S01E04 - Brick and Mortar - Part 2
General Summary
We rejoin our intrepid heroes as they gather their breaths after defeating The Volcano. DJinn encases the now normal-looking man in rock, hoping that, if it doesn't stop him, it will at least slow him down. Once sure they have done all they can, they venture forth, further into the manor's ground floor.
The first sign that something is amiss is when Lady Liberty feels a strange presence in her mind, attempting to compel her into action. She manages to fight off this mental intrusion and attacks what she perceives to be the source; an older gentleman, standing by a wall, calmly watching her, the regalia of the Red Guard of the Ways, with a crown over where his heart would be. When she strikes, however, there is a terrible crash of metal as the suit of armour in the location where she perceives her attacker gets a chair to the helmet. She informs the others what she saw.
Úlfhéðnar and DJinn start to look at their surroundings, both noticing the strange man Lady Liberty had seen and confer the locations. Near the trashed suit of armour, Lady Liberty hears the words "I command You," before Úlfhéðnar shoots her. She attacks where she perceived the voice, but there is no-one there when she strikes.
After a couple of attempts to figure out where The Crown is hiding, Lady Liberty removes a curtain from a large window and uses it much like a net, which reveals the invisible presence of their assailant. DJinn starts hurling sandstorms down the corridor at the invisible foe.
Suddenly, there is a roar as The Lion joins the fray, attacking Úlfhéðnar from invisibility. As luck would have it, Úlfhéðnar manages to stave off the attack and a titanic battle commences between the Lion and the Werewolf.
Whilst this is going on, The Crown is simultaneously trying to get our heroes to attack one another and dodge both the sand blasts of DJinn and our table-wielding heroine, Lady Liberty. It is an unheroic effort, (after all, it feels wrong to use the term heroic), but eventually, one of DJinn's sand blast attacks gets the mind-controlling miscreant in the face and he drops like a stone (see what I did there?).
What happens next is a valuable lesson learned by our eventually triumphant trio. They start to work together, as a team, for the first time. By co-ordinating their attacks, they manage to keep The Lion off-balance, until eventually, he falls unconscious at the feet our heroes.
That just left The Crimson Seraphim.
Our group spends a small amount of time regrouping, healing and preparing for the showdown with a being whose power could rival that of an actual angel. Uskir commands the house staff to evacuate the premises, which they dutifully do, as he's unsure what will happen once the others they have captured, awaken. The group, their minds set, their path known and their wills locked on the task at hand, venture down to the Arena; a room Lady Liberty is all too familiar with, after all, this is where Uskir was ordered to kill her to prove his loyalty to the Order.
Within this room stands a tall, four-winged angelic figure, looking much like the being Lady Liberty watched Úlfhéðnar become on that fateful night. The difference being that these wings are dark and menacing, not bright and radiant, flame. A conversation ensued between Úlfhéðnar and The Crimson Seraphim until the latter gets bored with the prattling of the insect before him and the room explodes in dark fire.
Lady Liberty enters into a melee contest with the angelic being, whilst DJinn and Úlfhéðnar start attacking from range. After about half a minute of this, the Crimson Seraphim changes his stance and grip on his sword and strikes Lady Liberty with all his strength, pushing her back and inflicting quite serious injuries. She backs off and the Angel flies to Úlfhéðnar , striking him down as well with a mighty blow that sees him hit the ground some ten feet away.
There are a number of other bursts of dark fire before the Crimson Seraphim is eventually defeated. As he falls, Lady Liberty reaches for the fallen Angel's sword, just as the Angel and sword are consumed in this dark fire. When the fire subsides, the angel and the sword are nowhere to be seen. Lady Liberty manages to avoid being burned by the column as it consumes the Angel.
Upon once again reaching the ground floor, our heroes hear approaching sirens in the distance. As the Major Crimes Unit representatives approach, our heroes discover that The Lion and The Volcano are gone, but the sedated Crown is where they left him.
Once the Millennium City Police Department arrive, Detective Seraphim briefs his supervisor on what has happened and starts giving over the crime scene to forensics. He informs the MiCPD of the capabilities of their captive and leaves him in their capable hands.
Whilst this is happening, DJinn receives a phone call from an unknown number. He answers the phone to find a somewhat unsure Winston Wharl, AKA Brick Wall on the other end. They all agree to meet up in Bayside and, after initial greetings and discussions on powers, our trio, becomes a quartet. After these discussions, it emerges that Brick Wall may know of the mercenary group that took Alex's mother. Known only as Ghost Squad, they are illusive, dangerous and highly professional. He knows they are in Millennium City, but nothing else about them.
Alex returns home, grabs an overnight bag and makes her way to Grayson's apartment. She sees documents strewn about the place in orderly piles, though she can't make head nor tail of the details. The love of her life is asleep, though wakes when he hears her rummaging around his papers. After being told to put things back as she found them (an eidetic memory has its plus points), she asks what he's looking into. He again reiterates he's looking for a cure. At which point Alex comes clean about Lady Liberty. He is furious and asks her to leave, his final words being "dad was right."
Brick Wall leaves to go start packing up his belongings after Uskir offers him a permanent home at Seraphim Manor. DJinn offers to assist with his new-found teleportation powers.
We leave the quartet, having gone their (mostly) separate ways, though there are decisions to be made and questions to be answered:
Where do they start to look for the missing Rochelle Carter ?
What were the redacted documents Grayson Prescott was looking at that had Rochelle's initials on?
Who is the man with two faces?
Have Ghost Squad been changed by The Catalyst Event ?
Who currently employs Ghost Squad ?
Who controls the Red Guard of the Ways
Where is Uskir Seraphim's grandfather and was he being controlled by The Crown ?
The first sign that something is amiss is when Lady Liberty feels a strange presence in her mind, attempting to compel her into action. She manages to fight off this mental intrusion and attacks what she perceives to be the source; an older gentleman, standing by a wall, calmly watching her, the regalia of the Red Guard of the Ways, with a crown over where his heart would be. When she strikes, however, there is a terrible crash of metal as the suit of armour in the location where she perceives her attacker gets a chair to the helmet. She informs the others what she saw.
Úlfhéðnar and DJinn start to look at their surroundings, both noticing the strange man Lady Liberty had seen and confer the locations. Near the trashed suit of armour, Lady Liberty hears the words "I command You," before Úlfhéðnar shoots her. She attacks where she perceived the voice, but there is no-one there when she strikes.
After a couple of attempts to figure out where The Crown is hiding, Lady Liberty removes a curtain from a large window and uses it much like a net, which reveals the invisible presence of their assailant. DJinn starts hurling sandstorms down the corridor at the invisible foe.
Suddenly, there is a roar as The Lion joins the fray, attacking Úlfhéðnar from invisibility. As luck would have it, Úlfhéðnar manages to stave off the attack and a titanic battle commences between the Lion and the Werewolf.
Whilst this is going on, The Crown is simultaneously trying to get our heroes to attack one another and dodge both the sand blasts of DJinn and our table-wielding heroine, Lady Liberty. It is an unheroic effort, (after all, it feels wrong to use the term heroic), but eventually, one of DJinn's sand blast attacks gets the mind-controlling miscreant in the face and he drops like a stone (see what I did there?).
What happens next is a valuable lesson learned by our eventually triumphant trio. They start to work together, as a team, for the first time. By co-ordinating their attacks, they manage to keep The Lion off-balance, until eventually, he falls unconscious at the feet our heroes.
That just left The Crimson Seraphim.
Our group spends a small amount of time regrouping, healing and preparing for the showdown with a being whose power could rival that of an actual angel. Uskir commands the house staff to evacuate the premises, which they dutifully do, as he's unsure what will happen once the others they have captured, awaken. The group, their minds set, their path known and their wills locked on the task at hand, venture down to the Arena; a room Lady Liberty is all too familiar with, after all, this is where Uskir was ordered to kill her to prove his loyalty to the Order.
Within this room stands a tall, four-winged angelic figure, looking much like the being Lady Liberty watched Úlfhéðnar become on that fateful night. The difference being that these wings are dark and menacing, not bright and radiant, flame. A conversation ensued between Úlfhéðnar and The Crimson Seraphim until the latter gets bored with the prattling of the insect before him and the room explodes in dark fire.
Lady Liberty enters into a melee contest with the angelic being, whilst DJinn and Úlfhéðnar start attacking from range. After about half a minute of this, the Crimson Seraphim changes his stance and grip on his sword and strikes Lady Liberty with all his strength, pushing her back and inflicting quite serious injuries. She backs off and the Angel flies to Úlfhéðnar , striking him down as well with a mighty blow that sees him hit the ground some ten feet away.
There are a number of other bursts of dark fire before the Crimson Seraphim is eventually defeated. As he falls, Lady Liberty reaches for the fallen Angel's sword, just as the Angel and sword are consumed in this dark fire. When the fire subsides, the angel and the sword are nowhere to be seen. Lady Liberty manages to avoid being burned by the column as it consumes the Angel.
Upon once again reaching the ground floor, our heroes hear approaching sirens in the distance. As the Major Crimes Unit representatives approach, our heroes discover that The Lion and The Volcano are gone, but the sedated Crown is where they left him.
Once the Millennium City Police Department arrive, Detective Seraphim briefs his supervisor on what has happened and starts giving over the crime scene to forensics. He informs the MiCPD of the capabilities of their captive and leaves him in their capable hands.
Whilst this is happening, DJinn receives a phone call from an unknown number. He answers the phone to find a somewhat unsure Winston Wharl, AKA Brick Wall on the other end. They all agree to meet up in Bayside and, after initial greetings and discussions on powers, our trio, becomes a quartet. After these discussions, it emerges that Brick Wall may know of the mercenary group that took Alex's mother. Known only as Ghost Squad, they are illusive, dangerous and highly professional. He knows they are in Millennium City, but nothing else about them.
Alex returns home, grabs an overnight bag and makes her way to Grayson's apartment. She sees documents strewn about the place in orderly piles, though she can't make head nor tail of the details. The love of her life is asleep, though wakes when he hears her rummaging around his papers. After being told to put things back as she found them (an eidetic memory has its plus points), she asks what he's looking into. He again reiterates he's looking for a cure. At which point Alex comes clean about Lady Liberty. He is furious and asks her to leave, his final words being "dad was right."
Brick Wall leaves to go start packing up his belongings after Uskir offers him a permanent home at Seraphim Manor. DJinn offers to assist with his new-found teleportation powers.
We leave the quartet, having gone their (mostly) separate ways, though there are decisions to be made and questions to be answered:
Rewards Granted
1 Power Point
Hero Points Reset (End of story arc).
Missions/Quests Completed
Bricks and Mortar
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