[Golden Hunter] Storming the Temple
Vael takes note of the temple, then gives a sigh and heads towards the entrance, giving a glance back to Vincenzo as he gives a faint smile. "Well, looks like you'll be putting your magic to use sooner than I thought.. Doors open."
Janessa has been following Vael and Vinny the whole way, "Maybe I should wait outside then?" She looks unsure of herself after having calmed down from destroying an armory. Perhaps it's because she only has a bow and no magic, what could she do against a god or magic?
Elsewhere is still creepily quiet. Perhaps there's some impressive staring going on, or something. Then, rather as if to punctuate that inside might be safer than outside, there's a crunch of rather stupendous proportions, a crack and in the distance another skyscraper collapses, as if it had been -punched- down.
Following after Vael is the redheaded Vincenzo, who has kept fairly quiet during this little adventure. He takes a moment to look over the temple, and then he tilts his head to one side as he looks to Vael and gives a soft chuckle. "Well, sooner or later, I don't mind employing it. What did you have in mind for it?" he asks, curiosity in his voice. One of his hands rests lightly on the hilt of one of his swords, but both of them are yet sheathed. He glances to Janessa, and raises an eyebrow slightly. "You can wait wherever you wish to," he offers helpfully.
Quinlan wrinkles his nose as he heads into the temple. "This whole thing reeks of the Hunter's power. Who knows when it was built." His head turns as a building collapses, sniffing that direction also. "Carmichael's using large-print communication. We've got a little time."
Inside the temple is ...a ring. Clearly a combat ring, designed for two, perhaps three combatants at most. There's a dais at one end, perhaps where victors are praised or referee-calls are made. It's hard to say, because there are no furnishings on it and the banners just have geometric patterns in red and gold. But the temple is laid out such that possibly five hundred people or more could sit in the spectator rings and miss nothing of what goes on in the pit, which has fresh fine sand strewn across it. Hints of blood on the walls of the ring tell the obvious tale. For those that look back, as they enter, two large wheel cranks on either side of the doors suggest they may be open because they can only BE opened from the inside. Which may suggest that somewhere - under the stands? On an upper floor? - the priests *live* here.
Vael goes to say something as he walks through the door, but the second he tries to walk through the door he's LITERALLY thrown backwards at great force, his human form dissolving as he hits the street and rag-dolls.. When he stands up, theres blood trickling off of his vulpine jaw and his teeth are bared, eyes glowing with RAGE for a moment before they swirl and become black as pitch. Somethings wrong and it shows the second black tendrils suddenly rip from his body, the crackling energy snapping around the air around him, grasping the air and solidifying more than a dozen visible orbs of pure wind. "Bastard!" he snaps as the orbs fly forward, bombarding the doors and walls of the temple, though it's not the temple itself that they are aimed at. "I will not be made a fool of by a /dead/ god!" His voice isn't his own either, it's coupled with a second, much deeper one.
Janessa gives a faint squeek and dashes for cover. Her eyes wide and round as her god goes berserk. She looks at the temple and so does not want to enter it now.
Oh. Well. Crap. That's new. Vincenzo gives a faint murmur under his breath, a slight gesture from his right hand, and he tosses out a shield of air to surround Janessa. It might be enough to help her, it might not be. Boldly, then, he steps over to Vael's side, then lifts a hand to place it on Vael's shoulder. Perhaps a supportive effort, perhaps a reassuring one. Or maybe it's just entirely stupid. But that's what he does, for better or for worse.
Elsewhere, sirens have begun to go off, of the kind that alert people and draw them in or warn them to take cover. Given that this shadow is a little less likely to be the dive and hide kind, it's /probably/ a call to arms.
Quinlan runs back out at the screaming. And then the thudding on the walls. And looks *relieved* that it's just Vael and not an angry mob. It takes a moment for the mageling to work out WHY it's Vael, looking back and forth between them. "...So it's got wards up. Of course it does. And I couldn't smell them because they're probably made *out* of the Hunter, so it'd just smell Hunter, not straight up magic..." and then there are sirens. And buildings near them start emptying of people. Mostly wearing suits of varying sorts, and all carrying basic weaponry - handguns, long knives. A few, fairly clearly building security, have automatic rifles. Word's definitely getting out about SOMETHING. And the destruction of the armory's being noticed in very unhappy ways by people who only have handguns.
Janessa looks at vael, blinks, looks at the tempple and the people emptying out of houses. With a great breath she runs into the temple and looks around for something, anything that might be a clue. No way is she going to just wait for things to happen. This is probably stupid but well, she hasn't done the smartest things so far so why change now?
Gently, Vincenzo lifts his hand away from the little fox's fur. Then he places his hand on the very ground, remaining down on one knee next to the fox. He murmurs beneath his breath, his focus upon what he's doing, for the most part, though he's aware of the rising tide of this shadow's humanity. Or rather, what he's attempting to do. Reaching to the earth, he seeks to make it tremble, make it shake and quake, beneath the very walls of the temple. What he hopes to do and what will happen might well be two different things. But, one doens't make progress without trying. Wards might stop someone from entering, but maybe bringing down the very walls will work since he doesn't need to get up close and personal with them.
Janessa decides to run around the room as the place just feels like there should be people somewhere here. She'll climb the stands and circle the ring and stage. Running her hands over everything and tapping things with her bow gently. She will climb anything she can to see if she can find a way up, because it's always up that people live. Especially those who serve a god of hunt, though he seems more like a god of combat instead of hunting from the design of the place. Quite a cocky bastard would certainly have cocky priests who would take great pleasure in living above their disciples. So she's a monkey in essence trying to climb anything and everything, which probably looks rediculous, good thing no one can see her.
Quinlan seems ...well, not at a loss, but possibly reconsidering direction. He's studying the bas-reliefs as Vincenzo's spell is spoken. He doesn't seem surprised, though, when the spell produces not an earthquake but a sort of building-shiver. Enough to loosen the bas-reliefs' hold on the walls, at least. Their perfect angularity is starting to get rumpled. He scoots out of the crumple zone as fast as he can. "Should talk to the Masters," he says, though his tone's appreciative. "I've heard there's a guy can flip whole battlefields like a pancake."
Vael slowly calms down, the tendrils receding into his body as he frowns. "I will not.. be made a fool of by a dead god.." he mutters, then looks to Vincenzo and gives a smirk. "Try not to bring the temple down around everyone.. At least, not yet", his voice once again his own as he walks into the street, giving a glance around before a manholecover down the road literally FLIES out of it's hole. Vael meanwhile, just walks over and dives down, landing rather gracefully before disappearing into the darkness of the tunnels. He's a survivor and a good judge of direction, so when he finds a pipe he figures will run the right way? His body dissolve into mist and seeps into it.. compressing down into the form of a mouse to continue toe trek.
From the north, where a cloud of dust has finally started dissipating, from the collapse of two skyscrapers atop other structures around and about, a great cloud of black wings takes off. The golden-bronze shape in the midst of it circles lazily as a handful of ornithopters rise from the rooves nearby. The gryphon in golden feathers seems to be the calm point in the midst of the wheeling, diving, black chaos all about him as he wings toward the temple, coming perhaps, with escort now.
A ...curiously nonviolent escort, it would seem, too. Vael finds the power of the temple to repel him is...rather less, amid the sewer pipes. Possibly it's just too impure. Or too human. It's certainly nobody's idea of divinity down here, that's for sure. But it's a way in.
Janessa manages to find stairs cleverly hidden in the architecture and so knocks an arrow as she climbs up. She's going to be caustious as she gets higher just in case there is a nasty surprise waiting for her up top. Never know when sirens are going off if the priests aren't waiting for something or someone. As she peaks up, there are indeedly do priests and things for living but who cares about that when the priests in flowy cloth, covered with leather, teeth and lion mane headdresses armed to the teeth start attacking an invader into their private living quarters. She dodges down from the first shots and then jumps up the last stairs into the room, brandishing her 'inferior' bow with a look of sheer determination. Her eyes go dark as she steps and releases her first arrow, going for the kill. Let no man live that owes allegiance to the dead god who left his people to devolve to this. As the first arrow hits it's mark into the throat of one mage, so she dodges more attacks while losing another arrow. Ducking and weaving, summersaults and leaps, she travels the room. Rolling under beds and then running over them to shoot each and every single person who dares to attack her with weapons that are a disgrace to take hunting. Though by her god's standings her bow is a bit of a disgrace but hers is more acceptable than theirs.
Quinlan is outside, still. He's been following the 'walk of stars' on the walls of the temple, studying each one...looking for something specific in them, possibly. Now and then he flies up to look at one - or uses a small spell to pull it right off the temple entirely. But those he doesn't study. There's a small stack of them by the doors, now, near where vael went down into the sewers.
Carmichael lands in a flurry of wind, wings uplifted outside of the temple, on the road that leads up to it. All temples have an approach, even if it's just called a tarmac boulevard. Or you know, dirt. Or steps. All over the building facades around the place, the Morrigu land, crouching on windowsills and buttresses, streetlamps and otherwise, like carrion-corbies, watching beneath. Pale, fierce eyes look up to the air, tracking the ornithopters and presumably waiting for the crowd to catch up on foot, but at least one bold looking elder man, with the air of someone that probably got laughed at a bit here, hustles forward. "This is it?" is asked of this shadow's equivalent of a librarian. "It's not what I was expecting. Pity." Crest rising in a display, wings mantled and on edge also, he pads nearer where Quinlan is. "Talk to me, mortal," oh yup, milking it.
Eventually, the mousified Vael makes his way through the pipes and out of a toilet.. Pitty any priest of devout person who might be in the bathroom when mist bubbled up from the crapper and a freaking FOX leaps out of the bowl to shake off and mutter about indignity. Now it's time to get his bearings, having made it inside the temple finally.
Quinlan gives Carmichael a Look that says, "seriously, man? you had to go there?" but then ...well. it IS a thing royals do. Even if Quinlan's expression suggests that the puppy has peed on the carpet again, well, that's what happens when puppies get excited. But none of this gets to his mouth, because he's eyeing all the non-fighting locals behind Carmichael too. "This temple was built over a long period. People that were integral to its construction got little story plaques. Useful stories, too. There are rituals outlined here." He tilts his head. "If you want me to talk about something specific, you're going to have to BE specific. I keep thinking about eiderdowns."
Privately, to Quinlan, Carmichael murmurs veeeeeeeery softly, with it. "This'n speaks thari... ish." at the slightly less buff and huntery elder local that's shadowing him.
Janessa just stands in the middle of the room that has become a bit of a blood bath panting and holding her bow tight as she's finished off all the priests in this room at least. Still hyper alert, she's got a bow knocked but not drawn or aimed and she scans the room thoroughly for a good few minutes.
What Vael finds is a lot of dead priests, with arrows in them. And Janessa. And ...quite pleasant living quarters for possibly fifty priests, with less pleasant but still entirely livable quarters for another hundred or so acolytes. And stairs, down into the temple proper.
Quinlan slants a look at the local at Carmichael's right...wing. In the sort of calm tone that suggests something is being firmly Lidded to deal with later, he says, "What would you have me say, o feathered lord of bloody gales?"
Vael gives a glance to Janessa as he starts for the stairs, giving her a thin smile as he muses, "Good work." then lets his eyes close and his nose work on locating something.. Something familiar, something primal and once his senses are attuned to it, his summer eyes open and he starts following his instincts, traveling down the stairs with a bit of speed and grace.
Carmichael's ears prick, feathers fluffing on his face in what passes rather well, for a cheesy grin, given the click-click of his beak. "Part of the presence. I'd apologise but I'm told that's a sign of weakness around here," looking at the man that followed him up close and back, then to the gates of the temple. "So, it's culturally become a focal point for different reasons than its original purpose. Looks like the colliseum, to me. A temple turned into a colliseum... Mind, the hunter was a gigantic gladiator if ever I saw one." All of this rather quiet, then looking back at those that gather and follow, he looks back with one ear perked at a funny angle, the other laid back to listen. "Any of the plaques say about the time when it got co-opted?"
"It never was," says Quinlan. "By the artwork, the temple's still the heart of their idea of the hunt. Trial by combat with beasts, young ones put in the ring with their first prey to live or die, that kind of thing. Prove you're a hunter or live as prey." He shuffles through 500-lb gold-plated marble reliefs like they're styrofoam (gods bless Arcanis) until he finds the one he wants. "This is the interesting one. So far it's the only one I've found with the Hunter on it."
Janessa breathes deep and slowly follows Vael as she slowly comes down from the high of adrenalin. She blinks and eventually puts the arrow back into the quiver. "What are you looking for?" She sounds like she's waking up from a daze, which is probably what protects her mind from having killed a room full of people with lives but can't think like that or go stark raving mad.
The bas-relief shows the ring in the center of the temple, and a man holding the body of another man aloft in offering, blood depicted dripping from many wounds. In the background stands the Golden Hunter, hand outstretched over the offered corpse. Beneath the standing man is a sort of star symbol.
Vael makes it down the stairs rather quickly, then pauses to look at Janessa with a toothy smile. "The heart of a god.. Or rather, the heart of this temple.. It's something precious to any god, something that could mean their rebirth or their ultimate demise and typically?" he gives a sniff, then looks at the arena, at the sand within it and smiles. "Typically it takes a god to find it.. Though some mortals have learned how to sniff it out too from what I've heard.. Mostly Pathi." then he walks very calmly into the arena, taking note of everything... and everyone that might be around him.
Janessa nods slightly even though she doesn't quite understand but she doesn't really have to, now does she? She just watches Vael and watches his back to help him if needed.
Carmichael eyes the relief. "Surivival of the fittest," murmuring to the note of the social and literal darwinism that this shadow's produced, he looks from the relief to the temple with a shrewd, if narrow-eyed glare. "Well, I have an idea..." and then realises. "Uh, where's the forest god and his people?"
Quinlan indicates the manhole. "Vael went to find another way in. Janessa's still inside. There was some screaming, but it wasn't hers and it's stopped now. Vincenzo's having a lie-down, I think that proto-earthquake took a lot out of him."
Vael laughs a little and smiles, walking into the arena with a brief hesitation, his muscles visibly tensing a little. "Even in this state, you can feel me.. Can't you?" he says, more to the ground than anything. "You've had your time, you had your chances to make things right." Then he starts to dig, seeking something out in the sands, something he almost seems to know EXACTLY where is.
"Aah," Carmichael remarks on this with his ears flattening. "Well, there goes that plan. This could go a little bit far south, Quinlan." He stares at the doors, then turns about to face the growing crowd of people, rearing up onto his hind legs with a lot of wingbeats. To the 'translator' he notes: "do your job..." and bellows, the wind carrying his voice out to the masses. "BRING FORTH YOUR WITNESSES AND ENTER. THIS MUST BE DONE."
Janessa just watches Vael curiously as she fully comes back from wherever her mind goes when in combat. She blinks as he seems to talk to nothing and wonder if he hasn't gone a bit buggers himself.