that from Thornwell?"

She sensed nothing within. Not even a spider or ant. But given that their enemy knew how to cloak auras in the aether, that meant little. She wasted no time with the ground floor or upstairs. She went immediately to the basement and pushed the door open. As before, she was greeted by nothing but the usual suspects: a washer and dryer, old boxes and tools, a bicycle that might have been new when Kennedy was still in the White House, and the like.

She scanned the room, and remembered the words of one of the workmen she had interviewed.

"That was a work of art. There is a shelf there. You twist the left bracket, and the door pops open. Otherwise it looks like the rest of the wall."

She went to the first shelf and twisted its left bracket. It snapped off in her hand, and the entire shelf teetered in mid air, about to crash to the floor. She caught it - and the row of cobwebby porcelain mugs that sat atop it - with a golden tendril of energy. Cautiously, she balanced the rickety plank of wood on the tip of her power, and gently lowered it to the floor.

"Maybe a little gentler next time..." Cray murmured in her ear.

Blood Raven said nothing. Clearly, she was not as cool and calm as she should like to be. The fact was, she was eager to lay hands upon the Hierophant. Or in the very least reveal his identity. He had to be stopped, before it was too late...

She waded through the piles of boxes and crates that rose up throughout the dusty space, and tried another shelf. This time she was careful not to snap the thin metal bracket that supported the left side of the narrow wooden shelf. It twisted in her hand and made an audible click, without spilling the shelf and its contents of plastic model ships across the floor.

A darkened space lay beyond. Blood Raven stretched her awareness out into the aether. But her magical senses found nothing in the room. Nothing at all that was, including the room itself. So far as she could tell magically, the space did not exist. It was indeed shielded from all forms of detection or scrying.

There was nothing for it, so she stepped into the room. She braced herself for the sound of a trap activating under her feet, or spears being fired from the walls, or even the entire space being filled with fire. But nothing untoward occurred, yet...

She took a moment to spy out the chamber. A large stone altar lurked at the far end, draped with red velvet cloth that was trimmed with gold. A writing desk that would have felt comfortable in King George III's study sat near the altar, alongside an entirely modern wipe board that took up much of one wall. A bookcase of stout oak rose at the other side of the altar, along with a long table that was scattered with tools and materials. She saw a mortar and pestle, store-bought boxes of cornmeal and containers of salt, brushes, a hammer and chisel, and more.

The floor itself was made of granite, unlike the poured concrete of the rest of the basement. Or perhaps the concrete foundation was simply overlaid with a granite slab here? There was no way to tell without digging. In any case, a seven-pointed fairy star was cut into the stone, all perfectly proportioned and smooth-edged, and inlaid with bronze. A golden solar wheel graced the wall behind the altar. A pentacle of wrought iron hung from another wood-paneled wall, and an Eye of Horus gazed out from the wall opposite it.

"Well, this guy certainly got his money's worth for that religious studies degree..."

That is when Blood Raven felt it. Power stirred in one corner of the room, beside the long worktable. Cold eyes of pale light glared back at her from the shadows, like distant stars. A desiccated arm of ropy sinew reached for her, draped in rotten cloth. Another arm followed, and then a pair of iron gray claws darted for her throat. The creature's mummified body followed, leathery skin clinging tightly to twisted bones. Its bony head was wreathed in coarse white hair, and its skeletal jaws gleamed with spiky teeth. A wave of cold washed out before the wight, sending a chill through even Blood Raven's own undead bones.

She reacted instantly. Samhain was already clutched in her right fist. She took its blade in her left hand, and let go of the hilt with her right. Even as the wight surged forward, she whipped the sword around in a backhand blow. Its wing-etched crossbar hooked behind the monster's neck, and the force of the strike sent the creature crashing sideways into the wall.

Wood paneling disintegrated under the impact, sending shards of oak in every direction. The concrete wall behind it likewise crumbled under the blow, and hurled even more fragments and dust through the air. An indentation was thusly formed within the basement's outer wall, filled by the leathery frame of the undead being.

A dry rattle like laughter issued from the monster's throat. For such a simple assault could never harm a creature of magic and darkness. Even now it clawed its way out of the depression its body had made within the wall. Its eyes burned brighter, and concrete and wood shattered under its claws.

"The ravens come for thee," Blood Raven croaked in reply.

She stepped back, and looked to the dark patches of shadow that clung to the corners of the room. She sent her aion forth, and the darkness answered. A single raven made of pure shadow hurtled forth, and arrowed into the wight's chest. It pierced undead flesh and bone as if they were made of paper. In seconds it bored a hole clear through the monster's torso and burst out of its back. Then it winged around for another attack.

Then came a second raven, and a third, and forth. Soon an entire unkindness of the dark creatures flapped throughout the room. All focused upon the wight, diving and tearing into its body. With each strike, and claw, and bite, they tore more and more dusty flesh and dried bone from its form. Their raucous cries filled the room, lending a blood-curdling accompaniment to the frantic beating of their wings.

The creature staggered, and fell into the center of the fairy star at Blood Raven's feet. She stared as the shadow ravens devoured it, and heard herself sing the lines of the Táin Bó Cúailgne.

The raven ravenous,
Among corpses of men,
Affliction and outcry,
And war everlasting.
Raging over Cúailgne,
Death of sons,
Death of kinsmen,
Death! Death!

Soon nothing remained of the wight but dust and dried granules of bone. With a nod of her head, the unkindness of ravens flew back into the shadows, and melted from reality. Finally Blood Raven was left alone once more, and she scanned the room for more guardians. But if any others lurked in the cracks and crevices, they dared not to issue forth.

"You know, you really are scary sometimes," Cray murmured in her ear.

Blood Raven laughed. She could feel Selene's Curse inside of her - that monster that lurked within every vampire - aching to be set free. She took a moment to slow her breath, calm herself, and quell that bloodlust. She turned that fury into cold resolve, and instead approached the altar. She still had work to do, and she needed her wits about herself to do it.

She found two books lying atop the velvet-draped stone. One was the Scripta Mortis. The aged calf-skin vellum of its folios were stitched between front and rear covers of dark elm. She recognized the circle with a horizontal line cutting across it that was carved into the cover. It was the black theta, the symbol of death god Thanatos.

Alongside that ancient tome was something much more modern. It was an unnamed journal bound in cracked brown leather. It was the sort of thing one might buy in any book store today. She flipped it open with one finger, and recognized the precise writing within. It was in the same hand that had written that false summoning spell which had found its way into Xochitl's possession.

The first thing she saw was a long family tree that stretched across page after page. She knew the names. Hers was on that list, as were January's and Julian's. Clearly Thornwell had done his research with thoroughness. She flipped through more pages, and read a passage aloud so that Cray could hear.

"The rituals to summon the Abyssals are quite effective, if over complex. I am certain they can be simplified, in order to reduce the time and effort necessary to execute them. However, nowhere does Nátthrafn explain how to control these creatures. They simply run rampant. The first one nearly destroyed my basement after it was summoned. This has necessitated us moving the summonings to other locations..."

"Well he's our man alright," Cray intoned in her ear, "It also explains why he needed the contractors to work on the basement, and why they now pick different locations for each summoning."

Blood Raven scanned through more pages, and noted frequent entries related to Julian. They alternated between exasperation over his qualms at committing murder, and crowing over how easy it was to otherwise manipulate the young man. She flipped to the final pages, and found confirmation that he had indeed laid that trap for young Xochitl to find and implement. There was no mention of her name. Instead the cursed amulet and incomplete spell had simply been left in the park as bait for any unsuspecting magician to find and make use of.

The final page was simple, and chilled Blood Raven's bones more thoroughly than any army of wights ever could.

"Blood Raven and her henchmen are closing in. I must end this tonight."

"Cray, issue forth the general distress signal," Blood Raven intoned with a calmness that she did not feel. "Assemble the team at the Raven's Nest."

"And you?" the hacker asked.

"I will secure the site," Blood Raven explained as she strode from the basement and up the stairs to the surface. She still gripped the journal in one hand. She was not going to let that out of her sight. Too much lay within that might point inquisitive eyes toward her descendants. "There may be more wards and guardians. None must be allowed to enter."

"And the police?" Cray asked. "I think we should bring them in."

"I concur. I shall engage them." Blood Raven closed her eyes as she gathered her aion about her. She sang quietly to herself in her ancestral Gaelic, and stilled her mind. She was quiet in the presence of the divine.

She stepped from the house, and wove her energy all about the structure. It sealed every window, every door, even the red brick chimney that rose from the roof. She wrapped it all up in a cocoon, and bound it tightly shut. None would enter any time soon, at least not without a great expenditure of power.

With that she turned to her wrist-mounted computer. Cray wanted to give it a name, as January had done with hers. But that felt silly to her. It was just a machine, not a person. It had no power or life of its own. That was why she did not speak to the device as others did. Instead she punched her fingers upon its screen, the old-fashioned way. An icon confirming the call she was making sprang up, and in a moment a woman's voice came over her headset.

"This is Dana," the other woman said breezily.

"Madame Attorney General, this is Blood Raven," the superheroine replied. "The Hierophant is James Henry Thornwell. He is a religious studies professor at the University of Michigan, and abides in Ann Arbor. He plots to summon the final Abyssal tonight. We must find him and stop him. His domicile is empty, and I have warded it from entry. But I do not think he shall attempt to return."

"Do you have any idea where he is?" The Michigan Attorney General's voice sounded much more somber now.

"Nay," Blood Raven replied. "That is why I have contacted you. I should be most obliged if you would instruct the constabulary to begin an immediate search. If they do locate him, under no circumstances must they join battle with him. He will slay them with but a thought. Instead inform me immediately, and I shall finish him."

"Done," the Attorney General declared. "I'll put out a BOLO for all state and local jurisdictions immediately."

"Thank you. Cray shall forward you all of our data on him momentarily."

Almost as if on cue, the general distress call blared forth from her computer. She knew that it would be doing the same from the communication devices of every member of their team. She slapped her computer screen to silence it, and rose high into the sky.

She cast her gaze this way and that across the dark sky. Where would he strike? There was no guessing of course. There were too many possible locations. Yet aside from that first summoning in his basement, the Hierophant appeared to have chosen only sites far away from his home. She gambled that this time would be the same, and headed for her nearest teleportation waypoint.

It was located to the north, on the roof of a children's hospital that rose up beside the narrow Huron River. The brown and gray university building towered over ten stories in the Ann Arbor skyline, and its irregular faces were lined with long rows of windows. A giant white cross within a red square marked out a helipad atop the roof. It was to this she arrowed. But at the last moment she shied away, and instead came to roost atop a small structure right next to the landing site.

This was the top of a glassed in stairwell that ran the length of the building. She set her feet to the plain white concrete roof, and stretched out with her aion. A pentacle hidden within the cement glowed to brilliant life in answer. It smelled her blood, and unfolded space and time at her call.

A moment later she was standing within the Raven's Nest, staring at the great marble block that took up the center of the penthouse loft. She bustled past the writing desk that lay beneath her massive family history, which was drawn out across the marbled surface. Then she turned around the corner of the massive central block, and stepped into Cray's domain.

In fact, the gray-haired hacker was there himself, standing before the large tabletop computer that took up the center of the space. She could see that he had multiple holograms open above the computer, each showing the face and name of one of their teammates. She tossed Thornwell's journal down upon the computer's surface. The machine immediately opened a new holographic window above it, prompting someone to enter in a name and other pertinent data about the book.

"They're all checking in now, and I've sent that data to the attorney general." Cray nodded to her then he looked to the journal. "That's the Hierophant's diary?"

Blood Raven nodded absentmindedly. She did not care about the journal now. Someone was missing in the holograms of her teammates that glowed above the table computer. January's face was not there. That was unlike her. The young woman was usually the very first to respond. Blood Raven spun on her heel, and strode back around the loft. She set her feet atop the waypoint, and once again activated it with her magic.

She was standing within the sanctum of the Witch House a moment later. She had hoped to find January there meditating, perhaps so lost in her own power that she had not heeded the call. But that was not the case. The chamber was empty as a tomb. Blood Raven stretched out her senses, and the wards about the building answered. January was nowhere on the grounds.

"Where is Stormcrow?" Blood Raven asked Cray over her wrist computer. "She is not at the Witch House."

"She was at my place," Avery replied over the link. "But she left hours ago, along with everyone else."

"Everyone has checked in except for her," Cray's voice came over the comm next.

"That's not like her." The concern was evident in Avery's voice. "Spleck! Her bike's still here in the yard. But there's no sign of her!"

Blood Raven activated the portal once more, and returned to the Raven's Nest. Once again she strode around the loft to the computer center. But she stopped dead in her tracks when she looked out the window beyond.

A great mass of coal black clouds had gathered above Belle Isle. The long, slender island lay miles upriver. But the Raven's Nest being located atop the tall spire of Radiator Building brought with it several advantages; among them a stunning view across the region. So she could clearly see the isle beyond the other skyscrapers that clustered within the Financial District of Downtown Detroit.

She did not like what she saw. The island was cloaked in gloom, created by the thick blanket of dark clouds that blocked the stars overhead. But the thunderheads gathered only over the island. The rest of the night sky was crystal clear, and a waxing quarter moon shone brightly across the two cities of Detroit and Windsor below. A great flash of lightning momentarily lit up the entire scene, dazzling Blood Raven's eyes. All she could do was gesture however, because something had stolen the breath from her lungs.

It felt like the world had turned inside out. The smell of blood was palpable, awakening that ravening beast within. But it was not the wholesome scent of life-bearing liquid. Rather it was corrupted, toxic. This blood was poison, a poison that infected reality itself, and perverted it into something utterly alien, and absolutely terrifying.

"The summoning..." Blood Raven forced herself to croak. She continued to point to Belle Isle. Long enough for Cray to follow her finger and see for himself. Lightning played about the island, in a never-ending display of light and power, and clouds still blotted the sky from above it. The rest of the skyline however, remained clear and calm as far the eye could see.

Since it was only a few miles away, it was well within her own sensing range. But there was a poppet even nearer to the source. Sibyl lay on Belle Isle itself, within the abandoned zoo there. January had placed it there some time ago. It routed the sensation of the Abyssal summoning directly into her aura.

But that was not all Blood Raven felt through the poppet. She felt January! It was her power, of that there was no doubt, and it reached across the very link between poppets. But it was not the bright and noble aura of magic and light that Blood Raven had grown accustomed to. Instead her apprentice's magical self was tainted with poison, with a toxin that deadened her body, and dulled her senses. It was a wonder that the young woman had been able to reach out through the link between poppets at all.

There was something that Blood Raven could do about that. Using that same link, she called out to January's blood, and it responded. She pulled that poison forth, and ripped it from the young woman's body and into her own. The drug hit her immediately, dragging her eyelids down like anvils, bidding her to sleep...

It should not have affected her at all. Selene's Heirs were not vulnerable to toxins or poisons, at least not those of mortal origin. This had to be something magical - alchemical - to affect her so. But Blood Raven was not so easily laid low. She was one of Selene's Blessed. She called up one of her gifts, and washed her body clean with a rush of blood. It swept away the magical poison, and bubbled it away with an impotent hiss.

"All team members, converge on Belle Isle!" she heard Cray cry out. "Get there now, Stormcrow's in the middle of it!"

[Acadian]

I enjoyed your opening links on various magical symbols.

Good sleuthing by Blood Raven.

The swarm of ravens she called forth to deal with the wight was well suited to her. Other vampires might use a swarm of bats but the ravens fit Blood Raven.

"You know, you really are scary sometimes," Cray murmured in her ear.’
Quoted for truth!

I really liked your description of Blood Raven’s teleportation waypoint and how it works.

The journal offers some clues that cause Blood Raven to conjure her coven of superheroes. Uh oh, one’s missing and we know who that is. Just look for the storm. Pulling the unknown poison from Stormcrow unto herself was very Blood Raven. For when it comes to her friends, she does not count the cost. I’m glad she was able to quickly dispel its effects though.

[Renee]

I see. I had a phase back in high school or early college (similar to the H.S. girl a few chapters ago who found that amulet) when I studied a bit of witchcraft. I remember buying rosewater for some spell I wanted to try, which was both hard and easy to find. Because rosewater? Where the heck do we buy rosewater? Especially since this was the 1980s. Can't just Google stuff.

Turns out rosewater was sold by my local pharmacist. A common ingredient, but I'd never know this if it weren't for those WC studies.

But I never got into witchcraft or Wicca much, so therefore I didn't know cornmeal could be used for such a ritual. I'd assume something more exotic would be needed, maybe bonemeal. 🦴

Thornwell House looks sort of like a plain saltbox. Jan's got the cooler house.

LOL @ the Naked Mile story!

Well it looks like the Hierophant is about to join Darth Vader, Lex Luthor, Doctor Doom and Doctor Evil in the ranks of failed supervillains. Or will he?

Ah, so when she hypnotized one of those workers, she now knows how to get past the secret door. Gotta ask, who put the plastic model ships here?

WHOA... yikes. Mommy. I'm scairt!

Oh but good. She's summoned some ravens. Perfect. This story's perfect for Holloween. 🎃🎃 I Love how Cray is just sitting back in front of his control deck, just witnessing all this mayhem.

With that she turned to her wrist-mounted computer. Cray wanted to give it a name, as January had done with hers. But that felt silly to her. It was just a machine, not a person.

This part is really interesting. Really highlights the differences between Branwen and her personable grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grandgrandgrandgrandgrand-niece. And I also get why she refuses to speak to her wrist device. Totally get it.

Spleck! Well it seems Raven's definitely on the right path to figuring where Jan is. Higherpants, your hours are numbered... hopefully.

This post has been edited by Renee: Oct 16 2022, 07:29 PM

[WellTemperedClavier]

Good thing Blood Raven's on the case!

I liked the mood of the chapter. Gives the reader a bit of a breather after the action of the previous one, but doesn't put them at ease, either. Blood Raven's dealing with some dark magic, and the Hierophant's ominous demesne brings that fact across quite quickly.

Her bringing in the police and other supers is a smart move, and one that fits in well with what I think are the themes: good works together, and evil works alone. The Hierophant might use people (and monstrous extradimensional entities), but he never works with them. He wants all the power for himself, but as he may soon learn, it's tough to get by when no one's watching your back.

Also, very cool visual in how Blood Raven dispatched the wight. An "unkindness" of ravens indeed

[SubRosa]

Acadian: I wanted to establish the Hierophant's magical cred, so I dug into my knowledge of magical symbols to decorate his inner sanctum.

In just a few weeks Blood Raven went from having one clue about the Hierophant's identity - the fact that Julian was his apprentice - to finding him. She is relentless.

I wanted a new killing power to show off Blood Raven's chops this episode. Given her nature, ravens were my go to. From there I just figured out how to make them more interesting and magical than regular birds. So in the end, I came up with Shadow Ravens.

Blood Raven is utterly terrifying.

Blood Raven is not a teleporter herself. It's a little bit beyond her to do that sort of thing on the spur of the moment. But she can do time and space travel. She just needs time to work out exactly where she is going to and from before hand. That is why she created her system of waypoints throughout the region she operates in. The transit routes are already locked in. She just have to choose which one and active it.


Renee: Honestly, I have never bothered with any of that fancy stuff for my rituals. I use water, and salt, and a few other odds and ends like a candle and a feather, and that is about it. You don't need any of that stuff to do magic. It is just stage props. Magic comes from within. It is your power and your will directed to create a specific outcome.

I had to look up what a saltbox was. Those are weird houses!

The Naked Mile was a regular thing on the U of M campus in Ann Arbor for decades. The cops finally clamped down on it about 15 years ago or so. In my universe it still happens because it is quirky and weird and fun.

I figure the model ships were from a previous resident of the house. Basements are such reservoirs for old junk.

It did occur to me that releasing these sections of the story in October was perfect timing. It is going to get a lot creepier.

When it comes to magic items, every one has a name, because they are each unique, and have power of their own. They even live beyond their creators/wielders. Blood Raven does not see any power in a computer. Even if it has been given a voice, to her it is just a thing, an object, no different from a spoon or a fork. Where January is used to living with personal digital assistants. They are just an ordinary part of life that accompanies you everywhere you go. So of course she gives hers a name. It does indeed show just how different the two of them are.

The Hierophant's life span can now be measured in seconds...


WellTemperedClavier: Blood Raven is really good at this sort of thing. Having her actively hunting you is a really, really bad thing.

There will be a lot of small breathers like that spaced through the rest of this book (there is a lot to go, we are only maybe a quarter into it). I hope they can serve that purpose of giving the reader a little rest, so it does not become an unending grind of battle.

You absolutely got one of the major themes I have tried to stick to from the start. January does not do any of this alone. She only succeeds because she has help from her friends. She sticks with them through thick and thin, and they do the same with her. It is all about collective action creating a better world. In fact, this entire book is about all the allies she had made up until now coming to help her. OTOH the bad guys indeed, are all basically self-centered, and see others as simply disposable tools. In the end, there is no one there to help them when they need it.

The Unkindness makes a for a great name for that shadow raven spell.










Nátthrafn's Theme - Gustav Holst - Mars

Ergi and Viking views on sexuality

Nátthrafn's look was inspired by RL Rob Zombie

Lamellar Armor

Danish War Axe

Inspiration for Nátthrafn's Voice - John Noble


Book 10.8 - Alliance

The summoning was quick. Perhaps thanks to the Hierophant's stripped down and minimalist approach, the magic tore a hole through reality and opened a bridge to somewhere beyond in no time at all. The invisible barriers around January glowed with power, as did the runes etched out on the floor that guided and shaped that power.

"Don't!" she cried out to the wizard. "Stop, you don't have to do this!"

"Cry all you like sodomite, your end is here!" he crowed back with malicious delight.

Then his body was thrown forcefully to the ground. It was as if some giant and invisible hand had enveloped him, and slammed him down. The air must have been driven from his lungs, for even though his eyes bulged in shock, he could form no words. Then that invisible force began to slowly drag the Hierophant's body from his circle, and down the channel that connected it to the larger one at the center of the array.

He must have intuited what had happened. For now he tried to escape. His fingers dug fruitlessly against the marble floor, and his feet kicked impotently upon its smooth surface. Perhaps regaining his wits, he finally turned to face the summoning circle to which he was being dragged. He threw forth an arcane shield in a vain effort to defend himself. But the golden magical barrier - while doubtlessly proof against both physical and magical assaults - was of no value here.

Ever he was pulled, closer and closer to his doom.

January wondered if he tried at all to teleport away. That was how he had escaped from Gull Island after all. It was apparently how he and Julian had come and gone for all of their Abyssal summonings. But just as the magical barrier created by the summoning circles prevented January from calling her armor or breaking out, she suspected that they likewise trapped him within as well. There was no escape from what he himself had set into motion.

His legs were the first to go. Before they were anywhere near the receiving circle, they stretched out hideously long, and popped apart. Bones tore from their sockets and ripped asunder, as if they were spaghetti. Blood sprayed everywhere, and flesh was shredded into ribbons. Now a high-pitched scream did rip from the Hierophant's throat. At least until it was choked off by the blood that spouted from his mouth a moment later.

January shut her eyes to the horror, as the man who had bedeviled her was torn apart. But even though she was not looking, she could still feel it. She could feel the magic all around her. Feel its intent, and feel its results. She did not need her meat eyes to see. All was writ entirely too clear in the astral, and there was no way she could block it out.

But there was something else. Blood Raven! The elder heroine had answered her call through the poppet. Even now she felt her mentor touch her aura. As she had done so many times before, Blood Raven transferred the poison to her own body through their connected blood. In an instant the drug that had coursed through her system and deadened her power was gone. In its place January felt alive once more. She felt strong. She felt furious.

She leaped to her feet and beat upon the walls of the circle that hemmed her in. But her hands bounded away ineffectually once more. Her feet stamped down upon the floor, and great chunks of marble shattered under them. The sky overhead lit up with lightning, and she brought a bolt of it down upon the building around her. The skylight overhead shattered under the impact, but once again, the electricity merely skittered off the invisible walls of the summoning circle, before harmlessly grounding down into the earth below.

Then it was done. The barriers simply collapsed as if of their own accord. Of the Hierophant, there was nothing but a crimson stain. It stretched out from his original circle to the central one. A few pieces of shattered bone, torn flesh, and ripped cloth lay in its wake. It was like something from a Clive Barker novel, and January half-expected to see Pinhead round a corner and begin demanding that she hand over his precious puzzle box.

But what she found was much worse. It was not a fictional villain that waited in the central circle. It was a real, living horror. He looked like a man, at least upon first glance. He stood well over six feet in height, and possessed a frame that burst with muscle. His hair was raven black, and spilled from his head in a web of tangled thorns, as did his long, matted beard.

He wore a lamellar cuirass made of bones that were carved into rectangular plates, which all overlapped one another about his torso. This was set over a mail tunic of black metal that fell to mid-thigh. The onyx-like material was shot through with bright orange veins, like marble. In one hand he carried a Danish war axe. Its haft was as long as he was tall, and was not made of wood, but rather shaped from a single piece of bone. Its long, bearded blade was made of the same onyx metal as his mail armor, and the single edge glowed with orange-red light.

January did not need to be told who this was. It was no mere Abyssal. It could be none other than Nátthrafn himself, her eight times great-grandfather.

He wiped some of the blood that still stained his brow, and an errant bone clattered to the stone floor underfoot.

"Requiem æternam, James Henry Thornwell..."

The Dark Lord's eyes cast briefly about the scene. They took in the assembled monsters, who now all stared with ill-contained horror. Apparently even for them, the summoning was a sight not often beheld. Nor was the presence of Nátthrafn easily ignored. January could feel it even now. He was a wrongness in the world, a stain and warp of reality that should not exist in a sane universe.

Then he turned his gaze to January. She locked eyes with him. Like his armor, they were onyx, and shot through with glowing red-orange cracks. Through them, she could almost bear witness to the tortuous landscape of the Abyss beyond: a horrorscape of piercing rock, shifting darkness, and voracious hunger.

"What do we have here?" his voice was a deep, rich baritone. As strange as it was to consider at a time like this, it reminded January of the man who played Denethor in the Lord of the Rings movies. His eyes moved from January to study the summoning circles. "You did not summon me, did you? You were meant to be the sacrifice. But you... you reversed it! He thought to trick me, but you tricked him, did you not? Ágaetr!"

"You are one of mine, if my nose serves me right," he continued. "Yes, I smell my blood within you childe. Come hither, let me look upon you."

He gestured for her to approach, but January did not move. Her fingers curled into fists, and her black raven wings sprouted from her back. A moment later she was clad in her armor, and lightning flashed brightly overhead.

"Good, good!" he cackled. "You are the raven's son indeed!"

"Or is it daughter?" He stepped from the circle that had summoned him, its barriers long since vanished. He began to pace around her, and looked upon her quizzically. "What manner of creature is this? A boy pretending to be a girl? What ergi perversion are you? I was tempted to let you live, if for nothing else so that you might procreate, and seed the world with more of my progeny. Yet that seems a dubious prospect now, does it not?"

"You're one to talk about ergi," January finally found her voice. "You would have been laughed out of Valhalla. A wizard? A man too cowardly to fight with his own two hands. It's no wonder the Varangian Guard ran you out."

He raised his axe, and took a step closer to January. She prepared to receive his coming attack. But the blow never fell. Instead he stopped dead in his tracks. The skin on his face bubbled out, as it did all across his frame. An audible hiss filled the air, as a wave of heat rolled off of him. January could smell flesh burning. Then he suddenly exploded in a superheated inferno of charred flesh and vaporized blood. It was like he had been microwaved, his insides flash-heated to gas, and burst apart. When it was over, there was nothing left of him but a red splatter on the marble floor.

January knew this. It was one of Blood Raven's signature killing moves, superheating blood into a vapor. She had seen her do it to the djieien at Ferndale Pride. Sure enough the other heroine stepped from the shadows. Her long black sword Y Ddraig Aur was clutched in one hand, and the golden runes that etched its blade glowed in the darkness. In her other hand she held the leaf-shaped raven sword Samhain, and the eyes of the raven's head carved into the center of its crossguard glittered of their own accord.

"Stormcrow, how is it that you yet live?" she stared at January with a mixture of unabashed wonder and joy.

"I had a few tricks of my own," January said curtly. She did not like to think about what had just happened, or her part in it.

"The Hierophant?"

January simply nodded to the wreckage of flesh and blood that filled the summoning circle.

Blood Raven took it all in. Then she tossed Samhain to January, who easily caught up the blade in one hand. It felt natural in her grip. The raven sword was warm and comforting, like it belonged there, like it was a part of her. Which of course it was, for Blood Raven's blood and bone lay within the steel. That meant January's blood and bone lay within it as well.

January allowed herself to briefly flourish the double-edged longsword around her head. Its black Damascus steel was lined with irregular waves of silver white, like water lapping the shores of beach. As ever, it spoke to her in the astral, whispering tales of the Morrigan, of death, and the end of the world.

Blood Raven then turned to the assembled monsters. Without a word she set upon them with a fury. She hacked the Paulding Light apart with her sword. The Waheela was next. With just a gesture of her hand, the giant white wolf simply exploded in another shower of superheated blood. The antlered figure followed a moment later. Then came the odd creature that was all angles and thorns. In moments it too was torn to shreds under Blood Raven's claws.

Those that remained alive turned and fled, except for Gola. When Blood Raven set eyes upon her, January leaped between them.

"No!" January cried. "She saved me. She distracted the Hierophant, so that I could reverse his spell!"

"Yet she was still in league with the creature!" Blood Raven snarled. She reached out and clamped her hand around the raven mocker's throat.

"No!" January insisted. She reached out, and clapped her own hand upon her mentor's wrist to hold her at bay.

"I did what I must," Gola croaked. "He came for me again. The other one. Not the golden haired child, but the old white man who died here today. He would have killed me otherwise."

"I tried to use the... thing," Gola held out the little phone that January had given her. The raven mocker flipped it open, to reveal a dark screen and number pad within. Clearly the battery was dead. "But it does not work. It has no lights, as before, and makes no sounds."

"Oh spleck, it's all my fault." January eased her grip on Blood Raven's forearm, turning it from an iron grip to a reassuring touch. "The battery's dead. I gave her a phone, but not a charger. Not that she could use one out on Garden Island anyway. I was stupid."

"Very well," Blood Raven eased back and let go of the raven mocker. "But if I learn-"

The sound of laughter cut off her words. It echoed off the marble columns and floors. It rang through the halls. It swam through the air. January recognized the baritone voice. It sent a chill of ice through her veins, and once again, made her feel as if the world was turning inside out.

"My... dear... girl..." Nátthrafn emerged from the shadows, as whole as ever. His skin looked different now however. Before it had been pale flesh - marbled with orange veins - but otherwise still human. Now it was clearly unearthly, made of some form of onyx stone or metal, flecked with white bone, and cut through with those red-orange veins that slashed through his mailed tunic and the blade of his axe. "Did you think to lay me low twice in the same fashion? I have learned much since we last met in Jack Parson's basement. Shall I demonstrate?"

He struck the bone haft of his battle axe down upon the floor, and the marble cracked into pieces. He whirled the onyx blade around with such speed and adroitness that January thought it might have been as light as paper. With each strike, its black blade carved an orange-red scar through the air and ground.

Each of these cuts formed a rune - a spell - that warped reality around him. The air rushed in toward him, as if the Dark Lord was a vacuum sucking it all in. Then the world literally caved in upon itself. Stone crumbled and flew through the air. The ceiling collapsed. The walls followed. Glass and brick shattered. Marble splintered. Everything fell into the vortex of power that now glowed around Nátthrafn.

"The old guardians built a prison about the Abyss long ago." Nátthrafn shouted above the din. "It is impossible to create such a gateway to escape from within. But here from the outside, it is simple enough to bore a tunnel into the Abyss. Behold my triumph!"

Blood Raven moved to attack. But both January and Gola held her back. They had to struggle against the tide that threatened to pull them in. But fighting for each step, they managed to stay outside of the ever-widening sphere of destruction. Lightning burst and thunder roared overhead, hailstones pelted them in a barrage, and the earth shook underfoot.

Finally that sucking vacuum halted, and January found the three of them standing in a parking lot before a sign for the Belle Isle Casino. Its name was written in golden letters on the side of a low brick wall that curved up in the center, like a hill or wave. Beyond, the once grand palace that she had so recently woken up within was gone. It was not ruined. It had simply ceased to exist altogether.

In its place rose a portal to another world. It was not the usual disc or doorway rimmed with swirling energy that January was used to seeing depicted in movies and artwork. Instead it was a glowing sphere that squatted, half-buried in the ground. It was massive, rising at least three hundred feet into the sky, if not more.

Its skin flowed and bubbled, like the surface of a lake. Cracks or bolts of red-orange energy cut through it at random, and seemed to glow around its edges, no matter what angle one looked at it from. It was partially transparent however, and through its surface January could glimpse a tenebrous landscape. Dark skies loomed there, upon which even darker clouds scudded and swarmed. Great jagged peaks rose up from the ground to cut at the firmament like claws. The ground itself was a barren landscape of rock and dust, utterly devoid of anything green or living. But shapes did move there nonetheless. Terrible shapes that lingered in the darkness, and even now shambled for the light of Earth.

[Acadian]

Ever the White Hat, Stormcrow tries to warn off Higherpants from his pending suicide by reversed ritual. But to no avail, and I confess a measure of delight about that. Finally the end of this villain and. . . uh oh. . . out of the frying pan and into the fire. It seems the ritual actually did accomplish its purpose, simply sacrificing Higherpants instead of Stormcrow. Grandpa Nátthrafn arrives and naturally starts plotting mayhem in this plane.

Given Nátthrafn’s centuries of experience and affinity for magic, I was surprised he focused on his confusion over his many times removed granddaughter’s gender instead of her potent mysticism. I thought many great mystics of long begone times presented without a clear gender. Something about dual spirits or such?

I cheered as Blood Raven microwaved him into mist. Glad Stormcrow coaxed her into sparing Gola though. And another nice reminder that Blood Raven's blade recognizes and accepts Jan due to the blood she shares with Blood Raven.

Whew, glad that’s done. Time for a celebratory. . . uh oh. Nátthrafn’s back! Yikes!

And what kind of realm of Oblivion is this now?

[Renee]

Yes, I agree. Magic comes from within. Since this is so, I definitely haven't got the knack for it, or am not in touch with whatever. That's amazing that you are able to improvise ingredients instead of relying on what the books say.

Yes, VERY true about whatever it is we're familiar with, because that's what we've grown up with. It's why my daughter has no problem with smartphones and tablets and Siri and Alexa (ugh ) and that sort of technology. And if we go backward 100+ years, we have some folks fearful of the very first telephones, the very first photographs, and so on. "Taking a person's picture is akin to stealing part of his soul!" a Victorian-era person might fear.

Similar with telephones. From what I understand, the fact that people could not necessarily see each other while they were speaking to each other was a huge issue for some folks.

Natthrafn's theme sounds like Uh oh! WHOA, the Hierophant's getting pwned. Well maybe he shouldnt't been such a meanie to his minions, not that this would matter. Rob "Natthrafn" Zombie is hungry. But I mean, Higherpants really is stubborn. Several folks have told him he won't get away with this. What was he thinking? I guess it's arrogance & ego, once again.

Thornwell sounds as though he was a half-decent teacher, guy should've kept his day job.

And there he is, Natthrafn himself. Can you refresh my memory (don't be upset, my memory sucks) what is his relationship to Branwen? It's her dad, right? Or was.

"What do we have here?" his voice was a deep, rich baritone. As strange as it was to consider at a time like this, it reminded January of the man who played Denethor in the Lord of the Rings movies

I'm hearing James Earl Jones. Oh no, he did not just say that. Looks like Natthrafn has not been keeping up with the unfolding of the LGBTQ community.

Whoa, wait, what.. okay, Raven is here. Phew.
Yes Gola's going to need something called a charger. And the fact that Gola still has the phone Jan gave her confirms that what Jan says is true. Seems like it's also distracting Raven from disintegrating the bird-woman into ether, as well.

My gosh, the Zombie is laughing. He is definitely showboating. "Behold my triumph!" Nattrafn Zombie says.

Okay, so there's a portal before them, but they aren't trapped in the same world as Natthrafn, correct? I sure hope not.

This post has been edited by Renee: Oct 26 2022, 06:14 PM

[WellTemperedClavier]

Looks like January's plan with the ritual interference paid off. A rather sudden end for the Hierophant, but a fitting one. He was, after all, nothing more than a minion with delusions of importance.

Quite an entrance for Nátthrafn. I was expecting that the Hierophant would be the main obstacle for this book, with Nátthrafn saved for later, but I like that he showed up. It immediately raises the stakes.

Also liked some of the references for Nátthrafn's venue: service in the Varangian Guard, Damascus steel, etc. Gives a better picture of the world he came from.

Now with the portal open (and the casino completely destroyed?), he'll be able to pluck all kinds of horrors from his dimension. January and Blood Raven will both have their hands full just dealing with the various monsters, and worse, he'll be pulling the strings.

Dangerous times ahead...

[SubRosa]

Acadian: I did want to show January's true colors by begging the Hierophant to stop. She could have easily just kept her mouth shut and let him off himself. Likewise, I wanted to make the Hierophant's nature clear as well. It is his own lust for power and amorality that kills him. He had every chance to stop, and live a long(er) life.

Unlike some of those other cultures who have been mentioned in the past, the Old Norse were not especially progressive. I added a link about the term Ergi that explains it in great detail. But basically they were ok with gay stuff so long as you were considered the "top". Men thought to be the "bottom" were thought of as being weak and womanly, because you were submitting to another man. They were basically reviled. The same is true for men who became magicians. Magic was a woman's thing. A man who became a mage was seen as soft and effeminate. That was why January made the dig at him about being thrown out of the Varangian Guard for being a wizard.

And of course, Nátthrafn was only nominally a Pagan Norseman. He was born at the end of the Viking Era, and converted to Christianity during his early lifetime. He spent nearly all of his life (nominally) as a Christian. He was even a Bishop in Iceland at one point.

Plus Nátthrafn is a bad guy. Of course he is going to be a bigot.

Nátthrafn is back, and he is bringing Oblivion with him.


Renee: Higherpants basically killed himself. As you said, he was told to stop numerous times. He knew Nátthrafn's history. But he still pushed ahead, and got what was coming to him.

Nátthrafn is Blood Raven's father. Go back to the latter half of Book 4 to get the full story of his life and crimes.

Remember when you pointed out that January had given Gola a phone but no charger? Well this is where that tiny oversight bears fruit. If January had not made that mistake, then Gola would have called her, and they would have gotten the Hierophant before all this happened.

The Zombie is absolutely showboating. He has waited nearly a thousand years for this moment. This is his time to shine.

There is now a portal to the Abyss where they had been. As will become very important from here on out. That will become a lot more clear in today's post.


WellTemperedClavier: Back when I was doing the initial plotting I briefly toyed with Nátthrafn not making a personal appearance. But then I realized that he is basically Chekhov's Dark Lord. He needs to come off the mantle and get fired when Act 3 comes around. So the other villains: The Summoner, the Hierophant, the various Abyssals, they were all just stepping stones for the heroes to deal with before meeting the actual Big Bad. As you said, now the stakes are as high as they can possibly be. It is the end of the world.

The casino has been completely destroyed. That will become more evident in the coming posts, as the gateway continues to grow, and more Abyssals issue from it. The Zerg Rush is about to begin.












January's Fight Theme - Two Steps From Hell - Never Back Down

Y Ddraig Aur is pronounced Uh-Thri-g-Aye-Ur

Cutting with a blunt sword

Goblins

Buggane

Otyugh

Zerg Rush

Átahsaia


Book 10.9 - Alliance

Nátthrafn had been engulfed by this pustulous bubble of the Abyss. Now he strode out from it, back under the tumultuous skies of Earth. January immediately lifted one hand to the clouds above, and ripped forth a bolt of lightning. It cracked down upon the Dark Lord with titanic force. But he merely raised his battle axe, and seemed to catch the storm of electricity upon its onyx blade. The orange-red cracks that ran through the metal glowed brighter than usual. Then he buried the axe head into the earth beneath his feet, and with that the lightning simply grounded away harmlessly.

Myrkr - that was the name of that axe - "Darkness" in Old Norse. January could feel it now, across the astral. She could sense that it has once been a part of the Earth. But like its master, it had long since been corrupted and subsumed by the Abyss. Now it was as much a creature of that place as he.

Now it was Blood Raven's turn to step up. She raised Y Ddraig Aur in her hands, and strode to meet her father. He struck first, feinting with the haft of his axe, before bringing its single, long edge around to strike at her throat from the opposite direction. But Blood Raven was ready for him, and lifted her own rune blade to meet it.

Abyssal steel met meteoric iron, and fierce sparks struck up where the two ground against one another. As always when she was in the presence of the sword, Y Ddraig Aur roared like a literal dragon across the astral. Now January could swear that the golden runes set into the black steel of the blade burned like fire. She had not seen that before. Or had she? She searched her memory, back to the battle at Ferndale Pride. Blood Raven had used the draconic sword to kill the djieien, only for it to return to life, as was its wont. Had the sword glowed with the same fury then?

It had. Blood Raven had said before that it was not forged to take mortal lives. She had even deliberately put it away in the past when not fighting Creatures of the Abyss. Clearly it had one purpose: the destruction of Abyssals.

Nátthrafn actually recoiled at this for a moment, like someone accidentally touching a hot stove.

"You brought a dragon here?" he hissed in consternation. "But the ancients are all dead and dust now!"

For long moments, he stared at the blade as the two stood with weapons locked. Then he seemed to recover his bravado.

"I see... not a dragon, but a dragon's blood!" he cried. "Oh how clever dear daughter, to bring the ghost of one of the old guardians to our duel. You must have gone through some trouble to obtain that."

"After our last meeting, I traveled back in time to find a one willing to grant me the boon of its wound-dew," Blood Raven replied evenly. "I hope you appreciate how blessed you shall be to receive Y Ddraig Aur's wrath."

But January could no longer pay attention to the private duel between father and daughter. She had her own foes to match. For a horde of creatures now issued from the edge of the Abyssal portal. They were short, perhaps only four feet tall, with hairless green and yellow skin and elongated skulls. They possessed no noses at all, instead a pair of thin slits lay between their narrow eyes and their wide, toothy mouths.

They carried an assortment of weapons such as clubs, axes, and a few swords. All were of the same black and orange Abyssal metal as Nátthrafn's axe. But unlike his, they were crudely rendered, as if by inexpert hands. Nor did they burn with the magical power that her forebear's axe did. These were simple, rough tools, nothing more.

They swarmed upon her and Gola. The raven mocker leaped skyward to escape their grasp, leaving January by herself on the ground. She knew that she could have followed. But then the Abyssals would have been free to rampage across the island. That she could not allow. So she met them straight on, with hands, feet, wings, and sword.

As she had learned when she had first fought Gola, her wings could do more than fly. Their leading and trailing edges were far from sharp. But when she struck with them it did not matter. With all that force applied to an area as small as her wing's edges, they sliced through whatever they hit, at least so far. January had seen the same done with swords with completely dulled blades. They could still hack through bundles of reeds as if they were butter, and she could hit a lot harder than the ordinary people wielding those blades.

Of course, she also did have an actual sword. Samhain fit in her hand like it was born there, or like she was born for it. She did not know a lot about sword fighting. But she did know a little thanks to sparring with Ryo. Now he was a master. In the very least she knew all the basic stances, and how to attack and defend and keep her balance. Her other martial arts training certainly helped there. For it had instilled with the basics needed for any form of physical combat.

The goblins struck at her with their rough weapons. January blocked with her wings, then replied with either the sword or her other natural weaponry. Here a fist caved in an Abyssal skull. There a foot shattered their ribs. In the meanwhile the raven sword literally hacked the goblins and their weapons to pieces. Heads, arms, legs, all soon littered the ground.

January did not hold back. These were not muggers, or thieves, or even white supremacists like the neo-Nazis at Motor City Pride. They were literal horrors from another reality, that threatened to annihilate not just her, but her universe. If the paradox of tolerance was ever in effect, it was certainly here. This was purely a matter of survival. Not simply her own, but of her entire world.

Then came a much larger creature. It towered over the goblins. It towered over January. Humanoid in shape, it was covered in coarse black hair. Its eyes were torches, and its maw was founded upon a pair of curling tusks. She recognized it as a buggane, an ogre-like creature from Manx folklore.

It struck down at January with a massive fist. But she had become Earth. She was stone, she was the mountain, she was adamant. The blow had no effect upon her whatsoever. She replied with a slice of her wings, and took off one of the monster's legs at the knee. It toppled to the ground, and she leaped upon its chest to deliver the final blow with Samhain.

But another buggane came up behind it. Before January could react, it grabbed hold of both of her arms, pinning them to her sides. It leaned forward to bite her face off. Then a loud bustle of wings rang out from above, and a pair of talons swept down to latch upon the buggane's head. January felt herself lifted skyward with the beast. Upward they flew with terrific speed, putting them hundreds of feet above the ground in moments.

She caught a glimpse of Gola up there, beyond the great bulk of the buggane. She held the monster's head in both of her taloned feet, dangling the giant like a child's toy. Then the raven mocker let go, and both the buggane and January went tumbling through space.

January now squirmed free of its grasp, even as it vainly grabbed for something to hold on to in order to arrest its fall. Her wings snapped out of their own accord, and held her aloft. The buggane was not so lucky. It plummeted to the concrete below, and crushed a pair of goblins underneath its twisted and broken form. January pulled in her wings and let herself fall after it. She led the way with Samhain, and its Damascus steel blade pierced the flopping creature's skull. Then finally it too, went still.

Bright light dazzled January's eyes, and a wave of heat washed over her. She turned to see that a long slash of laser light had incinerated its way through the goblin ranks. It had even blackened the concrete surface of the parking lot underfoot. She followed the line of destruction back to its source, and saw a bright flash of silver, white, and blue rocket across the sky from the south.

"Hooaaah!" the newcomer exulted. "Party in the D!"

"Lighthammer!" January smiled. He was her oldest enemy, and one of her first allies. "Your presence is most welcome here my friend!"

"Gondor called for aid!" he laughed. "Let me light some beacons of my own."

The light-powered superhero set to work alongside January and Gola. Where they cut and slashed with their natural and human-made weapons, he turned loose his energetic armaments. Bolts of hard light sent goblins flying like bowling pins, and even rocked the larger bugganes back off their feet. Lasers incinerated them in their tracks. The hard light force fields generated from his forearms blocked their attacks, and the light that sprouted from his lower body sent him soaring across the sky.

But more creatures issued from the Abyss. There were flaming skulls that flew through the air. Creatures of shadow crept across the land, while owl-human hybrids swept past them. Strangest of all was a creature with massive oval-shaped body propelled by numerous elephantine legs. Its head mainly consisted of a massive mouth filled with sharp teeth. But worse of all several tentacles rose from its frame and snapped about in the air. Each ended in a wide spiked pad, that reminded January of a squid's long feeding tentacles.

January faced down the latter, and dodged aside its gaping maw. But one of those long tentacles slithered around her waist, and pinned her wings to her side. Before she could react, it lifted her skyward, only to slam her down hard to the earth. Concrete shattered under the blow, and January felt her teeth rattle from the impact.

Brilliant light dazzled her eyes, and a wave of heat washed over her. Then the tentacle went slack, and fell from her body. She leaped up to find that it had been neatly severed from the Abyssal's body, leaving only a charred stump in its wake. The source of the cutting instrument was clear enough. Lighthammer whooshed past through the air a moment later, and another of his lasers sliced apart a pair of goblins.

January took advantage of the monster's pause, and leaped up into the air. She came down with one hand atop the creature's upper jaw. With her other arm she dropped her elbow squarely atop the Abyssal's head. She felt flesh and bone splinter beneath the blow, and the monster collapsed motionless to the earth, only to fade away moments later.

All of the Abyssals did that. Their bodies vanished upon death. It had been the same at Ferndale Pride and Jobbie Nooner. They were not part of this realm. The stuff of their bodies could not exist here without magic to sustain them. Without that, they literally ceased to exist here in any form.

"It's a Zerg Rush," January noted as the hordes of creatures spread out in all directions. With Blood Raven caught up fighting Nátthrafn, that left just the three of them to hold back the tide rushing from the portal. But the gateway was huge, hundreds of feet across, and Abyssals issued from all sides. They could not be everywhere at once, and there were just too many for them to hold back in even one place.

"Lightning balls!" Lighthammer came down to hover in the air beside January. "You call it, I'll light 'em up."

January nodded, and lowered her sword to her side. She raised her free hand and extended it outward. Lighthammer stepped in close beside her, and thrust his two hands out around her own. She ripped the sky asunder, and brought down a crackling bolt of lightning at the spot she indicated. At the same time he let loose a double-bolt of hard light. It was just as they had practiced at Green Island - his kinetic light struck the lightning, and sent it exploding out in all directions.

Again and again they did this. It felt like calling in artillery strikes in a video game. Packs of goblins and shadow creatures were incinerated in this manner. The massive outpouring of energy literally disintegrated dozens of Abyssals at a time. Those whose bodies were not instantly annihilated were often dismembered or charred to ash. They of course dissipated like all their kind who expired on Earth.

For a moment January was starting to feel optimistic. Then the largest Abyssal yet loomed from the rippling face of the portal. It was humanoid in shape, and taller than a three-story house. Its iron gray hair was long and matted, and its equally gray skin was so thick that horns appeared to grow from it. A huge axe of Abyssal metal swung from its paws, so large that its head was bigger than January was tall.

"What the hell is that thing?" Lighthammer wondered.

"I think it's an Átahsaia," January murmured. "It was in the Bestiary. It's a giant, cannibalistic monster from Zuni legend."

She trained her hand at the newcomer, and waited a moment for Lighthammer to catch up with his own fists. Then she cut loose with another bolt of lightning centered directly upon the giant. Her companion opened fire with his hard light, and an instant later a great nebula of energy engulfed the Átahsaia.

But the light dissipated, and the gray monster lumbered forth. Now its eyes were fixed upon January and Lighthammer, and it raised its axe to strike...

[Renee]

Lightning can't harm the Dark Lord, so the question is, what can? How are they going to defeat him? Or can they merely just keep him at bay?

I still think it's wild how inanimate objects like swords have their own lives in this tale.

Father and daughter are talking shop! They're just casually catching up as they also fight each other. Not exactly a chat over tea and crumpets, or a drive in the old convertible, as most father/daughter reunions are wont to be.

But uh oh, sounds like some DnD hordes have set upon the island. Where are all of January's friends like Ryo? How can she handle these Level 1 monsters on her own?

Nice, she's hacking them to pieces. "I'll hack you to pieces!!!"

Ha! It's Lighthammer. Soon as a lazer got mentioned I was wondering who it could be. The Hammer hasn't been around for a bunch of episodes. Glad he's here now. This does in fact seem like one of those videogames from the arcade days. Might and Magic, perhaps. A lot of stuff going on at once.

Oh [censored].

This post has been edited by Renee: Oct 29 2022, 01:01 PM