Salem -- Fate's Watchtower

[doctorfatejsa]

Hector Hall sits alone on a throne of stone in his tower, blood pulsing through his temples. The Helm of Nabu whispers dark things at him, but he pushes the skittering voice aside. He will not fall to chaos. Doing so is unthinkable.

So why don't you just cast off the helm? says the voice. He has no answer. The misery has gripped him since he

Comments

[gemma_masters]

She is worried, and she isn't the kind of person to leave him alone with all of this. After all the tower likes her and tends to help her out so asking it to lead her to where he's brooding is easy peasy.

"If you're already talkin' to yourself then might be more of a toys in the attic sort of thing Hector." It's a mark that she's feeling strongly about all this that more of that backstreets of London accent is showing through. She doesn't realize how much she sounds like her uncle when she does that.

"Might be better t'hang out with someone and keep centered an all."

[doctorfatejsa]

Hector laughs bitterly, but underneath the helmet it sounds hollow, echoing.

"I can feel it gnawing at me, Gemma," he says. "The voice of Nabu is silenced. There's something dark shouting it down. It wants Fate to itself. It wants me gone."

[gemma_masters]

She holds out a hand to him and wishes that Lyta were here.

"Touch m'hand Hector. Feel it, you're still human under there an we won't let you give in ok?"

[doctorfatejsa]

Fate clenches her hand. Lyta's in Los Angeles on a job for a few days -- Hector hasn't called her. Stubborn man.

"Rose Psychic says she has an idea, but she needed to summon help. I don't know who Dr. Fate calls for help."

[doctorfatejsa]

"Then it is settled. We will travel to Atlantis at once. Everyone stand close, and remain alert."

Fate gestures, and light emenates around him ... not forming the customary ankh shape, but instead the form of hawk wings. He seems unaware ... or at least indifferent ... to the change.

Colors cascade around the heroes, and reality blurs and spins, until suddenly, they are in a golden orb, underwater ... with the magnificent city of Atlantis before them.

[jla_goldenage]

"Atlantis," says Rose, awe on her lips. "A nation underneath the seas ... the heart of magic in this realm."

[gemma_masters]

"Smashing." Hector's magic is feeling all over the map and she's keeping tied closely into it for now since she doesn't know any water breathing spells.

[jla_goldenage]

A small globe of light emerges in Rose's hands, flitting effortlessly through the barrier.

"This will lead us to the temple, to retrieve the amulet we are in need of."

[violeteyedmage]

While he cannot place the voice or understand much about the situation...there's something in this that nags him, and as Atlantis's defender, he can't just take a chance the voice is lying about attacks on his people.

What he can sense is this: The voice, while sounding alien, also has a certain half-remembered dream quality to it's magical resonance - and that the guardian of order is very, very not himself today.

"Fate! Stand down. You are not making this go any faster and people - my people - may well be dying while we debate this. Present your case, Rose - quickly."

[jay_garrick]

Jay, however, feels he is losing in the battle with the maelstrom. "Whatever you're going to do... do it fast...!"

He's doing his best to hold onto the medallion...

[doctorfatejsa]

And Fate is blasting at the Witch Queen, whose visage looms large over Atlantis and whose laugh is now cackling throughout the ocean.

"This abomination seeks to control the power of Fate, Garth of Atlantis. And Fate is no mage's slave!"

The ankh-shaped bolts of mystic energy fly from his fingers with devestating force.

[jla_goldenage]

"Oh, this is going to hell in a handbasket," thinks Rose Psychic, stretched to the limit of her mystic abilities. One wrong move, and they're dead. She can feel this in her blood. But a completely different wrong move, and Atlantis is destroyed, and that won't do, either.

And then there's the force speaking to them, drawing them toward the unknown.

She needs to make a decision. She needs to think. And then it dawns on her.

"It's about Atlantis!" she shouts in desperation to Tempest and Fate. "What's at stake is not the city, but what it represents! The city at the heart of Magic! That's what the Witch Queen's seeking!"

And there's more ... there's more ... something the woman's not seeing. An unknown.

And in that moment of understanding, a decision is made.

"Tempest and Flash, use your powers to create a torrent ... wash Fate and us toward the vortex! The voice is correct ... if we battle here, all is lost!"

And then the voice chimes in, ringing in Tempest's head.

"Listen to her, Garth. Atlantis needs a champion at this moment