Gallia Renaître (IC)

[Tiffany Korta]

It wasn't Henri that reacted to Rene call to free all those innocent’s, it was Gallia who responded.

<“You I know your mind Rene you’re a good man, despite some dubious choice of allies in the past. And your little friend is of sound heart, his intentions seem pure, but this creature is another thing entirely. Whilst there is no love lost between myself and the ruler of France, I still love the people of our land and won’t see them hurt for no one.â€>

And one the guest started to file of the room at great speed, as they reached the corridor they seemed to retain some there senses though no once seemed to panic at what happened.

<â€There it is done, now we shall finish this at last.â€>

[Ari]

Squinting into the fog at the strange new arrival, Marceau began "Wait. René, did you just-"

<“You I know your mind Rene you’re a good man, despite some dubious choice of allies in the past. And your little friend is of sound heart, his intentions seem pure, but this creature is another thing entirely. Whilst there is no love lost between myself and the ruler of France, I still love the people of our land and won’t see them hurt for no one.â€>

And one the guest started to file of the room at great speed, as they reached the corridor they seemed to retain some there senses though no once seemed to panic at what happened.

<â€There it is done, now we shall finish this at last.â€>

Evading the departing socialites and various French citizens as best he could, the jostled and now very confused King of Suits quickly found the room almost totally empty again, which suddenly reminded him of the mysterious disappearance of the lady Martel-'Bah, she must have escaped and gone to get help, maybe the rumors are true, and she IS the Renard Bleu!' drawing another, different card from his belt, he tested its edge, drew back his arm and called out to Gallia "You, who refuse to open your eyes, will not miss their being blinded I bet!" he hurled the card at the floating possessed woman's head, barely managing to correct its flight as it left his fingers that nearly sent it spiraling into the far wall!

Darting off away from René and the strange man, he went on tauntingly "If you are so concerned about your people, Jeanne-Gallia, then cut your strings from that puppet! Dragging innocents into this, that's beneath any spirit!"

[Tiffany Korta]

Whether or not the card had any effect the King of Suit’s couldn’t tell. Her blasts of light continued to go wide of her target, but that could just be the obscuring mists of Rene magic. Those disadvantages however didn’t seemed to be her main concern.

“Those innocents are the dependents of the people who trapped me in that prison. You’re friend there was my Jail keeper until my imprisonment. And now he consorts with that abomination.†There was real fury now in her voice, any veneer of calm stripped away.

[Supercape]

"Bravo, my friend!" replied Rene to the exploding card.

"And...you..." he said, more cautiously, to Henri.

"Now, then, there is no need for all this nonsense!" he said, whipping out his paintbrush and dispelling the vapours that he had summoned.

"Whatever you throw at us, Gallia, I can double it!" he smiled, as a perfect copy of Henri, Rene, and Marceau sprung into being beside them.

"And don't think I care any less for the innocents of France than you Gallia! you may keep them safe, but you would chain them! worse than that! at least a man in chains has the freedom of his mind! you would enslave even that! Non! Non! For Liberty! For Liberty!"

[Supercape]

NPC

Henri smirked an enigmatic smirk, sitting himself down and banging out a complex and vaguely disconcerting rhythm in the style of biguine.

"Eh...Liberty! Liberty!

They had it in for me!

France Chained Martinique!

Chains and Irons, What a cheek!

Tears and Sweat, What a reek!

Feel their woe, feel the sadness,

Tis on you, your highness!"

He gave a horrible laugh as he croaked out his awful rhyme. Whilst it was sung badly in tempo and style, he shed a tear when he did it, and somehow, with the rhythm he played, it sent an unpleasant chill down the spine. A crushing guilt that was felt for all the horrors of slavery.

[Ari]

Marceau Suvou had encountered slavers before, throughout the length and breadth of Europe. It had never failed to bring either of the founders of the House of Cards or their comrades to the limits of their capacity for forgiveness and charity. The King of Suits had even been required to capture one of his protegés after they went off the deep end of vigilantism while investigating a slavery ring in southern Germany.

Looking up at their blinded foe, the King of Suits called to her in their mother tongue.

"<Gallia, if you told them, appeared before the people of our fair land and revealed what had been done, do you think they would simply ignore you? If you wished for justice to be done, if your cause were just and right, you wouldn't do this!>" in a moment another card unraveled its steely length through the air of the exhibit, aiming straight for the woman bearing two spirits.

"<He consorts with an 'abomination', as you call him, because you have stolen the body of someone who has nothing to do with this! Release Beatrice, and confront us with your grievances! We don't want to fight you, but you have endangered others with your antics!>"

[Tiffany Korta]

Gallia simply floated there for a few seconds testing the limits of the King of Suit’s bonds.

“There is nowhere for me to go, if I give up this body I will just blow away on the wind. The people who you hold so highly have made sure that this is so. The country I love will give me no more comfort; even the spirit of the land will not welcome me.â€

As she spoke she strained against the bonds on earnest severely testing the limits of them, but for now they held Gallia in place. There sound of stress suggested that they wouldn’t hold her for much longer.

[Supercape]

NPC

"Like a rat in a trap!" chuckled Henri, stopping his drumming for a moment.

"Rene, I am sure you know me as Henri Zenon. But, you know, I have walked here and there, and pretty much everywhere since I was just Monsieur Zenon. I walked places were I really shouldn't have walked. And I walked right into hell. "

He laughed heartily, straight from the gut.

"Thanks to you, and the chains you strapped to the dead to keep them there. I walked right out again!. Now, you can call me Deadbeat!"

And with that he struck a slower, waltzing tempo, hypnotic and even melodious (for a drum beat), that hand heavy in the air.

[Ari]

With a buzz and rustle of airborne metal, more coils zipped through the air and wound tightly about Gallia's hostess, clenching at her arms and legs like a white, red and silvery serpents. Their thrower was by now looking deeply unnerved, and walking closer to the possessed woman asked <"So then, what is your plan to escape this fate? Can we help you live on in some way that eradicates less free will? Do you want our help, Gallia? Is this just a last, desperate attempt to take revenge on someone you see as unjust?"> he almost gestured to René with his lean arm, only to stop when he recalled that the woman was blinded. Standing ready to leap aside should she break free, the costumed young man said, feeling a little defensive <"You haven't done very much to engender sympathy, spirit. Pity yes, but not sympathy.">

[Tiffany Korta]

Suddenly the aura around Gallia seemed to fade and she stopped struggling against her bounds as she floated gently to the ground.

All the anger of her face seemed to melt away replaced by a slightly scared and confused look. When she spoke her voice no longer had its strange reverb, instead if was the unaltered voice of Beatrice.

“What happened? I was telling you all about the painting.†She looked around unsure which of them was real “Then I was suddenly bound up.†She sounded on the verge of tears “Will someone please tell me what’s happening?â€

[Supercape]

Rene paused, and looked closer.

"What has happened to Gallia? wait...."

"This makes no sense. Gallia would not give up like that. Not without a barbed comment. That isn't her style at all. Where could she have gone?"

He squinted.

"Of course, she may not have gone. Beatrice, we have no wish to harm you, but Gallia is a tricky devil. I am not so sure she has gone at all..."

"Maestro, play on!" he said with a snap of his fingers, as Deadbeat continued to bang out a soporific beat.

[Ari]

On the other hand, the King of Suits was profoundly relieved at Beatrice's re-emergence.

<"You have been fighting us, miss!"> Marceau called over to her with a warm and encouraging smile <"Do not be alarmed, you have not hurt anybody, and it would not be your fault if you had! Tell us"> he went on with an earnest look, the vigilante walking closer to the bound woman <"Do you know about a spirit who calls herself 'Gallia'? She has some hold over you, and is trying to get revenge for something far in the past.">

Looking imploringly up at the young lady he said earnestly <"Please! Do not discard a single detail. A chance word you heard in a dream, a strange book, touching that magnificent portrait, anything at all. It might let us free you from this accursed Gallia! She knew the name 'Jeanne', does that ring any bells?">

[Tiffany Korta]

The woman looked on the verge of tears as she spoke. She was still confused and scared by King of Suit’s words seemed to bolster

 

“I’m…I’m not sure it’s all so vague. I’m just getting flashes of someone else’s memories.†Her voice broke for a second “She saw so many horrible things… and she has such hatred from that man there.â€

 

She had shuffled herself into an upright position and was gesturing toward to one of the two Rene’s

 

“He did something to her, something so devastating. I think it has something to do with how she was bound into the painting.â€

[Supercape]

"I did something?" said the two Rene's in perfect union. His memory was not perfect after so many years, but one thing he wouldn't forget was the young man and Gallia when they met for the first time. 

 

"If I recall correctly, I was manipulated and deceived at every turn!" he retorted, indignant with rage. "Even if had the ways to bind you, even if you could be bound, I was barely out of youth. No, I was your pawn, not the other way around...make no mistake, I trusted you not, and do not trust you still, but I had neither the will or inclination to bind or chain you!"

 

He thought back. The painting...could it be? Something burned in his memory. Something he felt buried. Something at the edge of his consciousness...

[Ari]

Marceau followed Gallia's gesture at René with confusion, <"What do you remember him doing Beatrice? Was it to...to preserve Gallia? Protect her from enemies? I know René, he is not one to bind or imprison any creature without unimpeachable reasons."> he declared stoutly, stepping forward and putting a comforting arm on the woman's shoulder <"What do you see right now? Can you tell us what you see as clearly as possible?">

 

Turning to the ancient painter he said quickly <"My friend, can you use your magic to find out if there is any mystical power in that portrait? Or..or its frame? That might be the key!">

[Supercape]

"My eyes fail me my friend! Curse these old bones!" he moaned, squinting at the picture with more than his eyes. 

 

"It...it is impossible to say, I regret!" he lamented, reaching out to touch the picture with his fingertips. For all his ability to paint the arcane onto reality, he found it hard or impossible to seperate the mundane from the arcane himself. It was, he told himself, his painters soul. Reality was, well not that real to him. And magic was, well, all too real. The two were not separate. 

 

"I am afraid, much as it hurts my soul, the only way to find out is to..." he gulped in anguish, hurt at the thought of any art being harmed. 

 

"No, I cannot bear to think of it!" he refuted himself, swiping a fist in vexation and denial. 

[Ari]

<"Well then"> the King of Suits tossed out a razor-edged card from his sleeve and turned to face the magnificent portrait of of the Comtesse. For a moment he almost didn't do it, it looked so majestic, the art was so beautiful, the lady it portrayed so faithfully was so fascinating...and then he remembered what had just happened, and he glanced over at the terrified face of Beatrice, set his jaw, and faced the painting and threw, his hand whipping back then slicing forward in a smooth motion as he hurled the weapon. <"Your painter's soul won't let you destroy art,"> the young vigilante said glumly as the card whistled through the air <"my adventurer's soul does. René my friend, if you can, forgive me.">

 

With a *shunk* the card sliced through the painting and embedded itself in the wall behind it. 'Now the test'

 

 

 

[Tiffany Korta]

With King of Suit’s blow something remarkable happened, nothing changed. No magical sparks or eldritch explosions. Only a priceless masterpiece almost certainly ruined.

Then came a hearty, strangely reverbed, laugh from Gallia / Beatrice who had managed to drag herself to her feet and was shrugging off the last of the bonds.

“I’m afraid the spirit has already left that prison. And for now I think I will take your leave. But don’t think this is over Rene de Saens.â€

As she spoke little sparkles of light were already beginning to dance around her body.

[Supercape]

"No! No!" wailed Rene in fear as Gallia started to depart, he wrung his hands in desperation. His head spun with mixed emotions that tumbled down through the centuries...

 

"You!" he gestured to Deadbeat "Stop her! Stop her!" he said. 

 

"I'm sorry friend, you are on your own here..." said Deadbeat with a sad smile. "I just came to help you out, y'know? I'm happy to help, but, y'see...I'm tied to this world, and you, by something you lost..."

 

He gave a little whistle and a wave, and then, in a blink of an eye, he was gone. 

 

"Like I need another mystery!" cursed Rene at the empty space. 

 

I lost something? He did seem...familiar....

[Ari]

<"What is this crap?!"> demanded the King of Suits furiously as he swung round to face the departing, taunting form of Gallia <"You attack to no profit and now leave with no gain?">

 

Snarling with anger he whipped out a razor card and flung it savagely at Beatrice...sending it just past her shoulder.

 

As it whistled past her however it grazed the bound spirit, leaving something behind: a small tracer. 'Who knows what good that will do...'

 

As the woman faded from sight the lean man stepped forward and shouted, blue eyes blazing <"You have tipped your hand too swiftly, Jeanne! Your hatred has betrayed you, and René de Saens will be ready next time you show your stolen face! I'll see to it the next prison you get keeps you for an eon!"> he stood rigidly and glared at the spot where she vanished, until nothing more could be seen. Only then did he relax.

 

Turning to the old painter Marceau bowed quietly, looking up with a much humbler expression "I am sorry. I should not have acted so rashly or been so easily taken in. I beg your pardon."

 

He gestured around "What shall we do now?"

[Tiffany Korta]

Her whole body was now completely covered in the flashes of light and she was becoming transparent in places.

<â€I have achieved one thing, my freedom, and a means to get my revenge on those who robbed me of that freedom. And poor Jeanne has gone away, and I’m in control of Beatrice completely. For all intent and purpose there is only Gallia.â€>

Rapidly her form became more and more transparent. As she disappeared completely her voice hung ominously in the air.

“And this isn’t goodbye only Au Revoir.â€

[Supercape]

"You can count on that!" yelled back a furious Rene at the departing Gallia. 

 

He was about to launch into a series of expletives and curses, when his eyes caught the ruined painting. 

 

"Ah! No! Assasination!" he moaned as he fell to his knees, raising his arms and despairing at the ruination that Marceau had inflicted on the painting. 

 

"The painters of antiquity will spin in their graves at such a devastation! alas! woe! to sacrifice such creation!" he wept. 

 

"And for nothing! Gallia is free once more, that twisted spirit. But why? is she bound to service, or is she to bind to hers? Whatever the case, the future is bleak!"

 

He stayed on his knees, despite their ferocious complaints of age. 

 

"Marceau, Gallia is a spirit that has been corrupted and bent. A spirit of France, but one of tranny and bloodshed, who, it seems, cannot accept the liberty of the age. And now she has possessed some innocent. Pfah! I will not stand for it! We must stop her!"

[Ari]

The heat of battle was very quickly replaced with that of shame, and Marceau bowed his head a little as he weathered the artist's grief. It wouldn't have stung so much if not for the 'And for nothing...'

 

Looking up in surprise at René's quick turn from anguish to determination, the lean Frenchman suppressed a smile. Walking over with rapid strides he plopped down next to the wizard.

 

<"So my friend, how do we track her down and have ourselves a rematch?"> his blue eyes lit up <"Can you follow my technology? My tracer migh-"> he suddenly halted, and looked very uneasy.

 

<"What...might she try to do with her power? Who or what might she attack?">

[Supercape]

"Liberty!" said Rene, rising, oblivious to the creaking in his knees!

 

"That is what she shall strike! A nebulous concept, but glorious all the same!" he conceded, swiping a fist through the air. 

 

"Alas, I am but an artist, my friend. I speak in abstract terms! My mind is addled and full of years, it is the abstract that I see and speak. It is to your sharp and young mind that I must entrust the detail...."

 

He sat down, wiping his brow. 

 

"I am afraid I am more distracted than normal, my friend. That man, Henri Zenon - I remember him...I feel him, but as if through a darkened glass. Yes, black thoughts indeed. I have long felt that many decades ago, I lost something. Maybe it was this war, or that...I cannot recall. But his appearance...it stirs uneasy thoughts. He is from my past, I know it - as friend? as protector? or maybe something worse..."

 

He shook his head. 

 

"Perhaps these thoughts are stirred too by Gallia, from my past. Oh! My past is long, past human counting, and if in the course of a normal life, even if good and virtuous as a whole, it is peppered by the black and dread, full of misjudgement and error even if not evil..."

 

"Maybe the time is not now for such reflection, and maybe it is...but we should not be shaken from our task. Gallia must be stopped. Now tell me of this marvellous device you have used...such artifice is beyond me!"

[Ari]

For a moment Marceau was struck by a very quiet feeling of pity, watching the wrinkled and frail-looking man rambling almost incoherently on the floor next to him. Reaching out he gave René a gentle squeeze on the shoulder, beginning to speak when the ancient painter abruptly turned and asked him how the tracking device worked, derailing his thoughts quite handily. There was a pause of several seconds as the King of Suits hastily cast his mind back to just what the answer to that was, a worried look softening into an eager smile as he answered briskly "It is a small metal disk a few centimetres in circumference, and around fifteen millimetres tall" twirling his left forefinger in the air and then pinching his thumb close to it to give the general idea of its dimensions "It holds a very sophisticated little computer that broadcasts its position to one of the manifold communications satellites orbiting L'Terre. This signal is then bounced back down and translated into coordinates letting me know precisely where it is! I just use a little GPS receiver to track the signals. I've hardly lost any!"

 

Jumping up so he balanced on the tips of his booted toes, the King of Suits produced another of the tracers(bearing the livery of the King of Hearts, naturally) for his friend's inspection. "I regret to say I have little to do with their making, that's done by a small electronics firm whose owner has allied herself with our cause. Can you find a way to find where its sister is, René?" he asked, wincing as he added "I know it might be a lot for you, but it might let us follow Gallia without putting us in much danger."

 

He gave no voice or sign of what he thought about Gallia/Beatrice 'striking Liberty'. In all honesty he would have called the idea utterly ridiculous. But his comrade's greater experience and handle on the mystical world won out, and he believed it too...