Hell Bend

[Murkus]

[Flying]

Fettina, the angel cast in chrome, comes soaring back over the district. She's heard about the attack and hopes to help. To anyone with better-than-average eyesight or a set of binocs, she might look worried. She's throwing her head this way and that as she looks for the most severe signs of devastation. She hadn't wanted this for Hell Bend. Just the opposite, in fact.

[quillpleasant]

Outskirts

Then Krajuo can sense about a dozen birds moving all around them.
They're not attacking them in any sense of the word, they just seem really confused. Just flying in random directions and sometimes into one another or any other object that gets in their way. Since unlike Krajuo they seem unable to see in the dark. Which is strange as they seems to be the ones conjuring the darkness somehow.

The angels, or at least the larger sources of movements that aren't so up-close to them, seems to be moving away however. Perhaps discouraged by either their willingness to fight or the strange darkness which was just conjured up around them. Also, unlike what they saw earlier, Krajuo can only detect two sources of such movement. Meaning that either some of the angels have already moved out of their range or something else.

Outskirts

"Running away, huh? So much for heaven's fury," gurgles Kraujo amusedly. Although he'd never admit it, he's a little relieved to avoid such a confrontation- angels always gave him the heebie jeebies.

Upon realizing that the pigeons aren't an active threat, Kraujo ceases his wild flailing. Perhaps they're ordinary pigeons enchanted with a darkness spell? Regardless, the duo is still at a disadvantage here due to Alice's pathetic mortal eyesight.

Extending more tendrils, Kraujo forms a half dozen spindly legs of blood while extending a disk under Alice, lifting her effortlessly. He begins to swiftly scuttle forward, trying to escape the area of darkness.

[Ironsmith]

[Havnaught Hotel]

The barrier does not, in fact, open for them.

But Haabeth's herding them toward the window does seem to have the effect she's looking for otherwise, in that they're now out of the room and not heading into the hallway. It's not at all difficult for her to pull this off... one might get the impression that egressing through the window was their plan in the first place, and Haabeth unknowingly helped with it.

But, in the end, that still leaves her alone in a room with two incriminating corpses, into which a member of staff could enter at any time.

-

"...Oh."

"She raises a good point."

"Yeah, that's... yeah. Okay."

After presenting her rationale, a few of the demons among the crowd raise their hands, volunteering their services as lookouts. After some finagling, they're able to work out a few strategic positions around the hotel that collectively provide a 360 view of the place.

...Still no sign of a returning invasion force. Maybe they got lucky?


[Crimp's Casino]

Gnash's eyes briefly widen in surprise as the angels disappear, before shrugging and starting to make his way toward the elf, who is now horribly overextended without the angels supporting him.

"Tell you what. I'm a sport. I'll give you a five-minute head-start." The incubus grins, drawing a switchblade from his pocket as various demons surrounding them likewise arm themselves.


[Madame Fidelity's House of Delight]

The secretary gives a bitter laugh at that. "What, you think they care about us that much?" She blows a cloud of smoke from her mouth and rolls her feet to one side on her desk. "They're not trying to impress you. They don't need to impress you. No more than gravity does." She shrugs. "That's the kind of threat you should reckon with, my guy. A power as pervasive and all-encompassing as a fundamental law of nature. You can't stop them from coming; they're already here. You can't resist them any more than we can. And it's only a matter of time before this place... by which I mean this entire plane of existence, not just this rinky-dink little neighborhood... is every bit the hellscape we left. You think they care if it happens all at once? Of course they don't. It could take eons and they'll gladly wait for us to ripen, or bake, or whatever analogy you want to use." The succubus sighs. "But I know you won't believe me. Some among your number are going to try to fight back anyway. Kill something that simply cannot be killed. I'd advise against that. If you have any loved ones, gather them up and find a corner of the multiverse the Devils haven't touched yet. Otherwise..." She shrugs. "Enjoy oblivion, I guess."


[Intact House]

The puppet analogy gets more appropriate all the time; Mallory's body and soul are still intact, and for the most part, completely unaltered, except for the little filament running from the succubus to the hellish circle in the bedroom. Apparently that's enough; if Mallory's claim is to be believed, she's not capable of acting on her own, even with that comparatively small and unglamorous effect.

But, should Zophiel attempt to sever the filament, what he'll find is that Mallory acts exactly the way one would expect from a puppet with its strings cut... which is to say, she doesn't act at all. She simply sits on the floor, still breathing, still staring out wherever she happens to be facing, but giving no response to any attempts at getting her attention.

Not until the filament reappears and she lets out a shuddering gasp, sitting upright and holding her throat, breaking out into a fit of coughing and gagging.

[Shadowcaller]

Outskirts

"Running away, huh? So much for heaven's fury," gurgles Kraujo amusedly. Although he'd never admit it, he's a little relieved to avoid such a confrontation- angels always gave him the heebie jeebies.

Upon realizing that the pigeons aren't an active threat, Kraujo ceases his wild flailing. Perhaps they're ordinary pigeons enchanted with a darkness spell? Regardless, the duo is still at a disadvantage here due to Alice's pathetic mortal eyesight.

Extending more tendrils, Kraujo forms a half dozen spindly legs of blood while extending a disk under Alice, lifting her effortlessly. He begins to swiftly scuttle forward, trying to escape the area of darkness.

Outskirts

The duo leaps out of the cloud of darkness with a sudden burst of speed.
However, no sooner have they escaped it when it starts following them.
Or more accurately, the pigeons are.
Krajuo might be able to tell that while the birds aren't directly controlled something seems to make them panic in a direction which just so happens to coincide with the duos movements.

[Madame Fidelity's House of Delight]

"So they're not gods then." The angel declares with a touch of annoyance in her voice. Paying back by ignoring whatever definition of gods they subscribed to in the favor of their own.
"Do not mistake us for mortals with mortal concerns or believe that these beings powers as wide-reaching as you think. Since we don't believe you're lying. The beings you describe are in fact not outside of our perception, nor is this world any of our concern." She was giving away too much information here but this creature was annoyingly convinced in their limited world view.

A higher ranking angel would probably just have dismissed them and then been on their way.
Since after all, what this creature choose to believe in wasn't their concern. It was obviously a mortal mindset that had experienced things so far beyond its limited perception that it got twisted.

Yet here she was, arguing against it.

"Beings that depend on something as lowly as concepts and emotions from mortals are but gnats to the true God/Gods anyway." Somehow the word god and gods are both uttered at the same time yet are perfectly audible. It wasn't some mystical quality to the word itself, just the angel willing it to sound like that.

"But my curiosity is then satisfied, unless you had more prophecies about how doomed this world is?" The angel knew that the code demanded that she should at least care for their fate even if she couldn't do anything about it. However she certainly wouldn't care about what happened to an agent of the very evil that was encroaching upon this world.

[Crimp's Casino]

Quite the conundrum you're in. The lone elf will hear in a voice sounding exactly like one coming out of the beak of the black pigeon earlier. Sounding neither male nor female, though he could of course hear it either way. Are you willing to give up your life of wanton murder and bigotry to come out of it alive I wonder?

The stubborn bird is still up there. Flying around care-free at a height where most projectile wouldn't touch it.

[Flying]

Tina will no doubt be a witness to the aftermath of the slaughter and destruction which the invaders have wrought.
Yet she will also see that above it all flies several flocks of seemingly ordinary birds. They don't seem to be involved in the attack itself so are they carrion birds then? Well, she can't see any of them flying down to what is probably corpses so whatever they are they aren't indulging in anything just yet.

[Reinholdt]

[Havnaught Hotel]

Depending on Blanche's ability to see through the force field, she mayyy be able to see the large mecha-spider way off in the distance, getting smaller and smaller as it and its escort of the majority of the elves leave. They're already well outside Hell Bend itself and appear to be going straight to Southside.

Much easier for Blanche to see is a brief streak of red, black, and purple that goes right past the hotel and continues on, leaving behind just lines of red light and the loud noise of a passing bike. One she's probably familiar with.

[Crimp's Casino]

The gathering mob of armed demons may find their malicious mutterings muffled by the roar of a hovercycle engine whose presence starts small but grows with unnerving swiftness. A second later and a dramatic jump off a ramp that probably shouldn't be there shows why as Ilpholin's bike comes into view. Demons foolhardy or slow enough to stay in its way are going to get run over without a second thought and without really slowing it down either. The power of not actually needing wheels on the road. Still with a sharp turn and a built in screech sound effect, Ilpholin comes a stop right beside the elf. It's much easier to keep in touch with what's going on when you have a mecha-spider to relay information to you and the ability to read your texts while driving. Ilpholin came to cover the retreat in case anything went wrong and so far only this elf and Haabeth hadn't pulled out. The best thing she can do for Haabeth though is simply get the troops off the streets.

One hand stretches out like a whip, cracking loudly and dangerously in a wide arch to discourage any demon thinking about getting brave. "Get on!" Ilpholin commands the elf.

[Morty]

[Crimp's Casino]

The elf has no particular illusions about his odds. He's outnumbered, in enemy territory and summoning his elemental would take too long. He's more angry than anything. Death on his first mission is just insulting.

"If you're not going to help, let me die with dignity," he snarls, before Ilpholin comes to his rescue. He doesn't need to be told twice to get onto the bike. Indeed, he probably didn't need to be told once and he'd have done it without her saying anything. "Yes, ma'am!" He does respond to her order as she swiftly jumps on.

[Havnaught Hotel]

Getting rid of those pests is an improvement, albeit small, temporary and altogether insignificant. She can't drag the corpses out of here. Or rather she could, but the blood trail would make it useless. She exits the room, locking the door behind her, and tries to make her way upstairs. Maybe there's a place there the demons are less likely to look.

[quillpleasant]

Outskirts

Kraujo growls in frustration, deep and guttural. The darkness-pigeons aren't dangerous, but they're annoying, and that's even worse. He could just cut them down, but the shadow spell might not go away even after their death.

Instead, he draw to a halt, waiting for the birds to pass on by them. It does occur to him that whatever has the pigeons spooked might be chasing them, and he bristles eagerly at the possibility.

[Thursday Violist]

[Intact House]

The puppet analogy gets more appropriate all the time; Mallory's body and soul are still intact, and for the most part, completely unaltered, except for the little filament running from the succubus to the hellish circle in the bedroom. Apparently that's enough; if Mallory's claim is to be believed, she's not capable of acting on her own, even with that comparatively small and unglamorous effect.

But, should Zophiel attempt to sever the filament, what he'll find is that Mallory acts exactly the way one would expect from a puppet with its strings cut... which is to say, she doesn't act at all. She simply sits on the floor, still breathing, still staring out wherever she happens to be facing, but giving no response to any attempts at getting her attention.

Not until the filament reappears and she lets out a shuddering gasp, sitting upright and holding her throat, breaking out into a fit of coughing and gagging.

[Intact House]

The paladin mostly makes changes based on feel, intuition, and observation, by adding and subtracting and modifying magical energy, so at some point he does eventually try out severing the filament.

When she loses action, he checks her breathing and heart rate, preparing to do forced breathing or forced heartbeat or other things for her, but is relieved when that doesn't seem to be necessary.

This confirms a thought he has: that this sort of thing would be best performed by someone who actually studied magic and can recognize what to do by sight alone instead of feel.

When Mallory starts coughing and 'comes back', he snaps in front of one eye then the other, then the first, and the other again, to check for her reactions. There could be any number of things that happened, but from his perspective the three most likely are that, one, Mallory is the one doing the puppeting without realizing it, two, the body is just unused to acting on its own, or that three, her mind was removed and put through whatever this magic string is and is only allowed to interact with her body through this puppetry.

He's confident that he could easily prevent this filament from ever reconnecting to her again, by imprinting the right magic circle into her being, but...he's not confident that would be the right choice. If it's just that simple, he could solve it simply, but first he needs to find out what's going on first before he creates a solution that doesn't actually help.

Zophiel continues the snapping in front of her eyes, checking her reaction and trying to gain her attention. "Tell me, Mallory," he says, in an effort to narrow down the situation, "The last ten seconds, tell me what you felt and what you experienced."

[Murkus]

[Flying]

Tina will no doubt be a witness to the aftermath of the slaughter and destruction which the invaders have wrought.
Yet she will also see that above it all flies several flocks of seemingly ordinary birds. They don't seem to be involved in the attack itself so are they carrion birds then? Well, she can't see any of them flying down to what is probably corpses so whatever they are they aren't indulging in anything just yet.

[Flying]

Tina will wing down to the edge of a rooftop to get a closer look at these birds. She can't make herself look at some of the worse destruction. She... isn't used to this.

[Arkhosia]

[Havnaught Hotel]

Depending on Blanche's ability to see through the force field, she mayyy be able to see the large mecha-spider way off in the distance, getting smaller and smaller as it and its escort of the majority of the elves leave. They're already well outside Hell Bend itself and appear to be going straight to Southside.

Much easier for Blanche to see is a brief streak of red, black, and purple that goes right past the hotel and continues on, leaving behind just lines of red light and the loud noise of a passing bike. One she's probably familiar with.

[Havnaught Hotel]

The mecha-spider is little more than a blur for Blanche as she takes up her position in the lobby, especially with her scoped rifle locked away in her hotel room. But she has no problem seeing or hearing the bike speeding past. She rushes the short distance to the windows to follow its path, ears sharply alert. A dark expression forms on her face. Ilpholin.

"Alright. Take positions as discussed. The rest of the volunteers, stay on standby to take shifts. Call me if you spot anything," Blanche instructs, having given them the number for a burner phone she had on hand. "Keep an eye out for that bike if it passes by again, especially if it seems like it's coming back 'round here." She will also take the time to try and arrange for patrols of two to make sure that the floors are safe and no one's attempted to get in.

[Shadowcaller]

Outskirts

Kraujo growls in frustration, deep and guttural. The darkness-pigeons aren't dangerous, but they're annoying, and that's even worse. He could just cut them down, but the shadow spell might not go away even after their death.

Instead, he draw to a halt, waiting for the birds to pass on by them. It does occur to him that whatever has the pigeons spooked might be chasing them, and he bristles eagerly at the possibility.

[Flying]

Tina will wing down to the edge of a rooftop to get a closer look at these birds. She can't make herself look at some of the worse destruction. She... isn't used to this.

Outskirts

The pigeons also come to an halt as they are. Though it doesn't seem they're able to do it quite as quickly. Almost granting the duo the escape they wanted by just standing still.

However, it seems like the angels have left by now? Kraujo can no longer detect their presence at least.

Yet even in their absence they can hear a voice though they cannot pinpoint its origin as it seems to be coming from several directions at once. "I mean no quarrel with you. Simply trying to stop this from escalating."

[Flying]

Tina's probably not a bird expert but among all the kind of birds that would gather after there's been death, various corvids, buzzards or even vultures, pigeons is probably not the one she'd expect to see here.

Yet here's a whole flock of them here. Several actually.
But besides gathering in such large numbers they don't seem to act too out of character. They haven't developed a taste for flesh and started to devour the bodies or joined in the carnage that must have taken place here. The survivors sure aren't fleeing in terror when they see them just milling about on the rooftops.
Cleaning themselves, crapping, staring. Acting exactly like one might imagine pigeons might when they aren't looking around for food.

Except while some of them immediately take flight when Tina settles down on the rooftop some remain where they are and only turn to look at her. They even seem interested in the angel as a few more settle down close to her.

Pigeons do usually avoid violent situations don't they? Loud bangs or screams usually scare them away or at least don't attract them in such numbers. Yet these ones seem unusually brave or perhaps too curious about dangerous things.
Then a black one settles down on the rooftop opposite of her. It tilts its little bird head and gives her a stare with its orange eyes.

"Greetings." The bird doesn't open its beak or give any indication of speech. Yet nonetheless Tina gets a feeling that the words are coming from this pigeon in particular. Getting a hint of something divine guiding its actions. "If you came here to stop the slaughter, I fear that you're too late."

[quillpleasant]

Outskirts

Kraujo is becoming increasingly angry at the pigeons. Speed up, so do they. Stop, they stop. And now there's some annoying voice talking about peace? Well, there's one solution that'll work wonders. He bristles with bladed tendrils, ready to lash out and cut the birds to shreds-

And then his form ripples as Alice drags him back down. The demon arm growls in frustration, but after a moment he retracts into his normal size as Alice slowly stands up, a little unsteady in the darkness.

"Forgive my compatriot," she says to the voice, "We've only been trying to figure out the cause of all this death. You sound reasonable; if there's anything we can do to help resolve this disaster peacefully or provide aid to survivors, please direct us to the best place to do so."

[Murkus]

[Flying]

Fettina is crouched low with her wings spread against the rooftop. The sound of them is like a sword rasping in its scabbard. She flinches when the black bird begins to speak... but their weird behavior was starting to give her a 'further impending weirdness' sort of vibe. Weirdness in the Nexus is like that - exponential. Her expression goes from bewildered to quietly angry.

"So what the hell are you supposed to be, some kind of evil pigeon? Did you do all this?" She asks.

[Shadowcaller]

[Flying]

"No, but I know who did." The pigeon claims as it tilts its head to the other side. The voice is hard to place. Neither masculine nor feminine. Neither deep nor high-pitched. Clear without any recognizable accent. "There two groups that came here. One consisting of alvar, or 'elves', lead by a nymph. The second group was also summoned by her. Angels. They slaughtered the inhabitants mercilessly. The angels will surely be punished for such a transgression but the other group and their ringleader I'm less certain of."

Outskirts

As Alice replies the darkness recedes and the pigeons take flight in more natural patterns once more. Whatever was controlling them seemed to have spooked them something fierce as they all go flying away from this place as fast as they can.

All except one which lands on the ground near Alice.

"Peacefully? I doubt it. While the angels have dispersed the ringleader is here and she is anything but reasonable as far as I can tell." The voice speaks, apparently coming from the pigeon despite its lack of a tongue. It doesn't even open its beak yet the voice nonetheless originates from it.

"If you want to feed your need for violence I would try to deal with her before she escapes. Otherwise more attacks like this are likely to occur."

[quillpleasant]

Outskirts

Alice holds up her hand to shield her eyes as the light comes flooding back. It takes her a couple moments to focus on the remaining pigeon, and she raises an eyebrow.

"I'd much rather help any survivors or refugees than create further conflict," she says, glancing around the ruined city mournfully. "But I haven't seen a living inhabitant since entering here. They're all dead."

She sighs, then looks back at the bird with a hard look in her eyes. "I don't desire violence for its own sake. But if I could stop this from happening again, I would."

The blood arm joins its fingers together with a metallic snap, forming a large curved blade. It thumps the ground eagerly.

"Where can we find ringleader? Will show her demons are to be feared," it snarls eagerly.

[Ironsmith]

[Havnaught Hotel]

Blanche's orders are met with quiet affirmations from her impromptu network of observers, who don't really have anything more interesting to say than "yes ma'am, I'll let you know if I spot that-" followed by various colorful and unusually vile epithets.

Once she's finished with that, Blanche will see that Tiff's back on her feet and waving her over; evidently, there's something else she feels the need to discuss.

Privately.

-

Haabeth will find that, as the hotel is relatively small, "upstairs" doesn't provide many more options than the room she was just inside. She can basically just choose to intrude on a *different* tenant and repeat the process all over again, or else crash in an empty room and pray nobody-

The elf will catch a glimpse of a red shape zipping out of view as she reaches the top floor. There's an accompanying squeal as the walls and ceiling shift, the various not-quite-invisible creatures clinging to them fleeing from her presence.

[Crimp's Casino]

"...Ah, well." Gnash mutters to himself as the elf board the bike, his escape clearly imminent. "More's the pity, really." He makes a half-hearted gesture with his switchblade, and the various demons begin throwing their "weapons" at the pair, mostly in the form of glass bottles and bricks. He doesn't seem convinced it'll do much.

[Madame Fidelity's House of Delight]

The secretary frowns and takes another drag from her cigarette. "Whatever, dude. You wanna get mulched, go ahead. Isn't any skin off my nose." She shrugs and kicks off her flats, tossing them off the front of her desk, where they clatter onto the floor unceremoniously. "Just don't day I didn't warn you. I..."

The succubus lets out a gurgling gasp as she slaps her hand over the hole in her chest, suddenly seeming quite bothered about it. "...D...dammit..." She gags, dropping her cigarette. "They... turned it off again..." She looks over to the angel one last time before the light seems to leave her eyes and she slumps there at the desk, once again a corpse.

-

[Intact House]

"...I... I felt nothing..." Mallory gasps, holding her own throat like she expects it to fall out if she doesn't. "N...not... 'I didn't feel anything'... I felt nothing. It was all dark, and cold, and... and I couldn't breathe..."

The succubus looks up at Zophiel, bleary-eyed, and throws her arms around his neck, attempting to pull herself into a tight hug. She's shaking violently, either still somehow shivering from the cold or on the verge of a mental breakdown, if not both.

[Thursday Violist]

[Intact House]

"...I... I felt nothing..." Mallory gasps, holding her own throat like she expects it to fall out if she doesn't. "N...not... 'I didn't feel anything'... I felt nothing. It was all dark, and cold, and... and I couldn't breathe..."

The succubus looks up at Zophiel, bleary-eyed, and throws her arms around his neck, attempting to pull herself into a tight hug. She's shaking violently, either still somehow shivering from the cold or on the verge of a mental breakdown, if not both.

[Intact House]

Zophiel sighs: things used to be simple and black-and-white, so why did everything decide to start being complicated at once? It's almost like, the moment he found out everyone he trusted was lying to him, the world stopped being simple. Back then, this would've been extremely easy to solve.

Realizing that it's less effective just have one person doing all the work in the hug, Zophiel decides to wrap his arms back around her and run a hand along her back. "The good news is that I have a fairly good understanding of what's going on now," he says in a soothing voice, still holding her.

"You are unquestionably connected to that hellgate circle thing, and possibly to that Abyss that you dumped me into," he says. "The only question is how," he explains. He keeps on holding on to her tight until she stops shaking. "When that connection is cut, your body just sits here blankly, not doing anything, and you, Mallory, seem to be somewhere else. With that in mind, I see three possibilities, each of which are solvable but...require different contradictory solutions. Option one is that Mallory is the one puppeteering the body, and the body is not yours, usually does nothing but sometimes wrests back for control," he says. "Option two is that you are trapped in that Abyss but can reach out instinctually to connect to your body, in which case the feeling of losing control would be some passerby taking advantage of the obvious connection. And option three that I can see is that you are somewhere else and are allowed to be connected through that circle to here."

And, unfortunately, the paladin needs to continue channeling demonic energy into himself to continue to see magic. He'd rather stop sooner rather than later because of potential side-effects, but then he wouldn't be able to see what's happening, and he wouldn't have been able to see that "It appears, as well, that your situation is likely pretty common around Hell Bend, though not ubiquitous."

"I have much more experience with things away from Hell Bend than in here, so the simplest way to solve this would be if you yourself know which is happening."

[Ironsmith]

[Intact House]

The succubus nods slowly, managing to pull herself away far enough to allow Zophiel to see the gesture. "I... I do know, yeah." She whispers. "I... I told you before. I don't belong to me. I..."

Mallory shakes her head, burying her face in her hands. "I don't know how to explain it. I... I sold my soul. It's me but it's not mine. I can't... I can't be without permission. If I can't get permission, I..."

She sniffles and shudders. That part, at least, seemed self-explanatory.

[Thursday Violist]

[Intact House]

The succubus nods slowly, managing to pull herself away far enough to allow Zophiel to see the gesture. "I... I do know, yeah." She whispers. "I... I told you before. I don't belong to me. I..."

Mallory shakes her head, burying her face in her hands. "I don't know how to explain it. I... I sold my soul. It's me but it's not mine. I can't... I can't be without permission. If I can't get permission, I..."

She sniffles and shudders. That part, at least, seemed self-explanatory.

[Intact House]

Okay! Nice. There's (probably) no need to dive through that hellgate again to try to trace the connection back. Zophiel's actually pretty glad that's not the case, that would have been the hardest and most lengthy part of this. With this, he's pretty sure he can now finally get back to looking for the missing girl.

"Oh, out of the three possibilities, that's actually the easiest one for me to solve," the paladin claims. Set up a magical siphon to strip away the being and identity from Mallory's soul and take it into himself...which is actually remarkably easy for Zophiel given that his entire self was originally created to hold and seal away a deity's being. The creditor still gets to keep the now-blank soul, so there'd be no explicitly broken deal there. Then, Zophiel ends up - he'd rather not do this but it is the simplest solution - borrowing someone's power and creates a new soul to place the siphoned being into it, place it in Mallory's body, and use some magic circles to alter her, to prevent the old, blank soul from reconnecting. An hour, if everything goes smoothly, and then he can return to the hotel and get a few more questions answered. if everything goes smoothly, he won't even need to stay there for even one night, and can just get on his way.

He reaches for some of his magic-absorbing ink, and bites his finger to mix some blood into it. "Turn around, I need to first paint some things on your back." The magical soul-siphon, specifically. He grabs a small brush from his things, to mix the ink and blood. Without explaining what, exactly, he's doing, he does bring up one potential concern: "Who did you make the deal with, anyway? I don't want them to think I'm trying to break the deal which could lead to problems to you much later, if they try to make an example to everyone else. So, if possible, I'd much rather talk to and negotiate with them before that. And if that's not possible, I'd still want to talk with them afterwards."

[Reinholdt]

[Crimp's Casino -> Havnaught Hotel]

"Hang on tight!" Ilpholin doesn't linger to make sure the elf has firmly wrapped his arms around her body, already accelerating once more. Gnash and the other demons have the right of it, though Ilpholin would complain about some of the thrown objects messing with her paint job. The bike loudly starts and swerves with its sudden movement, waving back and forth for a bit as if to say goodbye before settling into a straighter trajectory.

Some of the demons surely alert Blanche that the bike is coming back towards Havnaught, able to recognize the sound and sight from the first time around. It's moving too fast to bother stopping nearby the hotel though, clearly just passing it on their way out. The nymph's eyes glance towards the windows, knowing there's still of her own in there, but likewise knowing that trying to force her way in for a rescue would actually be counterproductive in getting Haabeth out. But her eyes catch the unmistakable blonde triangles that stand out against the blue barrier that obscures them. Her gaze lingers upon the sniper for a moment, but momentum assures that Ilpholin return to her task of leaving Hell's Bend in a hurry and watch the road, continuing on without pause.

[Morty]

[Havnaught Hotel]

The elf was prepared to give the demons a parting gift, but soon enough he realizes that the only wise course of action is to listen to Ilpholin and hold on for dear life.

Meanwhile, Haabeth swears under her breath. Are these pests everywhere in the building? That will make hiding even more difficult than it already is. She stops for a moment, trying to observe them. Are they going anywhere in particular? Maybe they could point her to a better hiding place...

Elsewhere, the reinforcements from Vigil arrive - too late, though they don't know it yet. A small airship drops them off, Wenomir leading the charge himself. Behind him is an even taller, dark-skinned man covered in tattoos and holding an elaborate bow, as well as a horned Charr with a rifle. The other Vigil members are disembarking further behind.

[Murkus]

[Flying]

"No, but I know who did." The pigeon claims as it tilts its head to the other side. The voice is hard to place. Neither masculine nor feminine. Neither deep nor high-pitched. Clear without any recognizable accent. "There two groups that came here. One consisting of alvar, or 'elves', lead by a nymph. The second group was also summoned by her. Angels. They slaughtered the inhabitants mercilessly. The angels will surely be punished for such a transgression but the other group and their ringleader I'm less certain of."

[Flying]

"Why did they do a thing like that?" Tina asks. "And what's your stake in it, anyway? What are you?"

[Ironsmith]

[Intact House]

Okay! Nice. There's (probably) no need to dive through that hellgate again to try to trace the connection back. Zophiel's actually pretty glad that's not the case, that would have been the hardest and most lengthy part of this. With this, he's pretty sure he can now finally get back to looking for the missing girl.

"Oh, out of the three possibilities, that's actually the easiest one for me to solve," the paladin claims. Set up a magical siphon to strip away the being and identity from Mallory's soul and take it into himself...which is actually remarkably easy for Zophiel given that his entire self was originally created to hold and seal away a deity's being. The creditor still gets to keep the now-blank soul, so there'd be no explicitly broken deal there. Then, Zophiel ends up - he'd rather not do this but it is the simplest solution - borrowing someone's power and creates a new soul to place the siphoned being into it, place it in Mallory's body, and use some magic circles to alter her, to prevent the old, blank soul from reconnecting. An hour, if everything goes smoothly, and then he can return to the hotel and get a few more questions answered. if everything goes smoothly, he won't even need to stay there for even one night, and can just get on his way.

He reaches for some of his magic-absorbing ink, and bites his finger to mix some blood into it. "Turn around, I need to first paint some things on your back." The magical soul-siphon, specifically. He grabs a small brush from his things, to mix the ink and blood. Without explaining what, exactly, he's doing, he does bring up one potential concern: "Who did you make the deal with, anyway? I don't want them to think I'm trying to break the deal which could lead to problems to you much later, if they try to make an example to everyone else. So, if possible, I'd much rather talk to and negotiate with them before that. And if that's not possible, I'd still want to talk with them afterwards."

[Intact House]

"...A-aren't you, though?" Mallory asks nervously, turning her back to Zophiel as requested, albeit with some visible reluctance. "Trying to break the deal? I... I mean, whatever you're going to do, that's the point, right? To get me out of the deal?"

She catches her tail in her hands and wrings it nervously. "...It's not going to work." She adds, her voice a low, husky whisper. "They're not going to accept a shapeless soul. They know what you're planning. I... I can hear them both laughing..." Mallory shudders. "...Is... is it going to hurt?"

[Shadowcaller]

[Flying]

"The angels believed them these people to be 'demons' as they had been told this by the nymph. A willing error I theorize. As for the elves and their leader-" The pigeon musters what seems to be a shrug. "-I can only speculate. Probably the same reason why people kill one another every day. Since they were different and they felt threatened by them."

The pigeon tilts its head to the other side as it appears to consider her other two questions. "I am an investigator. I try to make sure the laws of these angels are being followed through observation. Something which I don't think they were today. Hence why I've recommended these angels to stand trial. But I'm afraid I cannot say more regarding that. It's up to the judges to decide their fate now, should they follow my recommendation."

The creature meets her gaze. "But now that I've answer some of your questions. Would you mind telling me who you are and what you're doing here in turn?"

[Madame Fidelity's House of Delight]

The angel stares down at the secretary as she suddenly collapses onto the floor.

Looking at the now deceased demon as if she had spontaneously transformed into a jet engine and flied of.

"...was that supposed to be a joke?" She finally inquires while looking up at the ceiling above her. Seemingly not talking to the dead anymore.

"Turning the mortal on and off. Yeah, that's really funny. Feeding off the lowest of emotions really doesn't do wonders to your sense of humor, does it?" The angel throws her hands in the air and storms off.

"Fucking bottom-dwellers."

Outskirts

"The ringleader is right now escaping on a vehicle so it's either getting after her or helping the survivors." The pigeon will them give them a brief description of how to get to Ilpholin's location.
"You'll pass by a building known as 'Crimp's Casino' on the way. There's plenty of survivors there."

[Arkhosia]

► SHOW SPOILER

[Havnaught Hotel]

Blanche's orders are met with quiet affirmations from her impromptu network of observers, who don't really have anything more interesting to say than "yes ma'am, I'll let you know if I spot that-" followed by various colorful and unusually vile epithets.

Once she's finished with that, Blanche will see that Tiff's back on her feet and waving her over; evidently, there's something else she feels the need to discuss.

Privately.

[Crimp's Casino -> Havnaught Hotel]

"Hang on tight!" Ilpholin doesn't linger to make sure the elf has firmly wrapped his arms around her body, already accelerating once more. Gnash and the other demons have the right of it, though Ilpholin would complain about some of the thrown objects messing with her paint job. The bike loudly starts and swerves with its sudden movement, waving back and forth for a bit as if to say goodbye before settling into a straighter trajectory.

Some of the demons surely alert Blanche that the bike is coming back towards Havnaught, able to recognize the sound and sight from the first time around. It's moving too fast to bother stopping nearby the hotel though, clearly just passing it on their way out. The nymph's eyes glance towards the windows, knowing there's still of her own in there, but likewise knowing that trying to force her way in for a rescue would actually be counterproductive in getting Haabeth out. But her eyes catch the unmistakable blonde triangles that stand out against the blue barrier that obscures them. Her gaze lingers upon the sniper for a moment, but momentum assures that Ilpholin return to her task of leaving Hell's Bend in a hurry and watch the road, continuing on without pause.

[Havnaught Hotel]

Blanche begins to turn towards Tiff before the alerts begin to be made. She turns and runs to the window, her body rigid and hand tight around the grip of her firearm. She stares hard through the window at the distant motorcycle, eyes locked directly with Ilpholin's as long as she remains in sight. Only once the vehicle is past does she return to Tiff. There will be hell to pay for that woman, but it won't be now.

"Yes? Something up?" Blanche waits to ask until she's approached to maintain discretion, though she does cock a brow.

[Thursday Violist]

[Intact House]

"...A-aren't you, though?" Mallory asks nervously, turning her back to Zophiel as requested, albeit with some visible reluctance. "Trying to break the deal? I... I mean, whatever you're going to do, that's the point, right? To get me out of the deal?"

She catches her tail in her hands and wrings it nervously. "...It's not going to work." She adds, her voice a low, husky whisper. "They're not going to accept a shapeless soul. They know what you're planning. I... I can hear them both laughing..." Mallory shudders. "...Is... is it going to hurt?"

[Intact House]

Zophiel thinks about what is the best thing to do next, to achieve his goal. Assuming the puppeteers think they hold all the cards and Zophiel has nothing to bargain with, they're probably going to withdraw Mallory's 'permission' to be. Which, while they do hold a lot of the cards, Zophiel's still pretty sure there can still be room to negotiate. So in order to stop negotiations from ending prematurely, the obvious thing to do is Zophiel needs to show what he's bringing to the table.

And, since the Paladin did see the 'soul' connection reconnecting back to Mallory's body earlier, he's pretty sure he knows what he can do. He focuses around the self-inflicted wound (to get at his blood earlier), and then crystalized divinity comes out from it. He holds it just above the tether, and drips just a single, tiny drop of divine energy into Mallory's soul, mixing into it - and, thanks to all the demonic energy Zophiel has been absorbing just to maintain the magic-sight, it's actually somewhat compatible with demonic things like a succubus or others. For Zophiel's benefit, the divine energy would be a whole lot easier to track in case they refuse negotiations, and for the other party's benefit, a shapeless soul with just a drop of divinity is worth a lot more than a regular succubus's shapeless soul. Or, arguably, it's still worth more than one that still has an identity and shape attached to it, as the owner can't do everything they want with it.

"It seems you've forgotten the whole reason why I'm doing this," he tells Mallory. "Remember, you did try to kill me a couple times, and you did kill a few others. But, thanks to this control, it's unclear whether karma should fall back on you or on someone else, since you could always just blame someone else, and you might even believe it was because of someone else, regardless of whether it was or not. So the options are either to make it so starting now only you are responsible for your actions, or to punish everyone involved. And I do have other, more important things to do, so punishing everyone would take far too long."

Given that he wants to negotiate, Zophiel has little choice but to wait and not take any immensely drastic action: "That's why I'd prefer to negotiate, so that even if not everyone gets their ideal solution, at least we come to a solution that everyone can be satisfied of."

He leans back and folds his arms, and waits, either for the other party to do something drastic or for the magic circle to just continue to take effect. "I could make it hurt if you would prefer," he says, "but that would make it happen far too fast and wouldn't give anyone time to state what concessions they are willing to make and what they want in exchange."

[quillpleasant]

Outskirts

Alice listens to the directions, nodding. "Well, despite my desire to see justice, I think it's much more important to help the survivors than to go after whoever caused this."

"No. One who kills, will do so again. Cut out rot at its source," says Kraujo firmly. His fingers twitch, as if in anticipation of confronting the one behind the attack.

"I... are you sure that revenge is the best plan here? You're the one with the greater stake here, so I suppose you have the final say," says Alice doubtfully.

"Want revenge. More, want justice," the demon arm replies firmly. Wrapping around Alice, he again forms into several long spider legs, and scuttles off in the direction of Ilpholin, moving at an extremely fast pace. Alice has only time to shout a thanks for the help before the two of them are out of earshot.

[Murkus]

[Flying]

"The angels believed them these people to be 'demons' as they had been told this by the nymph. A willing error I theorize. As for the elves and their leader-" The pigeon musters what seems to be a shrug. "-I can only speculate. Probably the same reason why people kill one another every day. Since they were different and they felt threatened by them."

The pigeon tilts its head to the other side as it appears to consider her other two questions. "I am an investigator. I try to make sure the laws of these angels are being followed through observation. Something which I don't think they were today. Hence why I've recommended these angels to stand trial. But I'm afraid I cannot say more regarding that. It's up to the judges to decide their fate now, should they follow my recommendation."

The creature meets her gaze. "But now that I've answer some of your questions. Would you mind telling me who you are and what you're doing here in turn?"

[Flying]

Tina isn't really one to play things close to the chest. "My name's Fettina. I was here earlier, talking to these people. I was trying to find a way for them and Riverside to coexist peacefully. Then I heard what happened and... I came back to see if I could try and help."

[Shadowcaller]

[Flying]

"How unfortunate. The waking world could use more people like you, Fettina." The pigeon claims as it seems to bow its head in respect to her.
But the gesture is undercut a bit as it starts to stroll to the left while still maintaining eye contact. "But there's at least survivors you could aid. Most of them are holed up around Crimp's casino if you know of it. But there's also plenty of wounded near the house of delight. The majority are already dead I fear but perhaps you can get there in time."

Outskirts

"Best of luck with whatever endeavor you choose. I am Shadow Of Light by the way. May we meet again." The pidgeon wishes them before taking off flying.

[Murkus]

[Flying --> Crimps]

"I know of it. I'll try," Fettina says, sticking out her lip and setting her jaw. She's... she's not totally unfamiliar with carnage. She's seen some pretty gnarly shit, back home and in the Nexus both. Yet that doesn't make any of this any easier to look at.

She flaps her great wings and takes off in the direction of Crimp's Casino, to see if she can help anyone - maybe by flying them to a hospital, or flying supplies to them.