Log:A Child's Fantasy, Scene 4

A Child's Fantasy 2020/07/17 	 Amelia Apex Carpenter Grimm Harlequin Kelly Quiet Slinger Marty Flinn 4

Two second-grade kids, Jake Barker and Andy Rice, had vanished from Harrisburg Elementary. Investigation revealed that they had been 'disappeared' accidentally by first-grader Marty Flinn, while they were bullying him. Following the panicked interdimensional displacement of a classroom door and some denial, Marty confessed and agreed to help. The heroes went through a portal to the world on banishment, save for Carpenter, remained on Earth with Marty.

The world beyond the portal is an almost cartoonish fantasy world, shaped by Marty's imagination and peopled with dream-spirits playing roles. There's a huge, dark forest with large predators, a grim castle on a mountain top to the north, a big ocean to the east. Carpenter has identified the dimension as matching the world of a book Marty likes, 'The Tower of the Dark Knight', which involves two heroes fighting their way through the forest to retrieve a magic sceptre the knight has stolen. Carpenter has just discovered that in the book the Dark Knight is actually in the service of a witch, who uses the sceptre to summon a dragon; the heroes defear her by taking the sceptre away, at which point the dragon turns on her.

The heroes, having fought their way past various obstacles, are just now emerging from the forest at the foot of the mountain upon which the castle stands. The castle is currently surrounded by black skies, lit in flashes by strange-coloured lightning, and the black shape of a huge dragon can now be discerned with the clouds. 

 Grimm says, "So Jack, we got to steal the scepter to turn the dragon against the witch. Can you read up and tell me where the scepter is? I need to try and catch up with the group that ditched the fight to warn them."

Amelia teleports upward to clear the trees and grows wings, aiming to catch up with the advanced party.

There are some normal-looking birds about, but no more flying monsters - not counting the distant dragon!

Harlequin having dealt with some minor annoyances, Harlequin urges the noble steed he rides to gallop after the others. If he passes anyone who looks like they need a lift, he'll stretch out an arm to try to swing then aboard behind himself. A part of him, barely acknowledged, thanks his father, may his soul rot further, for forcing him to learn to ride like a Cossack.

Quiet resumes her sprint in order to catch up to those on point, not to mention getting a better view of the dragon that grows more distinct. Antov would soil his armor if he saw her with something like that mounted on her wall. Is her wall large enough? She'd need a bigger house.

On the other hand, The Ambassador would ...probably be devastated. She'd rather want to pet it, hold it. Quiet isn't sure 'George' would be the best name for it, though. She would -really- need a bigger house.

Amelia swoops down to rejoin the forward group. "You know we should just leave this to Ms Grimm. After all it's her family that wrote all these fairy tales." she remarks humorously,

Slinger swings, bounds, twists & flips through the forest canopy- made all the easier thanks to his webslingers.

He is quiet but emerges from teh forest to rejoin the others.

The mountain is of dark stone, the castle with its high central tower at the very peak. The road zigzags its way up the precipitous slopes, affording plenty of opportunity for defenders to drop things on those climbing.

Grimm senses the group far ahead with hr shadow sight. She opens a portal and steps through. "Oh, good. You found it," she says dryly of the dragon. "I don't think my family wrote this specific story," she adds, actually serious.

Amelia chuckles, "I could go ahead and try to talk to it. It worked once."

The dragon seems almost to be solidifying out of the cloud, and descends to perch on the tower.

Grimm explains to the others, "Ja...ahhh...so. Detective Carpenter said if we steal the scepter like in the story, we can turn the dragon on the real villain: a witch." She eyes Amelia briefly as she says the word witch. "I'm not referring to either of us," she says with a grin just to be clear.

Slinger is about to say somehting but Grimm cuts him off at the pass. He still smirks.

Amelia nods in acknowledgement to Grimm. "Anyone know where this scepter might be found. Although... it is kind of cheating isn't it?"

Grimm shakes her head. "We're supposed to be playing out this story, aren't we?" She looks to Harlequin to confirm. "That's what this world is made from. We're all playing roles in a fashion, just part of the tale. The Detective's reading ahead to try and get us more details, but it'll take time. Any luck finding the two boys?"

Quiet looks to Grimm and rolls plated shoulders in a shrug, patting her weapon. Are there any nanotech railguns in this tale? Well, there are now.

The dragon rears up, angrily, eyes glowing with a yellowy green light - then settles down again.

Grimm shrugs and grins back a Quiet. "So it's a sci-fi fantasy tale now." She looks back up to the witch. "Harley, Amelia, you got a way to counterspell that?"

Amelia looks at the dragon. Shrugs her shoulders. "Nope. That's above my paygrade." She grins, "But between us I figure we can give it one heck of a headache."

"I think we can try, Grimm," Harlequin replies looking over at Amelia then back to Grimm. "Once Detective Carpenter gets you the locatoin of the sceptre, you should take a group to recover it. Amelia and I can probably keep it occupied."

Slinger waits for the wizards to decide on a plan of action. He watches the dragon with interest wondering how much of a headache he can provide without his old suit.

He's glad the others are confident.

Grimm nods. "I'm still waiting for him to read up on that part. I'd offer to make an illusion to trick it, but making something that big, it's probably it'll see through it."

Harlequin mutter under his breath in Russian. "OF course, keeping it occupied /and/ surviving, eh, who wants to live forever?" The tone sounds morbidly cheerful.

"Me." Slinger replies. "But I bet I can at least annoy it some." He offers, suddenly wishing he had taken a sword from the knights they faced before.

 Carpenter says, "The sceptre is held by the witch until it's taken away."

 Grimm says, "Thanks! I owe you! Oh wait, I already made that offer before we went through, didn't I?"

Grimm adds, "I guess the witch has the scepter. So if we steal it back from her, the dragon isn't an issue."

Grimm smirks faintly at Harlequin. "I'd usually not be worried, but for once, I actually have plans for the future. And being eaten isn't on the itinerary."

The dragon looks down in the direction of the heroes. Only it's glowing eyes and the fiery in its mouth can be seen: the lightning is becoming rarer.

Amelia says, "You want it annoyed. No problem." She raises her voice to a shout, "HAY. YOUR MOTHER WAS A DUCK AND YOU WERE HATCHED IN AN OMELET PAN."

Quiet looks over at Harlequin. Her helm tilts as she taps out on her right forearm with her left hand. A moment later, a holographic projection of text springs up momentarily.

ANYONE BRING A BUCKET OF WATER? OR A HOUSE TO DROP ON HER?

She's read a few magical tales, too.

Grimm looks to the others. "I think I can make a gate to the witch. We surprise her and focus on stealing the scepter primarily. Ready?"

Harlequin glances over at Slinger then shrugs one shoulder. As he draws magick to himself, he murmurs, "Well, then, grab your sceptre stealers and we'll..." He looks over at Amelia as she insults the dragon's mother. "...get it's atention..."

And with that, he pulls together a silver-blue sphere of pure magick and launches it at the dragon.

The dragon indeed may have heard it. For it takes to the air with mighty wing flaps that seem to stir winds even at this distance, and plunges down the mountainside toward the heroes, bellowing yellow-green flame....

"I'd much rather dance with a witch than a dragon any day." Slinger says to Grimm with a nod. "You open the door & we'll see what we can do about that scepter."

Amelia throws up a mystic barrier betwixt dragon and flamable heroes.

The dragon approaches with terrible speed, though it must be nearly two miles to the tower....

Slinger is pretty quick but is only as quick as his method of travel- and so he pauses, keeping his eye on the rapidly approaching dragon while he waits for Grimm to open her gate.

Quiet is a good shot... though a moving target, even a large one, at that distance is, well, a long shot. Still, she brings her weapon up, bracing with her off hand, and takes aim at the thing.

The dragon rushes ever closer, seeming roughly to double in size!

Amelia says, "Right now I'm missing Radical. This is the perfect use case for that distance distorion spell of his."

Grimm focuses on the witch with her shadow sight, and the location she's at. She stretches out her hand and a black portal swirls before her and Slinger. "I kind of wish he was here too, but I don't think that spell would be enough to slow that thing down," she says as it barrels for them rapidly.

The gate opens two meters off on this side of the parapet, in mid air with a long drop below. "Watch your step," Grimm says.

[CC] Harlequin says, "This is your time to shine, Flea!...I mean, Slinger!"

Slinger leaps through the gate and on toward the Witch ahead. If she can see them, then she can hit them. He moves to make himself a more tempting target while the others follow.

"Good afternoon! Well- evening? I'm not sure. Hard to tel with all the Spook you've invested in. Don't think I havent noticed. I absolutely ove what you've done with the place." He says rapid fire before asking. "Now I'm sure you're wondeirng what I'm doing here- so I'll get right to it. I'm here to talk to you about infestations. I know- a Spider-guy in this get up talking about bugs, but that's jsut it madam- I'm not talking about bugs!"

Slinger gets through the portal and into the witches personal space quite readily, more or less blocking the portal behind with his body.

"Now I appreciate you giving me a moment of your time. With you being the biggest house on the block I jsut knew you'd be having a problem with the worst of all critters. Sticky, slimy, trouble making critters of the 4th grade! Well Maybe 3rd. Still!" He exclaims, slowly aluding ot the boys they're looking for.

Amelia quickly analyses the evolving combat situation. She's pretty sure she can get a shot off and still put up a defensive barrier against the dragon's breath when it arrives. Shaking her bow open she draws a flight arrow from her quiver and smoothly lines up a shot against the dragon. Then the situation changes as Grimm's gate opens not where it should have done. Changing to a bodkin arrow she take a couple of steps to the side and fires... at the specter. Hoping to knock out of the witch's grip.

Lightning flashes from the staff, deflecting the arrow somewhat.

The witch screeches, "No! My sceptre!" as it's torn from her hand.

Slinger knows opportunity when it calls. Today that ring sounds distinctly like an arrow striking a sceptre and it sliding across the floor.

"Oh no. That's terrible. Don't get up- let me get that..." He says flipping his wrist out and shooting a webline at the sceptre to snag it.

Slinger's webline shoots out of his webslinger and arcs perfectly across the room where it sticks to the scepter just in time for Slinger to yank the sceptere into his possession.

The witch flies at Slinger, trying to grab hold of the sceptre again! She looks suddenly rather less beautiful and rather more terrifying as her face distorts...

Slinger spins around her grasp but stays relatively in place. "Woah, ma'am. I was being quite considerate here and now you've turned nasty with nary a word! Perhaps I should take my business elsewhere!" Slinger says in mock protest.

Harlequin focussed on the dragon, doesn;t see what happens through the Gate. He levels a hand at the distant, but rapidly approaching dragon and let's go with what he calls officically his Bolt of Pure Magic, but secretly thinks of as the Anti-Kaiju spell. The sphere of blue silver magick shoots at the dragon

The dragon flies on relentlessly!

The spell splashes harmlessly off the dragon. He murmurs in Russian, "Well, at least it was pretty..."

Grimm calls out, "Slinger, you have the scepter! You control the dragon now! Tell it or will it to stop!"

 Grimm says, "If we have the scepter, we DO control the dragon, right, Jack? Is there a magic incantation, or something special to make that work?"

Amelia chuckles, "If we're about to die please speak a language I understand, Sasha. You asked my not to learn Russian if you recall."

Slinger backflips and leaps to exit stage gate before the Witch lands a lucky shot on him before he can get through the gate.

"OOh So from Dragon Slayer to Dragon Commander?! HAHA! Best. Day. Ever!" He replies to Grimm as he leaps through.

He stays on alert in case the witch follows but he tries to concentrate on having the dragon do a loop-de-loop.

Quiet decides to aim for something somewhere between 'very large taxidermy bill' and 'very large litterbox.' Philosophically. Physically, she is still aiming for the dragon. The bore of her weapon grows very large before it looses a ball of mesh that expands en route due to weights at the circumference. Be vewwy Quiet. Dwagon season.

There, now Indira can be happy. Quiet didn't simply put a large hole in it. Though... it isn't technically real, right? We won't think of that, because that ruins the whole mounted trophy and pet idea, both. In any case, the nanowire tangles and snares the thing. Not completely, perhaps, due to size, but that should make flapping those wings a wee bit harder.

The dragon easily bursts free of the snares with the next flap of its massive wings. And keeps flying forward, though decelerating, till it's practically in the heroes' faces!

"I don't think I'm in control here... I'm definitely thinking 'Loop-de-loop' and its clearly still thinking 'eat all your friends'." Slinger reports to Grimm.

"Well, yell at it to stop instead of just thinking it??" Grimm suggests in sheer panic at the size of the massive thing in their faces.

Slinger shrugs at Grimm before turning ot the dragon and yelling, "STOP FLYING!"

He waves the sceptre about just in case a visual component is required as well.

Grimm closes the portal, leaving the witch behind. She holds her hand out to slinger, palm open. "Maybe if we both hold it and try? You verbally, me psychically?" she suggests. "Or maybe tell it to attack the witch like in the story?"

Grimm says and thinks at the same time, "Go capture the witch on the parapet!"

The dragon booms, "I CANNOT. I AM STILL BOUND TO HER WILL."

Grimm says, "Uh oh..."

 Grimm says, "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, Jack! I hope you can read faster on how to make this scepter work, because I think we're about to get eaten!"

Glancing back over her shoulder, Apex wants to snort with derision. But she doesn't. For a couple of reasons. Not the least of which is that she has no need to breathe. So she doesn't have air in her lungs right now. She only gets that when she is planning to speak.

But watching the giant Dragon soar overhead, she nods to herself... reinforcing the idea in her own mind that stopping to engage in combat was the single worst thing they could have done. But....

She grins and shrugs. If everyone else is going to draw a line in the sand, she can use that distraction to sneak closer. So she scales up a small cliff fact, scampering quickly and using outcroppings for cover as she goes. She strains with her ears to hear if there are any defenders atop this particular cliff-face... not following the road, but about fifty yards off of it and running parallel. She's not a speedster, but when going all out, she can do around forty mph. But she's only going about half that speed, since she is trying to be sneaky. Her goal is to reach the tower / castle / kids while all the bad guys focus on the fighters... and hoping that she can get them out.

Amelia holds herself ready to engage in defensive let's not be cooked and eaten action.

Carpenter hurriedly find the passage in the book as says on the link, "In the book the heroine holds the sceptre and tells the dragon 'I release you!'"

Grimm turns to Slinger. "You gotta say "I release you" to the dragon!"

Harlequin starts on a defensive spell in case the others don't solve the dragon problem in time....

Slinger looks at Grimm with confusion. Magic isn't his bag.

"Bound to her will?" He asks. He squeezes the scepter and says, "Well be free, Dragon! You're your ow-- oh." He pauses and nods to Grimm. "Got it."

He clears his throat. "I RELEASE YOU, DRAGON!"

Quiet doesn't have much experience or trust in magic. Not from her side, at least. Neither does she put so much stock into words. She's much more a fan of hardware, even if netting didn't last but a second. That unsaid, she still tries for something less... holey, as her weapon shifts again before she snaps off a charged shock round. Maybe she can at least annoy it into going elsewhere, if nothing else?

The dragon grins(?) - bares its teeth, anyway. "I THANK YOU, LITTLE ONE!" it says to Slinger. And then it turns about - not without striking out at Quiet with its tail - and launches itself into the air with a roar, heading back toward the tower.

"You got it Dragon-Man!" Slinger says, leaping into the air to make sure he's heard. "Give her hell!"

Grimm lets out a big sigh of relief, then looks to Slinger with a weak smirk. "Guess that makes you the heroine of the story."

 Grimm says, "Whew! Just in time! I could frickin' kiss you for the save, Jack!"

Amelia throws up a barrier over Quiet as protection.

"Nice. Dae-- uum. Slinger. Slayer & Liberator of Dragons." Slinger says proudly, letting the heroine comment bounce off him at the moment.

He keeps a hold of the scepter before he notices the Dragon isn't lfiting off straight away. He watches in horror as Quiet is struck at.

The backdraught from the dragon's wings is enough to knock most people off their feet as it charges back towards its erstwhile mistress....

Fortunately, most of the crunching sound that follows is the shattering of magical energy barriers. The rest... is tail hitting Quiet and then Quiet hitting the ground. This what she gets for trying to be nice? Well, relatively (not)speaking.

Grimm gets buffeted by the wings and knocked back a few meters.

All of the chaos behind her seems to be growing a bit more quiet by the time Apex reaches the castle wall. She pauses there at the base of it and peers up the sheer face... while keeping sneakysneaky. Okay. Made it this far... now up and over.

Slinger rolls back to his feet and then bounces over to Quiet to help Quiet back on to her feet.

He offers her a hand up. "Well its nice to see you were ready with plan B, Q." He says with a smirk that is naturally hidden behind his mask.

Luckily, Apex finds the wall she approaches essentially unguarded. This might be something to do with the alarm bells, the panicked shouting and the running to man the arbalests as the dragon returns....

Distractions are awesome for stealth. Up and over goes Apex. Right up the wall thanks to vampires being able to do that. But she's still being quiet because duh.

Amelia sits up from prone. "Not that we're keeping score or anything, but I think that's one you owe me, Quiet." She laughs. Mostly from relief.

Apex remains unspotted as everyone on the inner towers is looking toward the dragon. Others are simply running away, but they aren't a problem either. The dragon, though, is bothered only about the witch, high atop the towering central keep.

Quiet can't exactly show a smirk to Slinger, but she doesn't deny him the aid of the hand up. That just means her other is free to give him a brief single-finger salute in rebuttal. Amelia gets a slightly different gesture, with the one upraised digit, this time, being her thumb.

The scent of young children is easy enough to distinguish. They were clearly taken into the big tower....

Slinger laughs and says, "Right back at you. I ought to slug you for shooting /my/ Dragon." He laughs again.

"Aw crap- do you think the kids are back at the castle? I should have rode my dragon." He says, kicking his foot in consternation.

The tower. Of course. Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your... oh skip it. Apex makes her way towards the tower, glances up to see if any windows up near the top might be enterable by a human size being. Otherwise she may have to go inside first. Joy.

Grimm lands on her side and groans a bit. She flickers and vanishes, reappearing back where she was and on her feet, tugging on her jacket to straighten it out.

The higher windows are indeed wide enough. Kelly can reach a window just about the time the dragon reaches the tower and the top couple of floors burst into green flame...

Flame is bad m'kay? Apex scales up the wall and ducks inside just in time for the flames to wash over the stone. . o o O O (Well, that was terrifying)

But then once inside, she draws her small blade and begins trying to track down the kids.

Well, time to investigate. Pricking her ears, Apex creeps towards the lab smell... keeping senses alert for danger or kids or dangerous kids.

The lab proves to be - well, pretty much all you'd expects. Strange herbs, strange objects, strange substances and strange biological specimens, some living and some dead, in large jars, all labelled...

Rubbing her nose, Apex shakes her head. She feels a need to sneeze, but suppresses it. Instead, she creeps on, trying to find the kids. They are the priority.

Grimm rolls her eyes at Slinger's frustration. "What, now you want to add dragon rider to your titles?" she teases.

As Apex is about to move on, she catches the scent of the children in the lab after all.

"Well if you get to be a Empress of the Eclipse I should get something out of it too." Slinger retorts. "A long list of titles is the least your lifestyle could do for dragging me into all this magic business."

Pausing, Apex peers back into the lab. Perhaps it's some of the kids' belongings? Or are the kids like.. in a Hansel and Gretel oven? She flares her nostrils and inclines her head as she tries to figure this out ... before she enters the lab

Grimm grins and snap points at Slinger. "Empress of the Eclipse? I like that one. Points to you. Okay, we'll work on getting you Dragonrider for a title next."

The scent is old, and faint - but then Apex catches the label on two of the jars. "Jake Newt" and "Andy Slug". The jars, indeed, contain one newt and one slug, still alive, respectively.

Narrowing her eyes, Apex reaches for the jars. She mouths silently to herself... 'you have -got- to be shitting me'... but she palms them and tucks each into one of the pockets of her jacket.

Outside, the witch has been forced back to the rooftop by the rising flames - where she's now being carried off, screaming, in the dragon's great paws....

Slinger grins happily, not that anyone but Grimm can tell. "Excellent." He replies, returning Grimm's snap point with a laugh.

Without the witch, maybe the army will crumble... maybe the castle will crumble. Shit. Apex wants to make sure these aren't just the wrong targets, and lingers for a moment to try to locate any other sign of the kids...

Grimm looks around to the others. "So, uh. Anyone still following the trail of those kids?" she asks, having lost track of Apex in all the excitement.

Discarded clothing in a basket suggests that indeed the children did end up here.

One of the shirts has a slug trail on it, if confirmation were needed.

Gathering up the clothing, just so that the kids' modesty might be preserved should the transformation be reversible, Apex just sighs and shakes her head. Still not speaking aloud, she tucks the clothing under her jacket, sheathes her knife, and heads back for the window.. grumbling silently.

The defenders of the castle, or what's left on them, seem to be fleeing by this point, enabling relatively easy escape.

"I hope so. But at least we'll be Evil Witch fr-- well 'slightly more evil witch-free' while we look, amirite?" Slinger says, looking for a silver lining. "So let's just double back and see if we can pick up a trail to follow... or that lady in the domino mask- right? She sounded pretty confident she could hunt them down." Slinger offers.

Out the window, down the wall, over the river, through the woods. Gramma can suck it. She got carried off by a dragon.

Apex emerges from the trees with jars in each hand, "So I have bad news, and I have worse news. Can anyone here transform a slug and a newt -back- into kids?"

Grimm shoots Slinger a warning look and raises her eyebrow at the evil witch comment. "I swear, you and others keep saying it, and people are going to start thinking I really -am- one."

Grimm looks back as Apex returns. "Ah, there you are--ohh. Umm." She looks down at the jars. "That's....that's not so bad," she tries to remain positive.

Amelia speaks up. "If it's an enchantment I can do it. If I can't then Radical almost certainly can."

"If they can't tell nothing I say is worth listening to then it seems like we've found a really easy way of telling the 'special cases' apart from th--" Slinger's commentary is cut off mid-sentence by Kelly's Breaking News.

"Not so bad?" Slinger scoffs before falling in line with Quiet- both physically and in volume so the others can work without distraction.

A small green fire on the horizon is the last hint of the dragon and its witch captive.

"Well, it depends. Did the witch put breathing holes in those jars?" Grimm comments back to Slinger's scoffing.

Hotfoot says, "Try touching them with the sceptre?"

"Well, then I found'em." mutters Apex. "I have their clothes too, so they can get dressed when it's reversed." Then she glances up at the flame, "Oh, and the dragon carried the witch off with screams and such." she says.

"Nice. I always said, from the moment I met that dragon that it was a good dragon. Saved us a bunch of grief from the sounds of it." Slinger says cheerfully as the wicked witch shrieks in the background.

Setting the jars down on the ground, Apex also pulls their clothing out of her jacket and lays it down. Then she steps back and lifts her hands like... I'm out.

Amelia goes over to Kelly, "That was well done." she says.

"You guys did the heavy lifting. I just snuck in because of your distraction." Kelly says... a bit less sincerely than she might like

Slinger offers the not-a-witch & the witch the scepter. "I'm taking that home. But hopefully you can fix the kids with this." He says as he hands it over.

Grimm looks at the jars. "Well, let's crack 'em open and see if they can be restored."

Amelia tries with both dispel enchantment, and if that fails her Sirona's Blessing spell.

THe dispelling proves to work, revealing two rather cowed young boys.