Darkness Rising IC

[alderwitch]

For a moment, it felt like every nerve in Phantom's head went buzz-twang. Although reeling, she was already moving. "Avenger, we're taking the two groups on the right. Sorry, Deadhead."

Without hesitation, she flowed forward and wrapped her arms around the revoltin' revenant's waist. She spread her hands accross his torso, fingers digging into the leather of his jacket. Not wanting to accidentally leave some part of him behind, Phantom made certain her cloak was around the entirety of both of them before they vanished into the Void. For Deadhead, there was a moment void of any sensation but the endless night and the white hiss-crackle of eldritch fire accross the seemingly endless amount of space. It was only a second or two, and they popped into existance once more in front of a pair of startled cultists. "I'll be back to pick you up once I grab the two that went down the middle corridor."

[Dr Archeville]

The waves of necromantic power washing over and through Dead Head's mind indicated to him that breaking the amulet did something, but he wasn't sure what. His mystical senses "saw" nothing but "spots"; hopefully that would fade.

"Hunh, zom'ies're still u', 'ut uncontrolled,"* he said through his mangled mandible. "Looks like we'll need to - WHOA!"

Phantom had scooped Dead Head up, and 'ported them away.

And then he saw the two cultists.

"'anks for the lift," he said as he swung his shovel in a wide arc before him.

* Hunh, zombies're still up, but uncontrolled

[angrydurf]

The cultists were caught completely off guard by the sudden arrival of Dead Head and the Undead Hero dispatched them both with one mighty swing of his shovel.

[Avenger Assembled]

A fast pursuit, briefly up the walls faster than his colleagues could see, soon had Jack in front of the cultists who had been fleeing him a few moments earlier. "Beginning to grow enraged," Avenger informed the cultists with maddening calm as he strode boldly towards them, raising his fists. "No longer interested in your surrender." And with that he fell among them again, punching and kicking, the sound of bones breaking echoing in the hallway.

[Geez3r]

Atlas absent-mindedly tossed the head of the creature over his shoulder. He then went after one of the remaining groups of cultists. Unfortunately, the fact that they were underground limited his leaping options quite a bit, so he had to do after them on foot. After giving a small chase, Atlas felt that it would be much more prudent if he could slow them down because he wasn't going to get any faster. He took a deep breath and unleashed a blast of frost from deep within himself.

[angrydurf]

The cultists were quickly dispatched by the pursuing heroes. Avengers terrifying visage and mighty blows easily knocking the frightened Cultists out. Atlas' opponents were in-cased in a thin sheet of ice unable to move as the giant approached.

However all was not well there was a subtle change to the heroes environs and they suddenly were quite aware of just how alone they each were.

[alderwitch]

Phantom teleported back to the central location only to find it abandoned save for the fallen foes. The cultists vanished into the folds of her cloak before she turned to examine the passageway. By that point, her senses had cleared enough to have some tingle of forboding as she examined the darkening passages. Muttering words her mother would have been apalled at, Phantom's thrust one hand out to the passage ways that her companions had disapeared down, focusing her senses on divining the exact nature of whatever this mystical threat was.

"Hmph. Space bending and shadowplay. Interesting." Phantom frowned at the different passage ways, debating whether or not to follow their obviously false twists or whether to take the intangible short cut. Course decided, she phased and disapeared into the wall swimming blind. Whatever hunted in the dark had probably never hunted prey quite like these. With a dangerous smile, Phantom hoped she caught up before the fight started.

[Geez3r]

Atlas wades into the tunnel after the cultists. He finds them alright, but then the tunnel dims. Atlas blinks a few times, figuring it was just a trick of the eyes. He picks up the cultists so that they can be rounded up and arrested, and heads back the way he came. Then he finally notices something weird going on. The tunnel isn't going the way it should be. Atlas frowns for a moment as he looks down the false tunnel. "Marco!" he calls out, not really expecting a response.

Atlas looks at the section of wall where he was sure the tunnel previously went, but found it to appear quite solid. They knew magic, so maybe this is some sort of trick? Atlas put the cultists down, cocked his fist and bashed the wall, seeing if it was really there, and if there was anything on the other side.

[angrydurf]

As Phantom flitted insubstantial through tunnel and earth alike Atlas obliterated a large section of the tunnel which nearly collapsed on top of him and his prisoners. Escaping the collapsing section of the tunnel Atlas begins to try to pick his way through looking to follow the trickle of storm water towards what he hoped would be a less cramped tunnel.

[Dr Archeville]

Dead Head nodded to himself in self-satisfaction as he saw the two cultists drop.

Then he got a disturbing feeling in his guts.

"'ello?," Dead Head called out, his jaw still hanging half-off his face. " 'ell... oh, 'old on now..." He reached up and jammed his jaw back into place, and the bones and muscle re-knit themselves back together.

"Ah, much better. Umm.. Phantom?," he called out, "Phantom? Atlas? Avenger? Anybody?"

"Wait here," he thought out loud, "or try an' get back to the central chamber where all the cultists were? They say that if yer lost, the best thing to do is stay in one spot... "

For the moment, that's what Dead Head did.

[Geez3r]

"Okay, okay, real enough." says Atlas as he nearly brings the tunnel down on himself. He caught sight of a trickle of water. Got to go somewhere... mused Atlas as he decided to follow the water. He dug his left pointer finger into the wall as he went, marking where he had been in case he double backed on himself. He made the occasional arrow too so he would know what direction he had gone in as well. He would have asked the cultcicles if they knew where they were, but they were still encased in ice.

[Avenger Assembled]

Silence, darkness, solitude. With the cold calculation of a predator, Avenger knelt down and cold-bloodedly broke the legs of one of the cultists he'd knocked down, crippling him for the moment and leaving him unable to join their fellows in whatever escape he was sure they were planning. The other one, he pinned against the wall, positioning him so he could see the body of his fallen foe. There, Avenger splashed sewer water on his face until he woke up. When Jack spoke, it was with cold, flat, deadly menace. "Tell me what your people are doing or you will remain here."

[angrydurf]

The cultist it seemed wasn't that easily broken, "There is nothing you can do worse than the fate that awaits me should I betray the Master." He replied stiffly. This might take some time.

***

Elsewhere in the byzantine tunnels Phantom followed her keen mystic senses towards Dead Heads unique signature. She wasn't able to pick up Avengers animating magics but if he had deemed it necessary to disguise his presence she would likely not be able to. As she approached the tunnel where Dead Head waited she felt a growing unease as if she were being watched by some unseen force.

***

Atlas continued to follow the trail into ever larger galleries with a growing sense of dread he could not shake. Then he noticed what appeared to be the flickering of firelight around an upcoming bend

[alderwitch]

As she had a beeline on Deadhead's presence, Phantom teleported mid-flight to catch up with the zombie. She vanished and reapeared next to the waiting zombie. "Something has twisted space to seperate us and keep us alone while it hunts us. I'm unable to find Avenger's signature and Atlas has no magic that I can track."

She floated down next to the cultists that he'd dispatched and they vanished one after another into her cloak's shadows as if dragged in to someplace.... else. "I cut through the stone to get to you but I imagine that whatever is hunting us will be here before we find anyone else."

[Dr Archeville]

"Ha!," Dead Head cried out when Phantom appeared, "the man on the tee-vee was right!"

I just hope that what I think might be hunting us ain't who I think it is.

Ya may not be able t'track Atlas by any magic," he said as he tossed one of the unconscious cultists into the folks of her cloak, "but I bet we'll be able t'hear him smashing his way through these walls. Let's jes hope we do so before he -- or anythin' huntin' us -- bursts through the subway lines!"

[Geez3r]

Ordinarily, Atlas would have stayed put after walking for a while hadn't gotten him anywhere, but there was this feeling he couldn't shake. Like he was being watched. It kept him from being calm and thinking rationally. So when he saw what might have been sign of something else down here, he went on without a second thought. Even if it's bad idea, somebody else might hear me. thought Atlas as he moved closer to the source of the firelight.

[angrydurf]

The reunited heroes set forth hoping to find their fellows. As they they ventured deeper into the vaulted catacombs the sense of foreboding grew greater. If they had not been inured to such horrors the pair likely would have fled long ago. As it was Phantoms mystic senses could detect that there was magic intending exactly that effect but there was also an undercurrent of something dark and sinister hiding behind the magical afterglow of the dark rites performed in these tunnels.

***

As Atlas turned to corner he discovered the source of the light. Torches cast eerie light throughout the cavernous gallery carved from the living rock below the city. Filling the artificial cavern were hundreds perhaps thousands of corpses laid out ritualistically as if awaiting some final spark to bring them fully forth. The stench of death here was a palpable thing and it was clear now that the dark cult had plans far beyond mere grave robbing. Here there was an army of the dead ready to awaken and do their masters bidding.

[Geez3r]

Atlas stopped dead. OK.... Sucks to be me. How someone had managed to sneak all of this under Freedom was beyond him, but he did know that whoever managed to do this was not someone to be trifled with. Maybe it was the master those cultists had tried to summon? Atlas stood in the door way, not sure of what to do and pretty sure he didn't want to double back either.

[Avenger Assembled]

Avenger began to do things to the cultist, the sort that didn't bear much thinking about, but soon found that the cultist was, irritatingly enough, right: there were things he wasn't prepared to do that did make him less intimidating than this man's dark master. "See if he saves you." He smashed the cultist's head into the wall hard enough to crack the material, then disappeared in a wash of darkness himself. They were in darkness. Someone was likely after them. But that was all right: he knew how to hunt too.

[angrydurf]

All Avenger was able to wrest from the cultist was a cryptic phrase, "Only the faithful may approach the masters chamber without him sucking the life from their fragile forms, your friends are already dead." It was clear his comrades were in danger, time was of the essence.

***

Atlas could hear the faint sound of voices drifting down the hall from which he had come, though he couldn't make out what was he was certain he would soon be discovered if he remained where he was.

[alderwitch]

"Hold on," Phantom ghosted to a stop, floating in the middle of the passageway. She looked more annoyed than afraid as she pushed her hood back and focused her senses to try and pierce the spells layered over the brick. The white glow from her eyes flickered as she glanced up and down the passageway. After a moment or two she tucked her hood back up and muttered with distaste, "Shadow wolves. They'll try and surprise us. About as difficult to get a hold of as I am and with the same susceptibility to fire.

[Dr Archeville]

"And me without a bic to flick," Dead Head joked, even as he took his shovel up into a fighting position.

Might as well tell her my suspicions, he thought.

"I think I've tussled with these things before, actually," he said, in a tone that seemed partially confessional. "See, Baron Samedi don't like takin' 'NO!' for an answer...."

[Geez3r]

Atlas frowned as he surveyed his options. He was pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place. But he figured he had a better shot with some voices than he had with weird voo-doo security alarms. Doing an about face, Atlas headed back down the tunnel, trying to be somewhat quiet, but that had never been his strong suit. There was a chance these were his friends, but he really doubted it. But worst case scenario, it gave him something to do for a few minutes.

[angrydurf]

As Atlas approached the corner the voices grew suddenly hushed, could they know he was coming? The flickering shadows along the walls seemed to be staring at him with malevolent intent and moving of their own accord.

***

Dead Head and Phantom could almost feel more than hear the thump of heavy foot falls quickly approaching. Along the wall around the bend ahead they could make out a massive twisted shadow of some kind of beast. Meanwhile the shadows behind them deepened and Phantom could feel the barriers between worlds thinning. Soon they would be facing enemies from both sides.

***

Avenger Stepped into the shadows and found his immortal flesh chilled to the bone. A sudden unearthly cold gripping his surroundings. As he ran he could see just a head in a pool of light a cowled individual cloaked in shadow and its undead minion.

[Geez3r]

Fortune favors the bold or so they say, besides he knew certain death lay behind him, this was only questionable death. Atlas always seemed astounded whenever he got this many winning options. Truly fate seemed to relish making things so easy for Atlas. So Atlas rounded the corner to face questionable death.