Summary:Koa looks for something to give them an edge in the upcoming fight with Belasco. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Koa is in the archives, specifically in the artifact lockers going through a very large, thick book which appears to have been written with a quill. This is The Register, a list of every artifact that has ever been placed into these archives, its abilities and its present status.
There are a LOT of things in here. Koa is looking for a specific few. Artifacts that will give power and not ask for too much in return. Because with magic there is nothing free. Everything requires a sacrifice or a ritual or a magical phrase or SOMETHING to fuel it. Magic always has a price.
The trick is to finding a price that you're willing to pay. Or at least… able to pay.
Keiko lets herself into the archives, carrying coffee for two and a bag of something that smells scrumptious. "Elena is finally settled. She wanted to know when she go back to school and when Papa will be home." Two complications that Keiko could do without, to be honest.
Handing Koa a coffee and the sack of food, she looks at the Register and wrinkles her nose. "Found anything?"
"Yes. Well, maybe." Koa puts down the book and looks in the sack of food. What's in here that he might like… hrm…
"I've got two knives, a sword, a bangle, a handful of gems, a 'toad stone', a cut stem rose and a ball of y-"
"Mew-mew." Koa looks up in alarm. There's a two headed cat. It grabs a ball of greyish yarn in its mouth and then vanishes.
"Welllllllll… shit. No ball of yarn, then."
There's muffins and bagels in the bag. Some with bacon. They're probably for Keiko - though maybe she got enough to share. "I figured you hadn't eaten breakfast." Neither had she. Getting Elena ready takes a lot of her morning and looking after herself wasn't high on Keiko's list before … everything happened.
Lunging for the cat, the coffee slops a bit over her hand - not that the scalding liquid garners even a grimace from the peruvian. "I don't know why you just don't let Besas come live me. Elena adores him and …" Well, Keiko's used to weird pets, really.
"So no ball of yarn but knives, sword, bangle and gems. A flower and a toadstool. Got it. You don't sound happy with any of them."
"Beacuse no one can KEEP him anywhere. With that teleport charm he's eaten he can go anywhere and does, all the time. If I let him come live with you he'd STILL show up here and make trouble." Koa sighs as he takes out a bagel and starts to eat. No he had not had breakfast.
"They're all useful but they all have downsides. Nothing as simple as knowing a magical activation phrase either. They all have to be powered somehow. Most magical items do really, tales of artifacts that just DO things are either leaving a lot out about how the thing gets energy or just lying." Koa knows this, he knew this when he started going through the archives here.
The senior agent passes a handwritten list of what does what to Keiko. "Anything look like it suits you?"
Keiko looks at the list and then raises an eyebrow at Koa. "It's in cursive, which is worse than demonic. At least I can read demonic fairly well." Amazing what living in Limbo for seven years does to you. "Remind again why we need these?"
It takes Keiko a long time to get through the list. "None of them really. The knives probably - they need blood and what's this word mean? I'm not sure my demon is going to like this …"
"It was written with an actual dip quill." Koa says dryly. "By someone who started these records decades ago." Because these didn't originally belong to SHIELD. WAND is, in the scheme of things, fairly young, but it inherited form other organizations dedicated to protecting people from the weird.
"Firepower, Keiko. We're expecting Belasco to make a move at some point and when he does we are probably not going to have any time to prepare. So we need to do our preparation now."
None of them. Well he gets that, he doesn't especially like them either but this is what they've got so far.
"What about the toad stone. That one requires that you ingest it… it just has to be er, reverse ingested later."
And it takes from her aura/life force, but shhhh.
"I don't care if it was written with a finger nail. It's written in cursive and I can barely make it out." Keiko grumbles, looking at the list again and giving Koa side eye.
"You think eating a stone made of toads will give me firepower … What does it do? Give me gas?" She reads the description again and sighs. "I don't know if my demon will like this and that will give us more trouble than not. I doubt we get time to practice…"
"Well 'the power to shoot burning bile' does sound like the kind of thing that IS indeed firepower." Which it does say but not only in cursive, but also in a sort of Shakespearian English that's ever so slightly pretentious.
"It's not made of toads it's… medieval legend was that stones grew in toad stomachs. Hence, toad stone." Not that this will make her feel any better about swallowing it. Also Koa suspects he knows how the bile is 'shot'.
Ahem.
"We may not, but without something like this we're going in short your tattoos and with my own powers sort of on a knife edge. I don't think I want to tangle with Belasco in that state."
"You …. want me to throw up on our attackers?" Keiko doesn't blanch when Koa mentions what the toad stones are. She grew up in a cult - they ate all sorts of things. "I don't know Koa. That sounds really uncomfortable - more uncomfortable than most things I do."
It seems they found a limit to Keikos' stoiscm.
She could say she wants the tattooes back. Well the spirits. She knows, though, that it would endanger the spirits unneccessarily. "What about the flower? Is that a bit like Tuxedo Mask? I get to twirl around and magical effects happen?" Why can't any of the artifacts be nice and pretty - like that?
And yes. She said Tuxedo Mask.
"Right so maybe that's…" Koa can see how that might be hard in a fight. "May we don't go with… Tuxedo." He stares. "How is it you know Sailor Moon but not real cinema or television?" Some would argue that Sailor Moon IS real television but they would be wrong.
"The flower… does not do that. It will let you make situations thorny, but you have to be holding it the entire time…" And it harvests energy by calling attention to her. Which CAN be a problem in a fight. It can be valuable but suddenly being a priority target is often a downside.
"Who says I don't know real cinema or television?" Keiko shrugs. "I used to like the thigh high socks." She might still. "It was on when I made my way through South America and it gave me something to watch."
"I mean, I could throw up on people. That alone might make them turn tail and run. Particularly if I've eaten lots of carrots and … tuna … before hand."
The rose gets some consideration "Do I have to hold it? Or can we fit it to my staff?" Because she needs both hands for that.
Given she has to keep her hands free, and she might be good with knives, but she's better with her staff, her attention turns to the bangle. "Who the hell wrote these descriptions? What does gargantuan proportions mean?"
"Might be able to fix it to your staff…" Koa muses. "We'd want to test that before Belasco came calling though." Because he's not sure it wouldn't work, but he's also not sure it WOULD work. It's one of those grey areas where it really depends on the nature of the magic.
He leans over to look and chuckles. "A man named Giuseppe. Why he wrote like that and who he was don't ask me. The Register actually comes from another collection that we inherited and added to. Giuseppe lived some time ago. I don't know exactly what that means but 'Able to make the cedars shaketh with his passing' does sound promising? Or perhaps large."
"That's what I meant, Koa, by practicing." Keiko says dryly. The bangle though has her attention as she tries to make out what it will cost. "Giuseppe? The guy who made Pinnochio? Oh… no … that was Gepetto …"
"It … sounds promising, I think. The cost though … fade from memory …" Of course, if it makes her large, it might affect her fighting style. Keiko is so used to being one of the smallest around and using that to her advantage.
"What do you think?"
"I think we should take a few of these into the practice ring over there and see what they do." Fade from memory. Sounds like 'people forget you'. Is that temporary? Permanent? They can do a bit more testing. These are the kinds of things that you do not really want to go in blind for.
"Take the rose…" Koa says, gathering up the knives and such. "Lets get started."