2019-10-20 - Into The Dark Dimension

Summary:

A trip into the Dark Dimension ends up being a dark disaster

Log Info:

Storyteller: None
Date: Sun Oct 20 04:22:18 2019
Location: WAND offices

Related Logs

None

Theme Song

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koa-turnerkeikolaynia-petrovna

Keiko is working in one of the WAND artifact rooms, with a book open on her lap as she sits crosslegged on the floor. Her brow is furrowed as her finger underlines words. She has a headache - she really, really hates reading.

"Agent Petrovna should be here soon…" she says to the room at large.

Laynia Petrovna received that request a little time ago. She'll have to access the offices through the portal and when she does, will be shown to the room.


Laynia has been really immersing herself in her studies at SHIELD, and it is showing some dividends. The woman is not dumb, just out of touch after a long hiatus essentially outside of time and space, actually — LITERALLY outside of time and space in the Darkforce dimension. Fortunately her base as far as tech was modern enough to at least have a rudimentary framework and foundation to build off of, were she from the Civil War era or earlier, yeah, that would have been a WHOLE different learning curve.

Still, one can only train so much of every day, no mater how motivated. She's not Batman.

The summons to come to the WAND offices is actually a welcome interruption, and so she gets up, stretches (ignore the popping sounds! Not as young as she used to be), and then shuts everything down in the computer lab before making her way to the portal — or more specifically, down the hall to the left, and through the door to the janitorial closet. A snort of amusement when it proves to be exactly as advertised, and then she steels herself and steps through the portal to the otherplace of WAND.


Koa is standing in a room full of books and statues and such. He's got his arms clasped behind his back waiting. It had been something of a surprise to him earlier when he'd been blasted by someone who wasn't using magic but was clearly using something 'adjacent' to it on the energy spectrum. That had gotten the gears turning in his head and he decided that this gave them a chance to follow up some leads that they had to let go earlier.

When the portal opens in the room he straightens up and motions to Keiko. "Here she is." And indeed, here she is.

"Agent Petrovna. Hello. I'm Agent Turner."

Who does not look like a shark-wolf-thing. He is in fact a relatively normal looking human being. Not in the least bit Astral.

"This is Agent Kurita. Thank you for coming."


"We've met…" Keiko answers quietly, closing the book and standing herself. "He's been busy." She says to Laynia as way of explanation. It doesn't go any further than that though. At least she's not threatening to leash him.

"You are well, Agent Petrovna?" Keiko's language is often interesting. There are times when she doesn't ask questions. Those are the times when she's called on the demon spirit and it puts her in a Limbo mindset.

"Agent Turner wished to see you. You've saved me from reading more at the moment."


"Yes, we've met." Laynia says with a gentle smile, the man did seem a bit quirky at their first meeting, and a lot more shark-monster-ish at their last. Her smile brightens a bit as Keiko interjects and explains. "I am am, Agent Kurita, though please, you can call me Laynia if you wish, both of you." The last directed to Agent Turner.

The smile fades a bit when the specific summons is mentioned, and she nods. "Yes. I had been sort of expecting it." A sigh. "Honestly, I half expected to be brigged."

Turning fully to face Koa, Laynia is genuinely contrite as she offers an apology. "I am very sorry for my attack on your — other — form. I, did not know it was you, sir."


"Mmmm? Oh. That. It's fine, Agent. Doesn't even hurt." Whether or not it actually IS fine is a question of some debate but Koa's not going to say that here, is he? There's nothing Laynia can do about it and she feels bad enough.

"Also you can call me Koa. We're a little less formal here in WAND. I was wondering if I might ask you about your power though. I've been reading up on your file. And trying to make Keiko read it as well though that was going slowly. I am given to understand you pull your power from an extradimensional source and can use it to teleport amongst other things?"


"Keiko." That is apparently Agent Kurita's name. "What happened?" That earns Koa a narrow eyed glance.

"You demonstrated a portal to us the last time we saw you and your file … has a lot of words."

"I'm interested … my daughter … " Keiko shrugs and looks to Koa. "My daughter has recently shown an ability to teleport. The energy that associated it felt … similar."


"Very well, Koa, Keiko." Laynia imps a grin, her nose crinkling up as she does so. "I think we've had this discussion before, da?"

She does seem a bit relieved at Koa's non-fussiness about the whole 'high energy bolt of chilling darkness ripping hole in soul' thing, that's very big of him.

"Yes, I am symbiotically linked to the Darkforce dimension, my mutant power lets me manipulate the 'stuff', there. I can produce wide variety of effects, limited primarily by imagination and focus, mm?"

At Keiko's question, Laynia looks chagrined. "When Captain Rogers went all werewolf the other day Koa came through the floor as shark-wolf monster, I…reacted somewhat /aggressively/." See comment above about soul-holing.


And then she considers. "Oh, you have a daughter and she might be portaling as I do? Perhaps I could meet her?" Laynia hasn't met a lot of Darkforce manipulators. It would be nice not to fight one for a change!


There will surely be no problems or consequences from taking such a hit later. Everything will be just fine. This is most assuredly the case.

Ahem.

Whatever the case Koa doesn't make a big thing out of it. He is somewhat intent on his present line of thought, though. Very intent.

"Yes, and in the time that you've been in that dimension you've encountered no one else, is that right? I was wondering… if you might be willing to take us on a bit of an excursion. What is the range of your teleports, if I may ask? Your file is a bit unclear on that point."

He'll leave the daughter for Keiko to explain.


"I see. And did you get the medics here to check you out, Koa?" The small peruvian says critically. Because of course he wouldn't have and Keiko knows it. "I get it though, his astral form is somewhat offputting." She's had it chase her.

Keiko takes a deep breath, letting Koa ask the pertinent questions, thinking about her answer carefully. "In time, perhaps. She … was born in Limbo. A hell realm, if you haven't heard of it. Her father and I were trapped there for seven years." Koa is going to have to explain the time dilation thing. "She … it might not be Darkforce but the energy I got from your portal and from her, feels a lot like energy I felt as a young child."


No, of course not. Having one's soul punctured can't possibly be a bad thing! Especially not for a magus arcanovore. Nope, no issues. Totally fine.

"Not strictly true." Laynia admits. "I have…another self there, it was she that repaired my body after I got shot with dragunov through chest." Can you say 'ow'? Laynia would have but she was too busy dying.

"But yes…no natives, sometimes lost souls, or people trapped in realm, but nothing native. Is not a place with people, is perhaps alive in a sense, but not itself inhabited." And then she nods. "My portals are good for about two, maybe three miles, is very difficult to navigate from there to here, beyond that distance I have trouble…is very bad."

She lets Keiko ask about Koa's medical care, that's not for her to prod about. She focuses cinnamon eyes upon the spirit-caller as she speaks of Limbo, and she can't help but shudder a bit. "It sounds like not so nice a place."

A moment to ponder, and then she nods firmly, returning her gaze to Koa. "I can take us on an excursion, yes. You will both want to maintain physical contact with me, is not safe in Darkforce dimension, I cannot shield you at all if we are not touching, da? Is acceptable?"


"It's not exactly in their lane." Koa knows exactly ONE person good with damage to the soul and she isn't around at the moment. The local medics, well, WAND doesn't encourage magic that's capable of manipulating the essence of who people are. For obvious reasons.

"Yes, that should be fine. Just need to… Keiko. Take this." He hands her a relic - a dosing rod - that he'd been messing with earlier. He's got one that looks identical.

"There. That's acceptable to me though you should let either of us know if you feel something… strange from us. Or if something starts feeling like you're being hollowed out."

That's not alarming at all, is it?

"Ready, Keiko?"


"It is Limbo." Keiko answers. It isn't nice but it probably wasn't a lot different to how her childhood was, so there's that. "And it bought me, Elena." Something that seems to matter to the spirit caller.

Taking the rod, Keiko gives Koa a flat look for his comments. Hollowing out … oh wait. No, he's right.

"I am ready. I am always ready."


Once everyone is ready, Laynia starts to summon a portal, then pauses. "When you say 'hollowed out', do you mean in physical sense, or other?" She'd like a little more clarity, once she has her answer Laynia nods. "Mm." And her eyes go solid black as she raises a hand (possibly unnecessarily), and a pinpoint of darkness appears, then 'spins' open, like the bits of an iris valve to form an oval disc hovering in the air about a half foot off the ground. The oval is pure darkness, and it bleeds tendrils of smoky-stuff into the air, which fades as it breaks free. The portal itself is roiling, inky…and then clears to reveal a whole /universe/ like that.

She moves forward then, and pauses just before the portal. "Remember, physical contact or I cannot mitigate, da?" She'll wait for the pair to approach, and then offers each of them one of her hands before stepping back through through the portal, and drawing them with her.

The transit is just…chill, physical and spiritual, and leads them to a smoky place roughly analogous to the room they just left. The eye cannot really penetrate too far, the air itself seeming to bend and blur things like distance and shape, there's a sense of being watched, and movement out of the periphery of sight, but never anything much to see directly.

"Welcome to Darkforce dimension." Laynia says.


The chill is… beyond anything Koa has felt before. But it does feel similar, if not the same, to other things he has felt. His eyes are bright, bright red at this point and there's an interesting sense of him pressing OUT against the power of the realm rather than taking it in. Which is possibly the only time he has ever done that.

"This place is… creepy." Koa mutters. He glances around. The movement is unsettling and the predator in him wants to chase.

There's a tug on his rod. And on Keikos. They are, fortunately, tugging in the same direction but not quite the same one.

"This rod is attuned to the signature of a necromancer named Master Darque." He pauses a moment. "And it's picking something up…"


Keiko touches Laynia's sleeve as the warning is given. If she feels the chill that invades her soul - or what's of it - she doesn't say or react. Such a good little Nightfall soldier.

"It reminds a bit of Plokta, the feel …" Keiko might be agreeing with Koa, though she looks at the rod when it moves.

"Darque." she growls "A necromancer who has an alliance with Plokta. We should …" The small peruvian tugs on Laynia's sleeve.


"Yes, is place of madness for the unprotected. And I cannot fully shield you, prolonged time here will be dangerous." Laynia admits. And then she narrows her gaze the mention of the rods, and their purpose. And that focus draws a sort of Shadow Laynia into sight behind her. Though Laynia's hair is short now, a sort of pixie cut, the other her - entirely made of semi-transparent darkforce, HER hair is still rather long. BOTH are looking off into the darkness, along where the dowsing rods point.

To Koa's sight there's layered bonds between the two Laynia's, on multiple dimensional levels, like…the different bands of a radio, but there's no doubt that these two are essentially one, and yet not. Keiko's tats would likely chill as the other Laynia becomes visible, especially since some of those tendrils are passing through her, though on another etheric level altogther.

"Darque…?" She asks, and there's a ghostly echo from the other. "…who is this 'Darque?" Why YES, Laynia is in fact less than thrilled to hear of an invader in HER Darkforce.


"We don't know entirely. A necromancer and a powerful one. Servant to a ruler of a place called the Darkness Domain." Rather than the Darkness Dimension. Koa takes a couple of steps, that is if Lanyia will move. "He channels some kind of otherdimensional force and… I think it's possible that he's linked to this place in a similar way that you are. As to his history?"

Koa shakes his head. They simply don't know. The dowsing rods are insistent though. They're detecting something off in this particular dimension.

"We've run into him before. He was aiding a cult that kidnaps children to make them like Keiko."


"Not the first place I've been where that's the case." Keiko murmurs, not shivering as the tendrils run through her - they affect her, she just doesn't show it. "Why does she look to you now?" Her chin tilts to the shadow Laynia curiously.

"The Nightfall, raised me from when I was a little girl. We think I was five or six when I was taken. Depending on the abilities a child has, they're either marked as spirit caller like me, taught to fight or become a binder. Darque was one of the agents … though I didn't know that till recently."


"Well, I do not like the idea of a necromancer here, there is too much that could be dangerous." Laynia(s) focus and create a platform they can all stand on, literally shaping the Darkforce with her will, and then with her at the 'prow', and the the other her aft, she makes it easy and moves the disc along where the two wands point. This would be nigh impossible for her in the real world, but here? The rules are a tad different /here/.

The other Laynia studies Keiko back, so…it seems to have some sort of separate identity. Separate will. And yet, it is inarguably also Laynia - just not made of flesh and blood. "Mm? Oh…I do not know, perhaps is time delay. I only just had the hair cut." And who knows, maybe on the way out it will revert to long again, which would be annoying!

"So…is EVIL necromancer." She puts on a bit more speed. Anyone that messes with children needs to be stomped!


"Do you know any other kind?" Koa mutters. Yeah there are a few who wield that kind of power and aren't maniacal assholes but there really aren't all that many. One of the rules of magic seems to be that touching the power of death stains you.

Keiko has seen Koa do something similar. Seen that bestial part of him shift above his skin sometimes. Regard people. Even growl. It's sort of like getting a glimpse of the person below the surface thoughts and the front they put up.

The dowsing rods get stronger. And stronger. And then all of a sudden they come upon a tall black crystal. Roughly the height and thickness of a man. It's practically radiating waves of wrong.

"What in Limbo's name…" Koa mutters not apparently realizing he did that.


"It's strange how there's a shadow of you here…" the spirit caller murmurs, moving with Koa and Laynia following that rod. "Good, evil … he works for Plokta and steals children. Nothing good ever came from that."

"By the Darkchilde." Keiko breathes as the crystal comes into view. "What is that, Koa…." Without thinking she moves the little group about it, inspecting it. "I can feel magic everywhere, what is it you two 'see'."


"Koa…" Laynia answers in that weird words and echo from her other self voice. "…I have never met a necromancer before, my experience has been entirely legends." Laynia's tone darkens. "Until now." When they arrive at the crystal she wraps her arms about her midsection, and looks mildly ill. The shadow Laynia looks ANGRY, and reaches a hand out to each of Keiko and Koa, maintaining contact in case they move away.

Eyes full of blackness, Laynia looks to Keiko. "She is me, Keiko, and I am her. Here…we are more bound together than on Earth, though we are always one even there." Just less so. And all the while her voice has that whispery echo, and there's more such sounds lurking, looming, suggestive of words in the background but unintelligible, just at the edge of being understood then slipping away again.

She looks at the pillar with consternation, the crystal. "It…seethes with wrongness." Laynia murmurs. "Definitely not something I wish to countenance here." She starts to reach for it with a hand…then thinks better of that.


Koa looks back at the shadow Laynia and then kneels down to look at the base of the crystal. It is really hard to tell where the 'ground' is in this place. It's just more blackness in an already utterly black plain.

"It's anchored into the ground. Surface. Whatever." He rises and looks.

"I think it's a chrysalis. That's a guess but it makes the most sense given what happened to Darque the last time we saw him."

A chrysalis. Like an insect?

"You…" That voice. Keiko knows that voice. "So. You came to see your handiwork, did you?"


Laynia's statement doesn't make sense to Keiko but the spirit caller had stopped trying to make sense of things a long time ago. "He is of this place, Koa?"

"A chyrsalis. Wasn't the last time when you sunk your claws into him?" Quite literally. "You drained him, you said. He is … rejuvenating, isn't h——" The voice has her turning to the stone.

"Why not? It's nice to see the damage we wrought."


As she feels that /corruption/ of HER place, the Darkforce itself a terrifying and nebulous thing — and this chrysalis feels even MORE wrong? Yeah, that's just digging at Laynia on levels upon levels and not in a good way. "Bozhe moi, it speaks." That does not make her any happier. It is perhaps fortunate that the shadow Laynia is extending the shielding influence they share because fleshy-Laynia's expression goes very flat, very hostile and she shakes her head. "Nyet. I will NOT have it."

She literally blazes with the power she draws from the place, and here, she's rather a lot more able to manipulate the stuff - she has no need to draw it into the earthly realm, nope, here there be Darkforce aplenty.

Both hands raised overhead she draws in a massive amount of the darkling energy around them, and then concentrates it, compacts it, and then HURLS it at the crystal. "BEGONE, DEFILER!"


The crystal shatters. It shatters into a hundred small shards that dissipate into smoke. In it's place is a man, bald, floating a couple of feet above the ground and simply wrapped in power. He chuckles.

"Ooooooh that feels good. The sensation of power. You are quite potent with the Darkforce young one. Quite potent."

Koa glares at the man. He doesn't have a chance to answer Keiko's questions now.

"Now. What was that you called me? Defiler, is it? As if this place is some… pristine, unspoiled land that I am sullying by my presence?" The laugh is urbane but rather sinister.

"Forgive me. I do not know that we have been introduced. My name is Darque."


"I don't know you should do tha—-" Keiko murmurs as Laynia blasts the crystal.

The peruvian mutters about only having one hand and having to hold the dousing rod. "You are Darque. We are the people who put you here."

"Might I suggest we exit this place, post haste?"


Alas, Keiko's warning came too late, and Laynia — honestly — she was not listening. The newly revealed Darque, however, HE gets her full attention. "I am Tyomneya Svezda, the Darkstar. And yes, you are a defiler, Darque. The Darkforce dimension is what it is, and you're powers, your presence violates it."

She smiles, well, in as much as that expression also includes the baring of teeth. "But…you are a wielder of the Darkforce as well." She nods once. "And you are an enemy of my allies, thus mine as well." Both Laynias move as one, the pair almost seeming to take on a Shive like pose, the two sets of arms, the two hers overlaid one atop the other and the limbs doing different things. She reaches for Darque's connection to the Darkforce — and she bites and cuts at it with HER connection to the Darkforce attempting to excise the corruption. "You. Are. Not. Welcome. HERE!"


The Darkforce roils at her command and in surprise Darque actually reels for a moment. She can feel the connection weaken and nearly snap, but then it stabilizes and Darque's eyes glow bright, cold blue.

"My turn." The necromancer brings both his hands together and lashes out. There is an entirely different feeling of cold as he tries to simply rip Laynia's soul out of her. This is not an easy process and can be resisted by those with strong will but oh does it hurt.

"Shit. Hang on." Koa can feel the cold closing in around him and he's already scribing golden runes in the air with something he got out of his pocket. "Keiko! Delay him!"


"I don't think that's a good ide—— " Keiko has a teleport wafer in her pocket, she could have simply whisked the three of them to safety. She doesn't though. Instead she waits and that delay might very well kill Laynia.

Koa's instruction is timely as Keiko draws the short metal rod she carries from her back, shoving the dousing rod in the band of her trousers. The rod expands into her quarterstaff as the small peruvian rushes towards the necromancer, touching three tattooes on her arms.

He won't be expecting that. Nor will he be expecting the huge demonic wolf that appears in front of him, or the large Dragon that belches flame at his head or zombie raven that dives from the sky with her talons out, aiming for his eyes.

Heaven knows what effect the Dark Dimension is having on all of them.


Intent on her attack, Laynia is ill-prepared for the return assault when it fails. Laynia is strong, very strong, especially here and bolstered by her Darkforce self. That said, she screams in anguish as the necromancer does his necrobest to kill the Russian woman. And that's the thing - Russians are a people used to suffering. It is steeped into their mother's milk, imbibed, breathed in with every breath of the air of Mother Russia. The Darkstar fight back, as best she can, and though she cannot meet the man on his ground, she can draw on her ties to this place…which is hers, and it will fortify her.

For a time.

And then she tries something that also might not occur to the man considering he's being attacked by Keiko.

A la 'Wizards', Laynia draws a pistol, an antique really, a Tokarev 7.63 millimeter and fires off a three round burst at his center mass.


She's hit him. Laynia can tell that in a dozen small ways. The sound. The way he jerks. The way that dark smoke seems to pour from the wounds - that last one isn't so subtle. The substance of this place whirls about Laynia and then he just brings a four ton mass down on her head. Or tries to. Screw it. He'll just get her soul out the old fashioned way.

That effort is rather disrupted by the sudden influx of demonic animals and now Darque really does have to move back. He's surprisingly fast. He can keep ahead of Keiko, preventing her from actually making contact though only just and he has to be careful not to be corralled by the dragon or the birds or the wolf. And yes, being exposed to the darkforce probably isn't doing them any favors.

That's when something alien pierces this place. Light. Bright and golden it washes out from Koa's completed ward over everything and burns the darkness away if only for a moment. It's probably going to burn Laynia a bit but it burns Darque even more. The intent is not to hurt him, though. It is to deny him easier access to his power. That might weaken the blow above Laynia's head enough for her to survive it.

Keiko can see, Darque is already opening a portal. He's not staying for this.


Keiko rolls when she hears the shots ring out, keeping low. It's instinctive as much as it anything else. The piercing light has the spirit caller shading her eyes and sending a prayer to the Darkchilde to keep Keiko's spirits safe.

Spirits she doesn't call off, at all.

"He's leaving. We should too…" Leaving her spirits to harass Darque, Keiko returns to the other two and puts a hand on Koa's shoulder, getting Laynia to touch her arm.

"We're leaving as soon as you're ready. Do not go after him. He's dangerous."


Laynia literally sags a moment when the assault on her soul relents, she starts to fire again when she senses that massive weight of Darkforce forming up above her. A sneer…until the burst of light.

Light.

In the Darkforce dimension. Something that cannot be, should not be. As the area they're in is illumined, as the Darkforce itself is briefly banished both Laynias scream, and she slumps unconscious as Darkforce Laynia is also banished…hopefully only for a time, but who knows? The searing light burns Laynia as she falls, and then that much diminished weight descends, and there's a fairly sickening sound of meat being tenderized, and a few bones breaking.

Good thing she was already unconscious! This will also simplify things in some regards, she was touching Keiko's arm, yes, but when she fell it would put her at the caller's feet. Easy enough to set one foot on the woman as they leave, hopefully that will be sufficient.


"Call your spirits back." Koa says as he gets out a small stone wafer and makes sure he's touching Keiko's hand and Laynia wherever he can. Once they're back he breaks it and a flash of a teleport spell engulfs them.

They appear back in WAND's teleportarium faced with a pair of shocked arcane techs.

"O'Brian! Call medical, I've got wounded here."

And bigger problems besides. But that's for another time. For now they're safe.

He hopes.


The spirits are already being recalled. That's why Keiko needed a free hand when she joined the other two.

As Koa activates the wafer, the smoke settles on her arms. Just in time.

"I'm not hurt. See to Agent Petrovna." Keiko mutters. Her eyes have gone yellow but there's now black specks floating in them.

Big problems indeed.


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