Log:Test Your Metal, Scene 7

Test Your Metal 2016/11/11 Daemon Grimm Professor Mysterion 7

It took Daemon a few hours of dedicated effort to correctly - and stealthily - breach the New York State Department of Corrections' various layers of firewalls. Adding Dr. Alan Crawfeld's name and data to a list of prisoners being transferred to Riker's Island for a few days took Daemon less time than changing the odds in a foreign virtual casino. He probably even had time to try a vanilla macchiato liquer that got delivered to his doorstep by "accident".

A few days later finds Gabrielle Grimm taking advantage of a cancellation in classes and Daemon just taking advantage. The duo are on the approach to Riker's Island, the wind whipping hard as it gets funnelled through the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan.

It is an otherwise cool, crisp late autumn day in New York City with the sky streaked with clouds. More accurately, the sky is largely covered in dull grey clouds with a few jagged lines of blue sky peeking through the stratospheric haze in random places. Somewhere overhead the sun is partially visible as a vast bright spot trying to burn through the clouds interfering in its ability to bathe the world in warmth and light.

Realistically, this is as close to a day time cyberpunk setting as it gets. The only way to make it more cyberpunk would be if Riker's was in the middle of Times Square for some damn reason.

"Well, Councilor Judith Darke" Daemon says, handing over a badge matching the name he placed in the entry approval logs. There is a barcode, and a picture of a middle aged woman on it.

He clips a similar ID badge on the lapel of his own suit.

"Should be easy once we get past the guards. You're the perp's Pro-Bono Human Rights Lawyer, and I'm a Doctor testing a radical rehabilitation therapy.

SO we may have to ... fudge some facts once we're in."

Simultnsously, he begins openng backdoors created over the past few days to give him the rudimentary control needed to bend the security footage to his whim.

On of his little packages is set to cycle footage leading up to their entry. This should prompt a reboot by the Security Team here at the prison. Once rebooted, the system will indicate it is working properly, but in truth hey've lost the ability to write the video to disk for 28 minutes.

Daemon checks the time.

"We're a-go in 10... 9..." He says to Grimm as the ferry comes to the dock of Rikers Island.

Grimm accepts the badge, looking it over carefully and studying the picture intently. Her features become fuzzy and her clothes shift as she creates the illusion of looking like the Judith Darke in the photo.

Her hair shifts to brown with a few pieces of gray, and snakes about like a living thing as it wraps itself up into a bun. Her black leather jacket, shirt, and jeans all shift to gray business pants and jacket, with a white blouse and black high heels.

With the disguise in place and her clothes altered, she clips the badge in place. "Like he deserves any human rights," she growls in her own voice, before clearing her throat. "I'm ready," she announces as her voice changes as well, sounding older and more mature.

Daemon picks up a suitcase, filled with papers and pens. Legitimate Psychologist's things.

There is nothing crooked at all with the prop. Daemon, now young Psychology Wizard, Doctor Anton Jensen, isn't trying to raise any suspicions.

As the exit the ferry he begins quietly whistling a song most know.

~Its a beautiful day in the neighborhood,

A beautiful day for a neighborhood.

Would you be mine?

His anonmyity his only real disguise as they head into the belly of the North American Penal System.

Grimm walks alongside him with the sharp clip of her heels, the purse that materialized with her filled with a wallet, some makeup, her phone and tablet, chapstick, and a few other girly products she usually doesn't carry around.

She sideglances at "Dr. Jensen", a brow popping up questioningly at the tune. Grimm must not have been acquainted with Mr. Rogers.

The ferry is skillfully docked at Riker's Island, allowing Miss Darke and Dr. Jensen access to the island along with several hundred other (ostensibly) human beings. Guards, wives, husbands, significant others, "children", lawyers, and others march off of the boat and into the line for visitation (or work) processing.

It takes close to twenty minutes for Judith and Anton to make it through the processing line. Jewelry and electronics are confiscated for safe-keeping and other supplies are largely allowed through, although only two pens are allowed to each of our heroes. A corrections Lieutenant leads Miss Darke and Dr. Jensen past the check-in and toward a secluded interview room.

"I apologize for the long walk, folks, but there was some kind of mix-up with the interview sign-up program. You all got shuffled down the far end... If you'd rather we move you further up, closer to the guard station, I understand totally. Crawfeld is kind of a creepy guy," intones Lieutenant Mercury.

"Oh no, sir. That won't be necessary." Doctor Jensen says with a warm smile. "I wouldn't do the job if I wasn't absolutely confident in our ability to really... make a chance in our patient's life.

Our purpose here is to help this man quell the beast within- to help end that internal confliction that makes him so..." He looks to Judith and says, "...'creepy'."

He sounds very confident, even a bit joyous to be doing 'good work' the way some science types get when enveloped in their work.

Councilor Darke looks cool, collected, and unconcerned. "I'm not worried about my client. What's a little more walking?" she asks as they make their way to the interview room. "What behavior has he been exhibiting lately?" she asks, eyes ahead.

Lieutenant Mercury looks over his shoulder at Dr. Jensen, his expression wavering in an uncertain hinterland for a few moments. With a little shrug, the Lieutenant comments, "O... Okay, Doctor."

Rounding a corner, Miss Darke chimes in with a somewhat more normal question. Lieutenant Mercury glances askance at her too though, as she mentions not being worried about her client. He rubs at his left shoulder for a moment before answering, "He's only been here two days, ma'am. I couldn't tell you if he's acting the way he usually does in metamax, but he's mostly kept to himself here. The prison capos give him more leeway than I've seen them do for most prisoners, but you know what they say about criminals and superstition..."

The hallway the trio are in clearly dead-ends about two hundred feet further down. Fortunately, Lieutenant Mercury finally stops in front of a heavy metal door about three-quarters of the way down the hall. He lifts one hand and passes his palm over some kind of scanner before he keys his radio, "Open Interview 1218."

Promptly the door slides open with a slightly hydraulic sound. The interior of the room is roughly 15' by 20' with a metal table bolted to the flat concrete floor. Several ferromagnetic chairs are situated around the room, which probably stands out more because of the visible electromagnetic plates in the floor and ceiling. Matte naval grey paint covers the walls and ceiling, set off only by the 3/4 surround of bulletproof acrylic windows reinforced with some kind of metal cage inside of the poured acrylic.

A rangey looking little old man sits in one of the ferromagnetic chairs. He's wearing standard prison orange, although his hands are encased in some sort of vinyl-looking mittens with thick metal cuffs around his wrists to hold the mittens securely in place. The cuffs are connected to one another by relatively light-weight looking metal chains, enough to provide freedom of motion for most common everyday movements, though they're clearly not enough to provide effective combat capability.

Not that Dr. Alan Crawfeld looks like he ever had any skill at hand-to-hand combat. He stands about 5'5" tall and would probably weigh about 140 pounds if he were soaking wet. If the Doctor ever had muscle, it's not evident from his slender, bookish build and prominent, bony joints. A pair of heavy spectacles are settled over his ears and the bridge of his nose, making his pale brown eyes seem outrageously large as he slowly scans toward the new arrivals to the interview room.

"If you folks need anything, just buzz a guard. There's intercoms by both doors," intones Lieutenant Mercury.

Grimm's eyes cast down at the boney slip of a man. So this was Malcolm's boogeyman when he was younger? "Thank you, Lieutenant," she replies smoothly, while her mind goes a million miles a minute. What's with those vinyl gloves? She really should've paid more attention to the briefing of the good Doctor's abilities.

"Thank you... Lieutenant..." Doctor Jensen says, looking at his nametag, despite memorizing it the moment the man introduced himself. "We'll be sure to do that."

He turns to the prisoner as Miss Darke sets to task.

Lieutenant Mercury nods curtly and smiles politely to Judith and Anton in turn. He steps out of the doorway and passes his hand over the sensor again. The heavy metal door slides shut with a solid sounding WH-THOOM, followed by a sharp, precise, mechanical click.

"So, Counselor, Doctor, how can I help you today?" inquires Crawfeld, his voice mild and inoffensive. There's a certain angry tinge to his voice, as though he is taking exceptional care to bite down on some form of inconsolable rage.

Absently, Crawfeld gestures toward two chairs opposite the table from him with his mittens. Everything about his body language suggests Crawfeld is just barely tamping down an explosion of rage and violence. Crawfeld, however, looks utterly incapable of acting out his barely contained fury, particularly with those vinyl mittens securely enveloping his hands.

"It's so rare that I get summoned from the dark cage in which they normally keep me. I would very much like to make the most of this chance to... Stretch the old kinks out."

As soon as the metal door clangs closed Doctor Anton Jensen's whole demeanor changes. Doctor Crawfeld will probably not find this to be for the better.

He sneers at Doctor and says, "Oh yes- we definitely plan on running you through a fair bit of difficulty this afternoon. You'll definitely be feeling this in the morning."

Daemon's coat sleeves shift, and the nanites hidden throughout his body cluster and rise from his forearms- shaping themselves into his trademark gauntlets.

Grimm smirks thinly as Crawfeld's impotent rage. "I'm sure you would," she says cooly as she pulls out a chair for herself and sits down, making herself comfortable. Might as well be comfy for the work she's about to do.

[GM to Grimm] You can still see the faintest traces of magic about Dr. Alan Crawfeld and it's the sort of thing that would normally turn your stomach. For whatever reason, you're having trouble sensing evil in this place - maybe there's too much interference from the general population around you or perhaps Grimm and Daemon are too eager to take vengeance upon this old man - and that seems to be the only thing keeping your stomach from churning. The streamers of magic still emanating from his body are warped and corrupt, twisted beyond all reckoning with the abject awfulness this man has committed for the sake of gaining greater power.

[GM to Grimm] His aura is rife with corruption and anger, several huge balls of roiling hate seething at the very core of his being. If he were still able to perform magic, you're reasonably certain his aura would be more like a magical star in its main stage; as it is, there is still tremendous mystical power trapped within his bony mortal frame, wasting away because of some sort of magical block etched into his very soul. There's a huge, blazing white sigil quite literally carved into his aura that seems to have stripped him of any ability to actively tap the vast and twisted magical potential his body should be capable of wielding. Something about it is deeply, DEEPLY familiar to Grimm though she can't quite put her finger on why at the moment.

[GM to Grimm] Despite his lack of active magical power, Professor Mysterion still seems to possess some degree of magical awareness. His aura also speaks to you of some kind of supernatural taint. It's difficult to understand, but you think it's a physical manifestation of his awful magical potential. The magic that does bleed through is slowly warping his body toward its toxic purpose. Certainly his aura suggests that, under his mittens, Mysterion has talons of a supernatural bent and his atrophied muscles still possess a terrible, inhuman strength and speed far in excess of anything a man of his age should possess. The question, of course, is which Mysterion is the true Mysterion? Is it the decayed physical form or is it the awful, toxic aura that radiates from his geriatric body?

"Oh good. You fancy yourself a hero," sneers Dr. Crawfeld as Daemon's sleeves reshape into his trademark gauntlets. The Doctor, if he recognizes the gauntlets at all, shows no sign of fear nor of remorse. It's entirely possible, however, that he looks rather more hungry than he was a few moments before Daemon played his card.

Fortunately for Grimm, all of Dr. Crawfeld's attention is focused on Daemon at the moment. His thin lips peel back into a predatory smile to rival Ghostfist's, his pearly white teeth crooked and unusually sharp for a human's mouth. Mitten-clad fingers drum at Crawfeld's bony knees as those pale brown eyes study Daemon intensely.

"What do you propose to do, Hero?"

Daemon maintains his sneer, but most definitely thinks that this game isn't going to be half as easy as they first thought.

His eyes narrow, tracing a path along his outline- but never on the nylon safety mittens and when his eyes meet Doctor Crawfeld's- he keeps them there, showing he won't be cowed.

He came here for one reason, and he won't be leaving without what he came for. He won't bend to this mad-man.

"If we're lucky? A little light torture. If we're really lucky? I'll get to carve peices off of you."

Daemon's mask raises- though without the lenses- so its mroe of a ski mask really but made of the same material as his nanosuit. Its different because he doesn't want to be identified outright.

"I've met men like you before. More monster than man...

Always worse when they're so smart. But their weakness is always the same..." Daemon says, walking around the room opposite Grimm. He does his best to keep Crawfeld's eyes on him.

Grimm's eyes shade towards Crawfeld. She refuses to acknowledge his doctorate. Her stomach twists as she reads off of him everything she hates about mages. How he must seethe that a boy helped foil his dark plans. Good on Malcolm. Seeing this monster for what he is, in the flesh, just makes her more proud of him.

"Don't get near him. Don't touch him," she warns Daemon as she sees Crawfeld suddenly pleased by Daemon's revelation. The toxic, twisted, corrupted aura within the man makes her almost reconsider this. But she does think merely asking him will get them no where. Her eyes narrow as she tries to dive into his mind for answers about that day and his plans, as some of her disguise weakens. The scent of her perfume, the exact feel of her skin, minor details, so she can focus. But she still looks and sounds like Mrs. Darke.

"Oh be still my heart," half-purrs Crawfeld at Daemon's threat. He lifts his mittens and places them over his heart, feigning a partial swoon in his seat. A tongue that may or may not have been too serpentine to be human flicks out of his mouth to swipe across his thin lips before disappearing again behind those sharp, pearly choppers.

"You don't know my weakness, Child. I was reaping all of the power this world has to offer when you were still a twinkle in your father's eye. I was pillaging my fill of pleasure when your lady friend here was but a slip of a thing," sneers Doctor Crawfeld, gesturing with one mitten toward Grimm.

Crawfeld doesn't pay Grimm even the slightest bit of attention as she pipes up to keep Daemon away from Crawfeld. And then Grimm's mind brushes his own, trying to claw its way past his psychic defenses and into the part of his mind that contains his memories. Slowly Crawfeld's head swivels toward Gabrielle, pale brown eyes widen in surprise. It's as though he never even considered the possibility of two metahumans being in the room.

"Two heroes? How delicious," purrs Crawfeld. His mittens drop to his knees while his pale brown eyes fix whole heartedly on the facade that is Miss Darke. The sneer in his predatory smile turns up several notches, his lips twisting into a hideous mockery of pleasure.

"Now what could two modern heroes possibly want with little. Old. Me?"

"Aww..." Daemon says at Grimm's sudden warning. He was literally 2 sentences away from putting one of his talons through his shoulder.

His eyes never waiver from Crawfeld. He won't show this beast any signs of weakness- here, he's the top predator and he won't have anyone else thinking otherwise.

He lets Grimm take the lead since he won't be serving as Lead Carv- that is, interrogator.

[GM to Grimm] Up until the second Crawfeld noticed you trying to dig into his brain, he was very vividly picturing how to vivisect Daemon for the infliction of maximum pain before serving him tartare or possibly sashimi style over his nightly serving of Loaf with some of the "turlet" cabernet the Mafia capo brews in his cell.

[GM to Grimm] He is now very eagerly looking forward to interrogating the two of you. Crawfeld is still trying to decide which one of you will squeal the loudest as he carves into the other one.

"Ohhh, you must think we're the sentimental type. 'Oh please, don't hurt him'," Mrs. Darke says with a smile that matches her name as she reads Crawfeld's thoughts.

"How pedestrian. All that power, and all you can do is carve up people and eat them. I suppose it beats prison food. Acting like you're King of the castle when you're no bigger or badder than any normal, baseline serial killer, reduced to drinking booze fermented in an unsanitized toilet." She leans back in her chair with a smug smile.

"I think you have us confused. Who ever said we were heroes?" Her eyes flash darkly at the man, hungry. "We want to know about your power." Gabrielle's eyes drift down to the man's core, eyeing a strange sigil only she can see burned into his soul. She guards the truth of what they're after, for the time being, as she tries to dive deeper into his brain, taking her time.

"See- weakness. Your type always thinks they have it figured out." Daemon says, his every word meant to be disrespectful, his tone is cold and almost bored.

He leans against the wall and crosses his arms.

"Have you got it figured out now?" He asks, his tone taunting.

Grimm redoubles her efforts, power flashing through her eyes as she reaches into the shadows of Dr. Crawfeld's mind. For his part, Crawfeld lets out a low, hissing cry of agony as Grimm wheedles her way past his shockingly indomitable will and into the crevices of his brain. Psychic pain becomes physical pain for several seconds before Grimm nestles her mental grasp into the grooves of Crawfeld's cortices.

Sagging forward, Crawfeld practically seems doubled over around an intangible fist as he and his chair scrape backward across the concrete until they're pressed against the far wall. Daemon may be terribly glad to note that no guards are in the vicinity to notice the raw, terrible power of what's going on in the interview cell. Vinyl creaks as Crawfeld's fingers curl and clench around his knees through the mittens.

"My power?" wheezes Crawfeld, his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose as his pale brown eyes peer up from under heavy lids and sweaty brows toward Daemon. There is still terrible, terrible hunger in Crawfeld's voice.

Daemon is going to be the first person to notice what's happening inside of the interview room. Shadows are stretching out from every corner of the room, swallowing up the floor and walls and even the ceiling. The overhead lighting doesn't so much explode as fizzle out of existence with small sprays of sparks and fluorescence. Windows simply black themselves out until Daemon lounges against solid void, staring at the rippling kaleidoscope of sin that is Mysterion's aura and Grimm's own tenebrous mystical aura.

Grimm feels her dark power resonating against the inside of Crawfeld's filthy, bloody skull before the magical backlash washes outward in a wave of greasy, disgusting wrongness. Darkness magnified to a patently malevolent degree spreads outward and inward, dragging her into Mysterion's Mindscape of Madness, Mayhem, and Murder. It sweeps out further along the shadows of the room to drag Daemon along with her, until they're both crashing through neon barriers of thought and memory toward a singular location in time and space and thought.

Mysterion vanishes entirely as both of our "heroes" slam into the polished tile floor of the Metropolitan Museum. A younger, more Professor-ly looking Mysterion appears, looming over their bodies as details begin to resolve into being out smokey darkness and unsettling, gauzy balloons of something antithetical to normal human perception. Grimm can't be sure, but she may suspect bits and pieces of the landscape are appearing out of raw SAN damage.

Nearly a hundred people, most of them somewhere between 11 and 14 years of age, splutter into existence out of the void itself. They take up positions in various locations, many of them cowering behind cover as the young Professor Mysterion begins erecting a ritual space in the middle of the Religions of Antiquity exhibit. He is constantly droning in a language that neither of you recognize, the feeling of magical power palpable in the air and growing denser by the moment.

Presumably Grimm will recognize the sensation of an enormous mystical barrier spell in the offing. It hasn't quite reached full power, but it's almost there as the memory starts to animate. Who knows what Daemon thinks, he almost certainly has no reference for any of the sensations in this memory that pertain to the magical or the otherwise incomprehensible to mortal man.

Grimm blinks and pushes herself up slowly off of the polished floor, looking about as the memory unfolds before her. The younger Mysterion looks much more impressive and looming than the wasted body of Crawfeld in modern day. Probably boosted by how he saw himself in his hay day.

What she doesn't expect, as she turns her head, is to see Daemon there. "Wait...what're you doing in here?" she asks as more pieces of the landscape fill in. She looks around at the surrounding people materializing, then looks to the Professor to study what ritual he's performing and what relics he's trying to use, if any. The words don't resemble anything to her, but maybe the feeling of power does.

Professor Mysterion still stands about 5'5" tall, though he looks to weigh a more healthy 165 pounds. His physique is still bookish and nerdy, but with signs of normal physical exertion and exercise to keep him in shape. Grimm might even be tempted to call him attractive, as professors go.

His enormous blood red cape has a flared, high-profile neck that might border on the Doctor Strange-y. It's secured to the shoulders of his twill-knit blazer by some kind of bone-like medallions. There's a good chance that looking into the voluminous, shadowy folds of the cape will allow The Abyss to look back into you. Grimm may feel like she's looking into a mirror if she spares a glance into those shadows.

No doubt his suit reads as classic absent-minded, mild-mannered professor. There's his twill blazer in a soft, earthy tan, which sits over a white dress shirt with intersecting silver pin stripes that has been tucked into a pair of neatly pressed khaki pants. Light brown loafers sit on his feet while a black leather belt is cinched about his waist. Even his glasses, a fraction of the weight and prescription that he wears some twenty years from the formation of this memory, have a distinctly college professor vibe.

After several moments of observation, Grimm determines that Professor Mysterion's incantations and the rising, increasingly dense levels of magic in the area happen to be associated with that burgeoning mystical barrier spell. He is somehow performing a powerful magical spell while actively drawing the ritual space for his actual mission here with chalk and some kind of liquid wax. Grimm suspects he's using some kind of "Magehand" cantrip (read: low STR Telekinesis) to do most of his work in laying out the ritual circle using both the chalk and the liquid wax that only seems to harden after a few seconds of having been applied to a surface.

So far, Mysterion hasn't actually acquired anything from the exhibit at large. It's obvious that this is going to be a powerful working, however, just by the intricate design and massive size of the ritual circles being drawn.

There are no referece points to the feelings that wash over Daemon in the throes of Grimm's magic & Crrawfeld's pure maniacal evil.

When Grimm asks him what he's doing there, he gives a simple shrug.

"You act like I had to make a reservation or something." He says sliding closer to Grimm's shadow-self.

He watches the younger Mysterion- how much mor econfidence and pwoer her weilded, well its pretty amazing young Malcolm stood up that day at all.

(Perhaps I've been to hard on the leadhead.)0o. Daemon thinks, reconsidering his position on Malcolm as he tries his best not to be awe-struck by the presence of Mysterion's former self, or atleast his mental image of his former self.

He cranes his neck to get a better view of the intricate patterns while he listens to the ancient words. He hopes his Universal translation works here too.

Daemon leans towards Grimm and asks, "Does the Twelve Realms mean anything to you? Its all a mess- but some of those symbols, those characters mean 'The 12 Realms'." That's about the best explaination he has.

"Opening some kind of portal... I'm only getting the gist of things... oh. Oh of course. 'Protection from Time and Enemies'- typical. Though ..." His eyes shift to Grimm.

"Does this ritual require children? What about a substitute...say mystical a**holes?" He points his thumb at Professor Mysterion.

[GM to Grimm] As it happens, yes, "The Twelve Realms" does mean something to you. Isn't that part of the title that that Fae-looking cop gave for the Blue Sovereign? Blue Sovereign, Master of the Elements of Industry, Emperor of the Twelve Realms?

Grimm's face screws up a bit as she thinks it over. "Twelve realms, twelve realms..." she murmurs to herself as she roots around in her own brain for a change. "Oh! Yeah, that was something to do with the Blue Sovereign. He had this long title. 'Master of the Elements of Industry, Emperor of the Twelve Realms'."

She looks about again, this time to study the symbols. "I, uhh..don't know too much about rituals, but often something has to be sacrificed for this level of power. An item...or people."

Glancing at Daemon curiously, she asks, "Substitute? What do you mean?"

He attempts to run a search online for anything with the 12 Realms, though he's unsure if anything he reads ... here. In this voidworld... is real. Memory made real is too metaphysical for Daemon. He decides not to think about it.

Daemon looks back at Grimm. "Well as far as spells go- that's one I could get behind... or under. Whatever the term is." Daemon explains, raising his eyebrows in a conspiritorial manner. He is obviously not agains Human Sacrifice when its certain people. Maybe he's joking- though he's too deadpan to really be sure.

Grimm stares at Daemon quietly for a moment. "Just memorize what you can of this place. It's a memory...we can't change it."

She pauses and thinks that over. "Well, we could potentially, but it wouldn't change anything about what happened. What I want to know is what he hoped to gain from the twelve realms. Is he saying anything about an emperor?"

Gabrielle twists about to examine the crowd. Without realizing it, she's trying to pick out a familiar, thin boy out from the other students.

Do you know what the worst part of experiencing a mad man's memories is?

As the memory continues to animate, our heroes can see things moving and writhing at the fringes of perception. Phantasmal moans and screams fill in the background noise while horrible creatures straight out of a psychotic break's worst nightmares fizzle in and out of existence, slithering through the air and the landscape like neon Swedish fish or incandescent Trolli Britecrawlers. Shadows swirl and lurch about, changing colors wildly as they seem almost to animate themselves to the cadence of Professor Mysterion's voice.

Weird squiggly lines start to form around various hostages. They only seem to form around people in Professor Mysterion's immediate line of sight. With him moving around, setting up his magical ward and guiding his Magehand in the creation of his ritual space, he gets a good and thorough look at almost everyone in the exhibit.

Malcolm's tall, gangly form is nearby. He's hunkered down behind a display case filled with bronze artifacts from no less than a dozen ancient religious cults. There are quite a lot of weird squiggles around him, though a giant red X eventually gets engraved in the air over Malcolm's head. A thick grey squiggle gets used to "erase" his super 80's high-top hair cut.

Next to Daemon - practically hiding behind his legs, really - is an adorable redheaded tweenage girl. She gets a lot of squiggly lines drawn around her whenever Professor Mysterion looks at her. Eventually a squiggle seems to be carved across the floor under her, as though underlining her. Certainly that's not a good sign.

Finally there is a tremendous release of tension as Professor Mysterion finally finishes his incantations. Grimm can tell that the mystical barrier has been erected, she can feel the familiar sensations of that particular type of spell at the fringes of her awareness. Daemon can probably figure out the same because of Mysterion's remembered senses and, well, the fact that the chanting has stopped.

Magic isn't usually rocket science.

Usually.

Daemon watches every movement of Professor Crawfeld's ritual, soaks in every symbol and sound with his digital (editic) memory.

Grimm's eyes fix on that high-top and she covers her mouth. How...adorably retro. She still can't believe Malcolm was ever that gangly. But when she sees the red X carved into the air above him in that madman's memory, she frowns. What's that supposed to even mean? Why is this crazed professor crossing him off on his mind?"

She looks about for other red X's, and instead notices the adorable redhead get drawn around and under a lot. She frowns. "If this guy is a pedofile on top of all that, so help me..."

She doesn't finish the thought. Not yet. Not aloud. "Nevermind. Just keep watching, and maybe something will clue us in."

"Figures." Daemon mutters, when his plan is blown before it even begins.

He refrains from saying he's already memorizing everything. But instead focuses his attentions on the squiggles as he starts explaining the trans-dimensional physics at play in the ritual itself. He ends the explaination with, 'Nothing about an emperor though.' He sits up a little straighter as he follows the line of a squiggle to a young blonde girl wearing overalls, cowering directly behind he and Grimm.

"And this little girls is first on the chopping block." He says pointing to her.

[GM to Grimm] All of those damn squiggles though... All of those damn squiggles mean things. Their colors, positions, lengths, widths, thicknesses, and angles all mean important things to Mysterion. He is very clearly organizing a lot of data about each person and using it to decide who will be the best sacrifice for his ritual. The girl hiding behind you is, apparently, the best candidate because blood orange-red squiggle, wintergreen thick squiggle at a 20 degree declination, azure sunset fat squiggle.

"The X means he's not a suitable sacrifice, not like..." Daemon nodds his head towards the blonde girl.

Grimm scowls at the options the Professor is sorting through. "And what, I wonder, makes them suitable for sacrifice..."

While our heroes are figuring out how to use their various Psychosis-to-English translators, Professor Mysterion has made strides toward a large case of Roman era cult artifacts. Glass shatters so his Magehands can collect various bronze, copper, and marble pieces. He uses his actual hands to collect a rather large, wickedly curved brass dagger from a section of the smashed case labelled 'Egyptian'.

Using his Magehands, Professor Mysterion arranges all of his various Roman antiquities throughout his chalk and wax ritual space.

The air above the various ritual circles visibly warps, growing dark and slimy as...

Something happens.

One expects this is how the ritual begins. It seems surprising that simply placing the artifacts would have such an immediate effect. Unless this is just another part of Mysterion's delusions?

Turning slowly, Professor Mysterion looks at the redheaded girl surrounded by all of those squiggles. He taptaptaps that curved blade against the palm of his other hand as a lecherous smile spreads across his lips. Stepping forward, Professor Mysterion gradually rises into the air to prevent himself from scuffing up the ritual marks on the floor tiles as he crosses the center of the space to angle toward the redhead tween in the overalls.

"Now, my dear, I believe it's time that I tutored you in the finer points of ancient history..."

It should suffice to say that the screaming begins as Professor Mysterion trails off.

Daemon doesn't look away, he remembers every terrible act that unfolds. Locking it all away to memory- somehow feeling like he's shouldering some of the weight that day by bearing witness to every barbarous act.

Every movement of Mysterion incites more and more hatred from Daemon.

Grimm's stomach lurches as Professor Mysterion approaches the girl with that knife. She tries to figure out if there's something mystical about it or the other artifacts, but she finds it hard to concentrate.

A sense of panic rises up in her as she gets reminded of her own trauma. Her fingers flex and relax a few times, before finally balling up into fists as bitter anger rises up from the pit of her stomach.

She realizes this is history. That nothing will alter what happened. But she still feels the urge to tear the Professor apart.

Professor Mysterion lifts the redhead off of the ground and pulls her THROUGH Daemon using those Magehands. She's helpless to resist the telekinetic force grappling her, pulling her limbs out and away from her body as Professor Mysterion begins to incant and gesture. Magical power is rapidly starting to coalesce in and around the brass blade, making it glow with an unsavory purple light as it is gradually lifted well above Professor Mysterion's head, clutched in one hand.

The screaming abruptly changes its pitch and its timbre. Malcolm comes charging across the museum floor, though Grimm, before he leaps toward the nearly spread eagle form of the redhead floating in the air. Professor Mysterion doesn't have time to perceive or react to Malcolm, as evidenced by the way he's swinging that dagger down toward the girl's throat.

Flailing wildly, Malcolm collides with the redhead and sends her sailing out of Professor Mysterion's aethereal grasp. The brass blade carves a shallow line across her shoulder and one bicep in the process, sending sparks of infernal purple lightning sizzling through the ritual space until the girl crashes into the ground and rolls under another display case. Several teachers grab her and pull her away - one of them may be screaming for medical supplies - out of Professor Mysterion's immediate line of vision.

Because of the intersection of Professor Mysterion's arm, the brass blade, Malcolm, and the as yet unnamed redheaded girl, Malcolm takes the brunt of the knife to his right shoulder. Something Daemon cannot see happens when the tip of the blade sinks in that results in a massive corona of magical energy spiralling out from the brass blade. Professor Mysterion issues a Wilhelm Scream as he starts to flicker in and out of existence within the maelstrom of magical energy.

Everyone in the exhibit room takes this as a sign that something has gone terrible wrong. They start withdrawing from the immediate area, trying to take cover at the furthest fringes of the barrier enshrouded room. Something otherworldly and horrific shrieks from somewhere within the space, the sound gradually taking on a different sound that feels like a wounded predator expressing its ever-lasting hatred for the fool that turned it into a man-eater.

Indeed, time itself seems to be twisting around and around in a death knell because of that blade sinking into Malcolm's shoulder.

[GM to Grimm] You realize, a moment too late, exactly what Mysterion's blade is about to do to Malcolm. What it's going to touch. In slow motion, you get to watch as Professor Mysterion stabs Malcolm dead in the Stain of Vreckna and the entire spell goes absolutely haywire. While Mysterion flickers in and out of existence, Malcolm's body soaks up concentrated magical energy that gets shunted through his aura to that awful, Fate-sealed blemish on his soul... And then, as it's dying away, your brain makes a connection to that wounded predator sound issuing from inside of the mystical maelstrom. Was that... Was that a sarkterran, roaring through the yawning chasm between worlds? It sure strikes the same chords in your memory as that pack of sarkterrans howling at you while you ran back toward Malcolm, trapped on the other side of the dimensional barrier.

Grimm finds it difficult to watch, even if this isn't the Malcolm she knows. But as she realizes where that blade is about to strike, she suddenly realizes exactly why things went so horribly bad. What...luck. Of course.

She suddenly stiffens as she hears that strange sound. That almost-howl. She looks around rapidly in fear.

"Sarkterrans...? They were here??" she says aloud, and Daemon would remember the recent time she mentioned it. She looks back to Malcolm, taking a small step towards him before she recalls that she can't help him.

"Sarkterrans? Weren't those the people that kept Malcolm alive on... that other planet?" Daemon asks with surprise all over his voice. "What were they doing here?"

Grimm shakes her head rapidly. "No...no, those were the Colossi. The Sarkterrans are probably right up there with hell hounds," she says, half distracted as she tries to drink in everything that's going on.

"Oh." Dameon says, still glued to the happenings himself.

"So lets pretend I know nothing about magic- why does it matter they were here too? DId they do something to Mal or to Mysterion?" He asks, looking around the room for somehting alien.

Time in the memory passes at an awkward, incomprehensible pace. One could probably attribute it to either the horrific pain or the tremendous disorientation that Professor Mysterion must be experiencing as he phases in and out of existence. Alternately, one could blame it on the raging mystical maelstrom that is warping and twisting spacetime in the middle of the exhibition space.

Grimm steps forward, toward the Malcolm suspended in the air by the dagger embedded in his shoulder. The maelstrom abruptly snuffs itself out in a small explosion of magical power that splinters display cases and collapses the mystical forcefield encapsulating this portion of the Metropolitan Museum. Professor Mysterion comes sailing out of the ritual space and slams into the tiles, sliding across the floor to land in a heap of ruined pottery and shattered glass.

Malcolm is not so lucky. Out of the slimy darkness that is a nonspace within-but-apart-from the ritual space, a massive hand-like paw - paw-like hand?! - emerges. Long, wickedly curved black claws tip all six of its stubby digits which wrap around Malcolm's less than impressive chest. Once again that awful near-howl pierces the veil before the claws wrench Malcolm through the slime and darkness.

Reality suddenly lurches in Mysterion's memory, his perceptions of space warping awkwardly. Everything seems to skew at unnatural angles for a few seconds until the darkness and slime over the ritual space begin to vanish back into the nothingness from whence they appeared. Distantly everyone can hear cops and heroes shouting. Professor Mysterion stumbles to his feet, tottering unsteadily as reality works to mend itself in the Metropolitan Museum.

Grimm grumbles a response to Daemon, "Because they come from the realms the Blue Sovereign does. I was hoping Mysterion knew something particular about the Blue Sovereign. But maybe he only knew about the realms themselves." She folds an arm around her chest and taps her chin. "How -did- he find out about the twelve realms...?" she ponders, trying to sift through Professor Mysterion's memories.

She gets distracted, however, as she watches that giant paw reach out through the darkness and grab Malcolm. Her jaw drops and she instinctively starts to move as it wrenches him through that darkness.

"No, wait--!!" she calls out, hand reaching out. But then she stops and tries to calm down, taking a breath. "Wait," she orders herself. "Already happened. Keep forgetting."

As the memory lurches and warps, Gabrielle gets a nauseating, disoriented sensation. "Ooof...that made me queasy..."