Summary:Sam and Illyana track the charm to rescue Sam's dream-woman and stage a rescue! Log Info:Storyteller: Illyana Rasputina |
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When Sam came tearing through the house looking for Illyana, it was the Hour of the Wolf. That time between midnight and dawn when the late-nighters have gone to bed but the early-risers haven't yet gotten up.
Illyana is in bed, and actually sleeping! When Sam bursts in yelling her name he is greeted by demons leaping out at him as Illyana jerks awake. Long claws, sharp fangs, way too much drool. They'd be a little more intimidating if a) Sam hadn't been cleaning the damned house with them recently and b) Illyana hadn't told Sam that she's given her demons strict orders of 'no touchie'.
Which means that while they may try to jump-scare him, they won't actually claw him up.
Sam Guthrie is still pretty startled, well-informed or no, jumping back and almost tumbling back onto his ass when the demons jump out at him, "Whoa, whoa, hold up, there, fellas, just…need to talk to your boss, she's…she likes me, remember, she likes me, huh?" he says. He resists the urge to fire up the ol' blast field. Figures that might seem threatening. Plus it might be rough on the decor.
"Just tell her I've got a little, uh…situation here, huh?" he says, holding up his bloodied hand.
Illyana Rasputina rubs at her eyes, sitting up in bed and looking very confused. "Sam?" People don't usually interrupt her sleeping. It's often hazardous to their health. With a grunt, she pushes herself out of bed, opening stepping disks below the demons who fall through with short yelps of surprise.
The blonde is in pajamas, a sort of babydoll top and shorts as she pads over in bare feet. "What in Hell are you doing up?" While she's not good with time, she can see it's still dark out, and there's no farm for the Kentucky boy to be tending!
She reaches out to catch his injured hand, peering at it and then looking up at him. "You know I'm not great with healing spells, right?" She tries to avoid any spells that are actually cast *on* a person. There's a lot of opportunity for her own corruption to sneak in.
Sam Guthrie nods, "Yeah, but it's not really about that," he says, "I mean, it is, but it ain't. What I mean is…I got this in a dream. Remember when I fell asleep workin' on the garden in Limbo, I told ya I had this really vivid dream of this woman, a woman who was trapped somewhere, in another world? Well…I had another one."
"She did this to me to prove she was real…and sent this along with it," he says, dangling the charm she'd embedded in his flesh from its chain and offering it to Illyana. "I'm kinda thinkin' it might not just be a dream."
Illyana Rasputina nods, her expression more serious than usual. Part of that is that she's not quite awake yet. When Sam says he had another dream, her brows wing upward and then crank back down again when he says this strange woman cut him. "She couldn't have tried a note first?" She grumbles, reaching out to take the charm from him.
"Huh." Illyana moves, holding the charm up to the light, and it's sort of… translucent. "Well crap." She brings her hand back down, letting the charm fall into the center of her palm as she looks down at it. "I'm not going to be able to really do much with it. It looks like it's… dissolving. One of those things that can't be taken out of its' own realm, probably."
Sam Guthrie sighs, "Great. So glad she jammed it into my flesh, then," he sighs. He gets up and goes to the second floor bathroom for a moment, retrieving some gauze and antibiotic, treating his own wound as he returns to the hall.
"I'm not really sure how, but…we have to help her. She seems terrified. I don't know much of anything about her, I know, but…I'm obviously being drawn there for some reason," he says.
"Probably the only way it could make it out of your dreams at all." Illyana muses, thoughtful but not terribly shocked. This is kinda what she does.
As Sam goes to treat his hand, she tilts her own back and forth, letting that charm roll around in it. As he comes back, she looks over to him. "I could probably use it as a sympathetic link to get us to wherever she is…" Is there a 'but'? It sounds like there's a 'but'. "But," Told ya. "I don't know *where* that is or what we'd be jumping into. It's too fragile, decaying too fast for me to get any intel off of." They'd be jumping in blind.
Sam Guthrie sighs and gets out his phone, "Do it," he says. He rapidly loads up and sends off a text to both the X-men in general, with specific copies to Jean and Piotr, along with a note to his own SHIELD account which will surely be checked if he doesn't show up to work for a couple of days. "Went to another dimension on a rescue. Not sure it's safe. Come find us if we're not back soon. Sam and Illyana."
He's at least gotten dressed quickly, shoving on his pants and hopping on one foot to slide on a boot as he tries to get ready before she loses the fix.
Illyana Rasputina gives Sam a long look as he says to do it. Less because it could be construed as an order and more because she's not terribly keen to jump into anything blind. Finally though, she nods. It's honestly a lot of faith for her to put in someone. It's a pretty short list.
The sorceress doesn't bother to change out of her pajamas, because they've got to go to Limbo first. Illyana portals them into her workroom at the citadel, her clothes transforming in a rush of eldritch fire as she heads over to her magic circle, setting the quickly fading charm down and starting to cast.
Fire licks up from the markings on the floor, new ones writing themselves in fire as she builds a spell to give her a lock on wherever the charm came from. It only takes a few minutes, which is good, because the thing is downright ghostly now.
Illyana raises her arms in front of her, fingers crooked and then makes a slight jerking motion. A stepping disk appears above the charm, though it seems to open a bit more sluggishly than usual. She nods at it. "I'm right behind you."
Sam didn't so much mean to make it an order. But he does think something needs to be done and, if time is limited, they don't have much time to futz around with it. Hesitating could cost this stranger, whoever she is, her only chance at freedom. And he's not sure he can rely on dreaming his way back there again if they don't make it this time.
He straps his goggles around his neck and rolls his neck for a moment, bracing himself for the fray. He has no idea where they're going or what they're stepping into. Sounds like X-men stuff to him.
"Let's go," he says, walking forward and stepping onto the disk.
Usually stepping through the disks is a non-event. Maybe there's a slight tingle as you cross the event horizon, but the big change is where you end up. That's not quite the case here.
As Sam steps through, it's like he's suddenly been turned into taffy. It's not painful, but he feels streeeeeetched and then like a rubber band being released, snaps back together as he steps out on the far side of the disk.
He recognizes the wildly colorful jungle about him, and there's the big redwood (bluewood?) tree from last night. No sign of the woman, though the ground is torn up a bit. Like there was a struggle.
When Illyana comes through the portal she stumbles, falling forward onto her knees with her hands catching her so she doesn't faceplant. The disk snaps close behind them with a *crack!* and the blonde's stomach heaves, emptying onto the ground.
After Illyana recovers a bit, she shoves backwards and into a semi-upright position looking a bit green. "I'm gonna have to do that again, aren't I?" She croaks in her sarcastic manner.
Sam walks over and helps to steady Illyana, patting her on the shoulder. "I hope you can. Cause you're the only way we have out of here right now," he says.
He tries to look for landmarks, see if anything looks familiar, "I'd try calling out for her, but there were some…hostile types here the first time I got sucked in. I'd rather not have another fight with the local constabulary," he says.
"Can you…I dunno, sense anything?"
Illyana Rasputina leans heavily on Sam as he helps her up. "Yeah. I can feel a *splitting* headache." She grouses before peering about and pointing at the churned up earth. "You ever do much hunting, country boy?" Feeling a little steadier, Illyana straightens and starts to walk over to the base of the huge tree.
Sam Guthrie laughs, "Plenty. Raccoons, whitedail, squirrels. Coyotes a few times, when they got outta hand," he says. "This ain't exactly the Big Poplar. This is more like rain forest, somethin' outta, like, Predator," he says. "And I didn't exactly bring a rifle. Maybe I should have," he says. He thinks about the gun back in his room, his SHIELD sidearm. Not official SHIELD business, but he maybe should've bent the rules just this once.
Oh well. He starts to examine the brush, looking for clues of passage, seeing if he can see anything resembling a trail.
"Coyotes probably make awful eating." Illyana muses as they head over and check over the area. Sam's experience is in more continental environments and Illyana's is in more deserty-wastelands but between the pair of them they start to trace back a trail to through the thick foliage.
As they make their way through, one thing Sam might notice is that the clumps of golden wheat he saw when he was here in his dreams seems to be absent. And when the wind blows, that slightly cloying scent is absent.
After trudging on for a few hours, the jungle seems to clear and give way to rolling green hills and in the center, a dark tower rises. There isn't much of a trail once it hits the grass, but there's not much else in the area but the tower.
Sam Guthrie shakes his head, "You don't shoot coyotes for eating. You shoot 'em cause they're eatin' your pigs or your sheep. Usually it's fine, they'd rather scavenge than go after something. But sometimes they pack up and the eating's scarce and…then you gotta do what you gotta do," he says.
He looks at the forbidding tower with a wary eye, running a hand back through his hair. Sweat feels real enough, no dream this. "Guess that must be the place, at least around here."
"I'd say something snarky, but I've got my own ostentatious castle." Illyana points out with a shrug before crossing her arms and looking thoughtful. "So… how we playin' this boss?" He *was* the one that made the call. "We gonna go in soft and try to talk your sweetheart free? Or we blasting in and then trying to make a break for it?"
It's a pretty big castle. Might take a bit of smashing around to find where the woman's being kept. And to make it worse, "I can't open stepping disks here easily. I needed to use the charm as a bridge. I'm gonna need time and it's gonna knock me for a loop." Which means a lot of her usual tricks in a fight with them, she can't do.
He frowns, "We don't really know what's going on here. For all we know, she's just trapped in the world itself and is hiding out in there and we'd just scare her to death busting in. I say we go in cautiously and directly and…well, if we run into trouble, we deal with it. Stepping disks or no, I think you can handle yourself better than you think…but just in case, I'll try to keep you in mind when I'm using my field."
He leads the way across the landscape, down a winding hill and starts to approach the front door of the tower.
Illyana Rasputina chuckles at Sam as he gives her Encouraging Words. "Guthrie, are you stroking my ego?" She teases. "I'm not usually accused of a lack of self-confidence." She loops her arm through his as they head over the emerald-green grass.
The dark tower is *towering*, more like a skyscraper than a regular castle with its' vertical lines over a sprawling fortress. As they approach the gates there are a pair of those all-tiki-mask-head sort of creatures with spears, and lower them as the pair approaches.
Sam Guthrie grins, "You almost looked nervous. I've never seen you look nervous before. I figured I'd better nip it in the bud," he says. Sam regards the creatures directly and steps forward, preparing to fire his blast field at any moment.
"Hey, guys. Dunno if we met before, I'm…well. I'm here for the woman. For Chimere. Is she in there?"
Illyana Rasputina sticks her tongue out at Sam. "Well I can't, really. Look nervous." Glancing over at him she explains, "Spent most of my life around demons." She reminds him. "Demons derive a lot of pleasure out of exploiting weaknesses. So showing something like that? They'll try to take advantage. And while sure, I can deal with most of them, I don't want to be doing it *all* the time. And if they manage to convince enough of them to gang up on me? I dunno how long I could hold that line." Illyana admits, her tone a bit softer.
The two tiki-heads look at each other when Sam talks, and then back at him. At Chimere's name, they growl and start to advance threateningly.
Behind them, the tall, narrow doors swing open, and standing there is the man that Sam has 'met' once before looking none the worse for wear. He smirks at the pair of them. "Looking for the witch, are you?"
Sam Guthrie nods, "I only think I could tell because I know you so well," he says. "Pretty sure the demons aren't quite as observant."
Sam's blast field flares for a moment, the low whine of it starting to form making the hair rise up on Illyana's arm, the ground at his feet shuddering ever so slightly. "If that's what you want to call her, I guess. Not really sure I can take your word for anything, mister," he says. "Maybe you can try explainin' what's goin' on here, before we all start poundin' each other silly again, huh?"
Illyana Rasputina's eyes narrow as the man calls the woman they're looking for a 'witch'. She's got her own dislike of the term, obviously.
The man crosses his arms before himself, lifting his chin a bit. "I am Lord Maerd. I rule this land." His tone is imperious, and annoyed. If Sam hadn't broken his arm before, he might not be even deigning to speak to them right now. Though he seems all healed up now. "As to 'what is going on'? She's a witch!" He says with some exasperation. Like Sam is some country bumpkin that don't know nuthin' about nuthin'. "Her village reported calves stillborn. Milk curdling. We must free her from the demons within that she clings to." A shake of his head. "This is no matter for you, boy."
Sam sighs, "I dunno what to believe. But I know this woman has called me twice before for help. I ain't exactly Old Scratch, so I ain't sure why a witch would try to summon me of all folks. I'm just a man. A bit special, yeah, but…" he shakes his head, "Witches ain't always bad. I know that can be a hard pill to swallow. Was for me when I first learnt it. But it's true. Doin' magick don't make ya bad. It's what ya do with it. And, all due respect, if you had magick powers, would you be wastin' time curdlin' milk and makin' calves born cold, when nature bein' doin' a pretty good job o' both for long as I can remember?"
When Sam states that magic *isn't* bad? The paper-white of Maerd's skin goes livid red. "Blasphemer! BURN THEM!" There's the shuffling of sounds above, and flaming-tipped arrows peek out of thin, slitted windows in row upon row of the tower above them and then let fly.
Maerd himself turns and runs back inside, and the tiki-masked pair do as well, trying to drag the tall doors behind them as quickly as possible.
Sam Guthrie sighs, "Always gotta come down to an ass-kickin', don't it?" he mutters. His field goes into full blast, swirling around him with pure chaotic energy and momentarily shielding Illyana should any of those flaming arrows take flight before he takes off.
"I'm goin' in and up. Ain't sure how much tower'll be left when I'm done. Guess we'll see how good their bricklayin' is," he says and then he launches, rocketing the gates and blasting them open as he charges towards the door.
Illyana Rasputina is really not a fan of not being able to use stepping disks as shields, damnit. While Sam's field protects her great when she's standing next to him, when he goes cannonballing at the doors, she's going to be left unprotected.
The blonde races after Sam, wanting to get out of the line of arrow fire as he plows into the dark stone. The stuff is less bricks and more 'carved from granite' and Sam needs to *push* get through walls. The doors though? They're easier.
Inside, the halls stretch up into high gothic arches. Maerd is running down one of them towards the reinforced doors to what look like a throne room.
Sam Guthrie sees no need to be careful with the guy's stuff since he's being such a jerk. So, instead of trying to follow carefully along the length of the stairs, Cannonball just plows through them, blasting stone and mortar apart and gaining ground relatively easily since he doesn't have to bother with pesky things like walking or making turns or going around walls.
Still, there's a chance the guy gets to the door before him. THen we'll see just how reinforced it actually is.
Looks like the guy can *move*. He gets through the doors before Sam, but… that doesn't really matter when you're a Cannonball. Splintered wood and rock goes flying through the room, knocking Maerd down and he howls in pain as a particularly large piece of rubble pins him to the stairs up to his throne.
The injured man glares at Sam with hatred. "If you want the witch so badly, fine! Take her!" He spits. "She's down in the dungeons."
Sam Guthrie hovers in the air for a moment, a nimbus of power around him and the comet trail of debris in his wake swirling with the chaos of his field. Sam snaps his goggles in place and gives a jaunty salute, his blonde hair waving in the wind of his own creation.
"Could've just started there. Would've saved you a lot on home repair. Maybe don't stick people in dungeons? Honestly, it's a nasty habit."
And then he turns and flies down, plunging lower until he can plunge through the floor and break his way into the dungeon.
Illyana Rasputina is stuck running behind Sam. This. Sucks. She's not even to the throne room when Sam starts to play drill and go down, down down. Panting a bit, the blonde looks over to Maerd and narrows her eyes. "Stairs?" She demands. With a grunt, he points. Illyana will take the longer way down.
Sam breaks through to the dungeons. You can tell my the smell. And the cramped hall with smoking, guttering torches that lead down both directions, locked doors set into stone walls.
Sam Guthrie stops flying at least, but keeps up his field, "Down this way," he calls back to Illyana, giving her a moment to come down the stairs before he presses deeper into the dungeon.
"Sorry, sometimes when I'm blastin', I get like a dog sees a car. I just start chasin' it,' he says. "Big man says she's down here somewhere. Might as well git to lookin'."
Note to self: quit teleporting everywhere and get some more damned exercise. Illyana just nods at Sam, busy catching her breath. She waves him down one direction and she turns to walk down the other way, looking into the cells.
Most of the dungeon is empty, and it doesn't take long for Sam to find Chimere. Her long, dark hair hangs down all oily and dirty as she's curled up in a corner, head down on her knees and arms over her head. She looks much thinner, the wounds on her arms scabbed over but angry looking and likely infected. Her pale skin is a canvas of bruises.
Lifting her head as she hears Sam, her cheeks are hollow, making her dark eyes seem much larger. It looks like a lot more time has passed here than the few hours for Sam.
Sam doesn't hesitate, just intensifying the field enough to chew the cell door to shreds, collapsing it in and opening the way for her to escape. He could've fiddled with finding the key, but hell with it. He doesn't really feel bad about damaging someone's terrible torture dungeon.
"Chimere, right? I'm Sam. I think we met…although maybe you don't remember. I don't know how all this works. Anyway…let's get you out of here, huh?" he says, then gestures towards Illyana, "This is my friend. She's here to help."
As Sam breaks down the—OK, more like disintegrated the door, Chimere's breath catches and she sobs, hands pressing to her mouth in a grateful sort of relief. As she does so there is the rattle of chains and as she sits up he can see a wide metal collar around her throat and matching cuffs on her wrists. A chain runs between all of them and leads to a ring set into the floor. Guess the *locked door* wasn't enough.
Illyana joins them, leaning forward a bit, hands resting on her knees as she pants. "Hey." She offers, lifting one hand to wave it over at her. "Finally. Time to blow this popstand?"
Sam Guthrie nods, "Looks that way. We might need to find keys somewhere. I might be able to blast those chains off, but I can't guarantee I wouldn't hurt her in the process. Not exactly built for fine tuned targeting," he says.
He does at least get the one on the floor, stepping over where it's attached and loosing it from its moorings. "Any more resistance left?" he smiles.
Chimere looks a mess, really. Her lips are cracked, and speaking seems to be a bit beyond her just now. As Sam works on getting the chains at least free, he'll see that there aren't any *locks* on collar and cuffs. Instead, they have twisting, arcane symbols etched into them.
Illyana seems to have caught her breath, and comes over. She catches sight of the etching and spits out a curse. She gestures to them. "They're Anchors." A sigh and the blonde tromps over and squats down. "Gimmie a few. Lemme see if I can finagle these off. The magic here is… weird."
Sam Guthrie nods, "Gotcha," he says. What else can he say? Short of that he'll just have to blow a hole in the wall and carry them out, which he might still do. But, for the moment, they don't seem to be in immediate danger. If the big guy has some sort of secret weapon to pull out, Sam will just have to deal with it.
Or run. They could always just run.
Chimere holds out her arms to Illyana, presenting the cuffs at her wrists. With a shrug, Illyana turns her attention to them. It takes her several minutes, following the script and figuring out how the spell is built. Definitely not something they'd want to have been in a fight and trying to do. Finally, as Sam is probably starting to get bored, Illyana starts to trace along the first cuff and the line of etching starts to light up. The sorceress works her way slowly, carefully around, until she gets to the original point and then gives it a tap, speaking a word and a pulse of energy seems to rush outwards. The cuff falls away.
Flashing a cocky grin over at Sam she nods. "Easy peasy." It's not, but what were they saying about ego before? The second cuff doesn't need the study time, but it still takes a while for Illyana to slowly take that spell apart. The second cuff falls to the dungeon with a clatter.
In the distance, they're starting to hear shouting. The sounds of boots on the stairs. Chimere looks nervously towards the door. It must be the dirt and grim, her long black hair looking like it has a slightly green sheen.
Sam Guthrie looks back at the noise, "If you can't disk her out of the tower, well, I guess I'll just have to go through them," he says. He redeoubles his blast field and clenches his fist, feeling a lingering ache in the one Chimere marked. It seems like so long ago, but it was likely just a bit more than a few hours. He hoped that wouldn't make a mess going back. Time seemed a little wibbly wobbly. He didn't want to come back in like Blade Runner time. He wasn't that good with computers.
"Yeah, yeah, no pressure." Illyana says tightly, moving in a bit closer and tipping Chimere's head back so that she can get to the collar. She gives it a quick look-over and then nods. It looks the same and they've got the bad guys about to be breathing down their necks. Opening a portal is gonna take more time than usual too so she'd best get on the stick. Pursing her lips and focusing on her task, Illyana starts to unwind the final binding while all the while the boots sound louder and louder, joined by the ring of steel.
*SNAP!* Energy rushes out, much more significant than that of the cuffs. Enough to knock a person down. Illyana's already crouched down, but as the metal collar opens it and dissolves into that energy wave, she's bowled over backwards. "Ooof!"
A moment later, all that energy comes rushing back in light a freight train and the collar suddenly reappears with another *SNAP!*. Around Illyana's neck.
Chimere pushes up to her feet, and as she does so the wounds, the bruising, the dirt and grime all wash away. Her emaciate form fills out and her dirty, tattered clothing transforms into tight red leather. Her hair gets longer, fuller, and the black shifts to a deep, deep green and horns sprout from her head. "Oh, Sam. Sam, Sam, Sam you lovely man." She purrs at him.
Sam had just been crashing headlong into the incoming guards, rolling over onto his back as he sends them scattering. He's dusting off and starting to push up to his feet when he hears the snap of the collar and looks up.
"Fuck," he says, a rare swear coming out of the country boy's mouth. He'd been tricked. Bad enough that, but now he'd tracked Illyana in with him. Into a situation that couldn't exactly feel great for her, given her past experienced.
"Let her go," he says, his blast field reforming. "We did as you asked. If you aren't what you seemed, I own that, but she…let her go. Just let her go. It's my fault."
"Oh, no. I don't think so. I've been trapped here for *centuries* and I'm quite done with that. But you. You're *lovely*." Chimere walks towards him with a slow strut. "I'm willing to take you with me. All you have to do is agree to be mine." She holds a hand out towards him, palm up invitingly.
The troops Sam bowled over? Gone. No blood, no bodies, just… gone. Illyana's gotten to her knees, hands going up to the collar around her throat with a snarl and her eyes go white with power and rage. "I'll eat your *heart*." The blonde snarls.
Sam doesn't understand. Perhaps he should. He should've known better, should've trusted less, should've paid more attentions to the warnings Illyana gave along the way. But it was perfect for him, wasn't it? He was going to get to be the knight errant, the fairytale hero, the prince saving the princess from the castle, even if he didn't really know who she was or why she was there. Did they ever?
He's angered at himself more than anything, but it still bleeds into the field, a hard roar erupting as he bursts into flight and charges at her, "I SAID LET HER GO!"
Chimere gives an elaborate sigh. "Ah, well. I tried."
As Sam rockets towards her, she raises her hands and in a blink… she's gone, leaving Sam to barrel through the space that she *was*.
And then the tower starts to shake and crumble. Without Chimere there to give the illusion shape it starts to revert to dreamstuff.
Illyana pushes herself to her feet, one hand still around that collar as though she might pull it free by force, even though she knows that's not going to happen. "Spit and Hades, the whole place is coming down!"
Sam kneels down next to her, "I'm sorry. God dammit, I'm sorry. This is all my fault," he says. He moves in close and uses that rage to feed into his blast field, projecting it upwards to obliterate any debris or mortar that falls their way, "We'll be okay. We'll get out. Somehow," he says. He's gritting his teeth in anger, an arm around her shoulders. He won't absolve himself of this easily - and, given the chance, he's going to make 'Chimere' pay.
Illyana Rasputina reaches up, hooking an arm around his shoulder, eyeing the falling debris. It's a hard thing to see tons of rock coming down on you and *not* freak out a bit. She gives him a one-armed squeeze. "I've survived worse." She jokes, smirking over at him and then nods upwards. "But I'm gonna develop claustrophobia if you don't get me outta here soon." Pretend it's all a game, because rage isn't gonna help right now. But later? Oh yeah. There's gonna be so much ow.