tushanshu_logs | OPEN | BUT WITH STIPULATIONS

Entry tags:

OPEN | BUT WITH STIPULATIONS | CATCH-ALL

Characters: Many and various and YOU, but with specific starters involving: Skulduggery Pleasant

gistful, and Evandau.
Date: All throughout September. The thread with Anton occurs within the first few days of September, and the thread with Evandau happens sometime after that, but within the first week.
Location: All throughout Keeliai, theoretically, BUT Skulduggery will be actively avoiding public places.
Situation: Skulduggery's been infected by the cultists' poison, and since he's already prone to flashes of anger and violent urges, he's... staying in as often as possible. He's also taking steps to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid by talking to Anton, and then promptly going and doing something stupid by talking to Evandau.
Warnings/Rating: Anger. Lots and lots of anger. The thread with Evandau has a possibility of resulting in serious injury, but that has yet to be determined. Thread with Anton will have major book 6 spoilers.

[OOC Note: Because of the poison, Skulduggery's not going to be out and about, but he will respond to messages and visits and whatnot. If your character wouldn't be the type to contact him on their own and you want shenanigans to occur, PM me or ping me at

Amaraq and we can work something out!]

A: Anton

Within the first twenty-four hours of being poisoned outside the Hotel, Skulduggery already knew something was wrong. He hadn't noticed it at first, possibly because he was already so accustomed to the feeling. But when even his usual dry brand of humour didn't help assuage any of the constant irritation he was feeling, he knew something was up. And when he had a nightmare - a nightmare - during his meditation, a nightmare which somehow managed to inflame his wounds despite the complete lack of skin, Skulduggery knew he had to do something.

So he went to Anton's Hotel.

Any misgivings he used to have were gone, replaced by anger. Any fear he might have had that he would lose one of the few friends he would care about losing had vanished, replaced by absolute certainty of the loss happening regardless and brutal practicality in the consequences. It was only because of Anton's reaction, in fact, that Skulduggery was considering doing this at all. Part of him didn't care if he lost control anymore.

He walked in without a disguise and looked around, movements precise and deceptively calm. There were no longer throngs of waiting, overheated Kedan he had to worry about. That was good.

B: Evandau

Interrogating Evandau over what happened at the Hotel would normally have been at the very top of Skulduggery's list of things to do, but after all of the events of the last week, he'd managed to convince himself to wait. The problem was that every last scrap of patience he had was wearing thin, and when he could no longer justify the wait to himself, Skulduggery went to the police station. He walked quickly and purposefully through the streets until he was at the door, and didn't bother to knock before going in. The false face he was wearing looked grim, but the eyes - usually vaguely unfocused - were clear and intent.

C: Wild card!

[Visits, messages, or attempts to contact Skulduggery will all be answered. Replies to anything involving the console might not happen right away, but Skulduggery won't leave anything waiting longer than a day.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[OOC: This takes place two to three days after this thread, once Raine and Solomon have gotten their hands on a couple of spare ribs.]

Skulduggery had all but forgotten the suggestion mere hours after leaving his conversation with Raine. He remembered it intermittently - usually right after one of the nightmares, when his ribs were flaring with sharp pain that put him on a bed of shadows floating in the air just to avoid putting any extra pressure on his ribcage. Some moments, the thought of adding to that pain was almost enough to make Skulduggery lash out at nothing. Other moments, he would sit in front of his console and very nearly message Raine to ask how soon she'd be able to locate the spares.

By that morning, his moments of sitting in front of the console were getting few and far between. The shadows in the room shifted periodically, as though barely being held back by an invisible cage.

Solomon had gotten more sleep than he expected in the last couple of days, if only because Raine had offered him a spare bed after they came back with the appropriated ribs. He'd needed it by then, and hadn't passed it up. He needed to be well-rested when they confronted Skulduggery, just in case.

Raine had contacted Shudder, but since they weren't intending to put Skulduggery on the defensive the gist-user remained downstairs. Solomon led the way up, bracing himself for the cold only he could feel, the crystalline sharpness of the shadows upstairs and the almost radiant heart that was Skulduggery's lingering death.

"If he attacks, you won't have more than a faction of a second," said Solomon without looking down at Raine. "I'll be the one to stay close to him so I'll bear the brunt of his attack; that will give you a few extra seconds. If the shadows sharpen it's a prelude to attack. Be prepared. If we see Vile in there, we won't have time to hesitate."

They'd thought this through, all possible precautions were in place, and the effort was certainly necessary. Still Raine's heart sped as if preparing for battle-- which they very well might be. It was not an unfamiliar feeling, however, and she breathed through it, adjusting her grip on her staff for best maneuverability. "Understood," she said softly, with a short nod. "A few seconds should be enough."

She'd prefer it if Solomon didn't get himself killed, either, but the risk was necessary, and he was a competent adult. "Whenever you're ready," she said simply, neglecting warnings to take care.

It wasn't his magic getting stronger, Skulduggery knew. It was his own state of mind fracturing. That was why, over the past day, he'd been able to feel death the way he used to - been able to pick out where anyone in the suite was at any given time, been able to feel their lives fading in and out right on the edges of his consciousness. He was keeping the control not to actually reach out for them, but that control wasn't going to last for long, and Skulduggery didn't quite have the presence of mind to search for ways to prolong it.

He knew the moment Wreath crossed the threshold downstairs, and Raine right behind. He knew who they were because there was no one else they could be. He kept their names in his mind, repeating them, trying to humanise them. Raine. Wreath. Raine. Wreath - Anton. Anton downstairs, Wreath, Raine -

Against his will, the shadows stirred, and they didn't settle down again.

Solomon felt the slow facturing that passed for the movement of the shadows behind the door. He knocked once and then opened it without waiting for an answer, the knock a formality. Skulduggery knew they were there. Solomon braced himself, extending his magic just enough to cast a bubble around him, defensive only. Then he entered and stiffened at the sensation of a thousand cold blades scraping past his soul, shield or no shield.

He didn't need to look around at the shadow, but while they moved they weren't sharpened weapons. Not yet. He was hoping he wouldn't have to experience them when they were.

"We've got you a gift," he said, moving his focus to Skulduggery himself and striding in as far as the shadows allowed him. He wasn't aware of it, but his eyes were bleeding red as he resisted, moment by moment, the cold order of the shadows not under his control.

Raine kept Solomon between herself and Skulduggery -- if it was still Skulduggery. Solomon's control she trusted, at least, and she'd much rather be behind him than anywhere else in the room. Between the two of them, she estimated, the one with the longer history stood the better chance of getting through, and so she stayed still and quiet by the door, poised to pull up a force field and fling herself backward if need be.

"The ribs." Skulduggery's voice felt strange. Smooth, much too smooth, like the first time he tried speaking without vocal chords. The darkest corner of the room flared with his words, but then subsided, and the shadows allowed Wreath to come close enough to brush Skulduggery's shoulder before they grew solid and formed a wall.

Raine. Wreath. Anton downstairs. Wreath. Rai -

Why was Anton downstairs? Was it because they didn't trust him, or because they didn't want to alarm him? It didn't really matter. If things went wrong, it wouldn't matter where anyone was. It would only matter whether or not they were dead.

They weren't yet. They wouldn't be. Wreath. Raine. Wreath. Raine.

Several conscious deep breaths later, and Skulduggery could almost fool himself into believing he couldn't feel Wreath's magic, cold and sharp and solid, waiting for an attack. The wall of shadow faded, leaving a clear path between them.

"Yes." Solomon waited there, chest brushing against the wall of shadow, and his heart beating so loudly that he could almost fancy the wall trembled with it. It felt cold, so cold it made his breath catch in his lungs.

He waited, patient and frozen and limbs tingling with a sort of distant but yawning terror he hadn't felt in a long time. It was a surprise to realise he was even feeling it; he hadn't stopped to think about what they were doing except that it was necessary. He hadn't stopped long enough to realise that this was Vile he was confronting--willingly. The bogeyman of his adult years.

When the shadows dissolved Solomon stepped forward as calmly as if he was enjoying an afternoon stroll. "Raine," he said evenly, "please prepare the ribs. Don't bring them to me until I tell you."

He could have used magic to bring them to him--but he didn't dare. Anything more than the magic he was already using would only prod Skulduggery's need to use his own. Instead he knelt, his gaze on Skulduggery's fleshless face. "Would you like to remove them, Skulduggery, or shall I?"

"Understood," Raine said, and stayed right where she was by the door as she did so. A wary eye on the two of them all the while, she shifted her staff to a one-handed grip, and withdrew the ribs they'd recovered from the deep pocket of her jacket. She glanced them over once again, to ensure nothing had gone awry. Then she settled, bracing herself.

She'd already had to stop herself from starting to cast twice, at each sudden movement of shadows. She didn't need to be told that any magical move at this point, no matter how inoffensive, had the potential to be a bad idea. The weight of the atmosphere alone told her that, if Solomon's caution didn't. Patience was paramount now; patience, and the ability to respond quickly when and only when it became necessary. Ribs in hand, Raine breathed, and waited.

The question helped. The question forced Skulduggery to think, to cast his mind back to the last time he'd suffered through the pain of losing ribs. Nothing overtly terrible had happened, but he hadn't had the armour resting inside his skull either. He hadn't had shadows moving when he breathed, sharpening when his thoughts caught on unwanted irritations, solidifying defensively when people came close. It was going to take everything he had to keep them from manifesting into the armour entirely.

Wreath's presence grated, but it was a blessing - a blessing. Because he was Skulduggery Pleasant, and Wreath was here to make sure he stayed that way.

"You'd better do it," Skulduggery said slowly. A shadow by his hand swelled, developed a thickened point. Skulduggery moved it behind his back. "Don't fight it, Wreath." Don't try to control the armour. "If it goes wrong, kill me and run."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Solomon, and he tried to keep his voice calm, but the pain was starting to thread into his voice, tightening it. "You're not getting out of this quite so easily as that. You're just going to have to suffer along in life with the rest of us, regardless of what monumental mistakes you've made. I hate to tell you, Skulduggery, because I realise you enjoy thinking you're unique, but you're not exactly unusual when it comes to being an idiot."

In spite of that extra thread of tension he spoke lightly, candid in a way that was easy to dismiss--distracting from what he was about to do. He had a knife in his pocket, and he withdrew it. It wasn't a magical knife, but he'd sharpened it, and it should suffice in giving him enough leverage to work the ribs free. "I'm going to remove your upper tainted rib now, Skulduggery. We'll replace it before I move on to the next. Raine, please bring the ribs. And be prepared."

Solomon preferred to do these things all at once, but the pain would be bad enough without adding to it, given Skulduggery was right now a rabid dog on the verge of lashing out. He didn't wait for an acknowledgement, however. With the ease of a man who had worked with bones before, frequently, he took the knife to the joint and fitted the point in exactly where he needed it, and waited just long enough for Raine to reach his side before prying it loose and yanking it out, hurling it away through the door. "Insert the rib, please, Raine."

Wreath's very deliberate attempts at candid distraction almost worked. Skulduggery even managed to laugh, strained as the sound was. "Takes one to know one," he murmured as Wreath's companion - Raine - came closer. "Don't - don't tell me what you're about to -"

He stopped then. Not because of the pain, but because the anticipation was forming writhing shadows on the ceiling, and he needed to concentrate. The shadows drifted, half-formed, moving just enough to register in the corner of someone's eye, but not fast enough to arouse suspicion when they were looked at directly. They were almost soothing. Was it possible, Skulduggery wondered, to drag his own consciousness from his skeleton and keep it safely tucked away up there? If he could manage it, he wouldn't feel any of the -

- pain -

He screamed. Shadows on the ceiling sharpened to points. Shadows within his skeleton lashed out like the rabid dogs Wreath had been dreading, throwing him and his companion back against the wall with all the force of a cannon blast. The skeleton himself curled over his ribcage on the floor, the dark hazy outline of a helmet growing visible over his skull.

Edited 2014-09-23 22:26 (UTC)

Solomon was prepared for the attack--prepared enough that his own shadows swelled between him and Skulduggery, arcing as a shield around both himself and Raine. He was prepared for the shadows ... he wasn't prepared for the pain. The deathly cold seemed to cut right through him in spite of that defence, and Solomon screamed, and the shield dissolved almost at once.

His perception of the world bent. Death and life mingled, order and chaos spinning around him. He felt the life beat fast and driven in his chest, the rippling echo it seemed to leave around him; he felt his body distant but sharp, and numbly watched crystals start to pattern over it. The threads binding body and life and shadow unravelled one by one. His power was present, but slippery, a hum he realised was threefold, like eggs nestled in a nest--one weak, one strong, one hidden but a wellspring of that power, one he could take if he wanted, and he knew it would give him power unparalleled.

True name.

Solomon shied away from them and felt something else at his back; it was power, yes, but two steps to the side--not powered by his name and magic but another part of him altogether.

Help me, he commanded. That force wrapped around him in a rush of warmth that banished the deathly cold, and when Solomon opened his eyes the shadows hanging in every corner of the room were lit by a countering luminescent mist. It surrounded him, not Necromancy but something else, something that felt as though a part of him had been laid bare like a live wire. It threaded in with the shadows as though was their cousin, but its glow gave them clarity and held them away.

Oh.

"Raine?" Solomon asked, and his voice came out raw.

She processed the change in the atmosphere before anything else. If there was any element she knew, it was light, and, irrationally, it eased her fear a little.

"Functional," she said at the sound of Solomon's voice, dazed though she was. She'd had only the instant of a warning, and her force field had died half-formed as shadows threw her back. She was no stranger to being flung against walls -- unfortunately -- but still only habit long since beaten into her kept her staff and the ribs in her hands, clutched tight.

Too slow. Get up. Enemies don't wait for you to recover.

Raine clambered to her feet, using her staff as leverage. Pain-- expected, with that impact. Probably ribs, ironically. It snapped her focus to the present moment, though, and it was nothing she couldn't fix provided they survived. She was mobile, Solomon was alive, the replacement ribs were intact, that was what mattered.

She'd ask him what he'd done, later; whatever it was, it was a marked improvement, and she could not help but appreciate the light. With shadows temporarily held back, she could possibly get to Skulduggery. She grit her teeth and, rib at the ready, started to cross to him, alert all the while to the movements of light and darkness in the room.

Something stopped him, something the shadows couldn't simply cut through. There was nothing the shadows couldn't simply cut through. Whatever it was, it was strangely bright, and fluid, and remarkably good at anticipating exactly where his conscious awareness was going to go next. It was wrong, and it had no place - no place - stopping him from defending himself, stopping him from lashing out, making it hard to breathe, hard to see, hard to think -

The armour surged and he attacked them, quickly, viciously, trying to smother them and snuff them out before they had a chance to retaliate. His awareness expanded to the edges of the room, allowing him to see everything again, feel everything, perceive all he needed to - but properly, with the sharp edge of clarity that a potent source of death could bring. It lit the room up with a much colder light, a light which cast everything into sharp relief - everything except for life.

Two lives. Two awarenesses opposite him, one powerful, one unfamiliar.

The unfamiliar one was a threat.

He rose smoothly to his feet on a bed of unimpeded shadow and divided his attention, sealing off the death aura in favour of quick sharp murders. The temperature dropped another few degrees as he thrust one hand out and all the remaining darkness in the room responded, rising up to kill.

It was hard, and slow, like trudging through water. Something fought him every step of the way. The same brightness from before, yes, but... something else as well. Something that retained a shred of the forced insanity from the Faceless One centuries before. It couldn't speak, or exert any real influence. But it was enough of a nagging thought within his expanded awareness that, while the shadows sharpened and shot out, most of the important ones missed.

"Briseadh agus brú ar do chnámha!" Solomon snarled as the armour manifested around Skulduggery's limbs. Not completely--there were gaps in the shadows--but enough that Solomon felt the curse was warranted. His ka followed the shadows targetting Raine, its tendrils slipping in among them as though they belonged and thinning the shadows' consistency until their edges blurred and they lost cohesion before they could threaten Raine.

If I use magic--

Yes.

Well, alright then. Solomon pushed himself to his feet and let his ka deal with the area-effect of Skulduggery's attack, and raised his hand and summoned a shield of darkness around Raine proper. He could still see Necromancy as a cold, crystalline force unto itself. Ever so gently he used both hands to control the shadows, to fit them in among Skulduggery's jagged-edged power until it seemed as though the shadows were all one being, until hopefully Skulduggery wouldn't register them as something to attack at all.

"Go," he ordered Raine, weaving shadows, dancing them across and around and everywhere, like darting flies to attract Skulduggery's attention as much as Solomon's ka did the same. With any luck at all, the Necromantic shield around Raine, hidden in Skulduggery's own shadows, would be enough to protect her as she got close.

She did not have to be told twice, in the wake of the movement of shadows and armor. Neither heralded good things, and she was well aware that without Solomon's protection she'd have been dead several times over by now. All of this said that the replacement was now absolutely vital, however, and so Raine ducked her head a little and pressed ever forward, toward Skulduggery.

She was less and less sure that he was actually Skulduggery at the moment.

One step at a time. It was simply crossing a room, despite the ongoing conflict of magic in the air, and while she was prepared to take a hit or two in the process, the shield seemed sound. Finally, finally she was nearly close enough to do something. Touching Skulduggery with no warning seemed like a bad idea, but so too did actively trying to get his attention in this state; she hesitated over that for a bare second, then reached out, rib in hand, looking for a clear moment to slot it into place.

There was a flicker of a memory when the insult was snarled, a procedural memory of a battle that hadn't ended in a slaughter where the same sort of avoidance tactics were used. He knew to expect the flitting distractions, but he hadn't expected the threat to disappear - and within his own magic, no less.

The brightness must have done it. It was the only thing in the room he didn't recognise, no matter how he tried to perceive it.

He focussed all of his attention on them, the bright shadows that slipped so easily around his consciousness, and he narrowed his awareness to a point where he could prod them. Magic tore into magic, ripping around the room, attacking and slicing and all the while searching for that which had disappeared without his allowing it. But the whirlwind of shadow, far from strengthening, actually faded back as time went on, as the rage fueling one half of it began to dissipate. By the time Raine reached the source of it, the pain which triggered the transformation was faded enough to allow her the access she was searching for.

The armour was still there, half-formed as it was, but the helmet had been threaded back into the skull, and Skulduggery himself just stood there.

Though the shadows couldn't actively damage Solomon's ka, it still hurt to feel the shadows scrape past the glowing mist; like a graze instead of a cut, irritant and painful. Or possibly it was just his metaphysical skin being flayed. Solomon grit his teeth against the sensation and kept up his weaving, kept the shadows flitting here and there.

He'd used this tactic last time, too--though with a worse result. Right now, it seemed to be working, as much by attrition as anything else; giving Skulduggery something to occupy himself until his initial fury wore down. If it did.

And it was. The shadows grew less tangible, less cohesive. Parts of the armour dissolved, and Solomon lessened his distractions without abandoning them completely. A butterfly shaped from shadow fluttered over Skulduggery's head and landed on the shoulder opposite to Raine, and Solomon's ka reached out a tendril and lit it with patterns of blue luminescence.

"Now," he said quietly to Raine. Solomon had taken care to wear down the bone until the joint would fit properly in Skulduggery's spine. Now was their chance.

With the armor partially gone, and the shadows slowly approaching quiescent, now was the best opportunity they were going to get.

A short nod. Raine double-checked the alignment, then, satisfied, pushed the bone into place with one smooth motion. She pulled her hand back like she'd been burned, after, unsure if this would produce the same level of reaction as removing the rib initially had. She didn't particularly want to be touching him if it did.

The shadows hadn't quite settled back to where they were before the whole escapade started, but they'd settled enough to cloud the sharp clarity of death again. It was like walking into darkness after being out in bright sunshine - relieving, soothing, impossible to see anything. Sheer instinct and a remnant sense of stubbornness kept the shadows moving to attack the distractions, and soon there was no point even to that.

The distractions remained anyway. He could see some of them now, including one which prodded directly at his shoulder. Fluttered over to his shoulder, actually.

Was that - a butterfly?

Another sharp flare of pain and Skulduggery recoiled with a cry. As though Raine disturbed a wasps' nest, shadows strengthened and buzzed angrily around the point of contact, unable to reach her through the other necromancer's protection. Soon, even they managed to calm.

Yes. Yes it was. With a gentle stroke of Solomon's fingers in the air, a shadow-made squirrel ran right up Skulduggery's body and landed on his head, paws gripping his eye-holes. "My knife should be on the floor near you," said Solomon, "if you need it to remove the other rib." He smiled grimly. "Let's get this over with."

The butterfly flitted off Skulduggery's shoulder, gliding easily in the air around him, while the squirrel relieved its position in favour of sitting on top of the skeleton's skull.

To that Raine just nodded again, by now not willing to risk drawing Skulduggery's unfavorable attention before she could remove the other rib. She knelt to reach the knife, and left her staff in its place for the moment, since she'd need both hands and Solomon's protection was holding.

Once she had the knife, she shifted her position a little, to get the best angle to pop the infected rib free. If she didn't have Solomon's easy familiarity with bones, at least she knew the humanoid body in general fairly well. It took a few seconds of study longer than she might have liked, but when she was sure she moved swiftly. Insert point, apply leverage, pull hard. Brace for impact, because as much as she trusted Solomon's work she was also right next to Skulduggery, and the last instance had been remarkably forceful to say the least.

She wasn't even going to question the woodland creatures at this point. If it worked, it worked.

It worked to a point. For a good few seconds, the shadow-armour was simply gone, as Skulduggery tried to wave away the fluttering shadow-butterfly. He reached for the squirrel with his other hand, making a noise somewhere deep in the throat he didn't have - a noise that pitched somewhere between frustration and amusement. It might have been amusing to watch, if the shadows in the room weren't still stirring around them, foreboding and treacherous.

Then the second rib was gone, and the noise became a scream, and the shadows swelled once again. They sliced through the little woodland creatures - the butterfly first, then the squirrel next as the helmet reformed - and with a guttural snarl Skulduggery lashed out for the second time in so many minutes. The only light in the room came from the anti-shadows Wreath had somehow summoned, so thick and swirling were the proper ones he controlled. His awareness flew outwards and again he tried to take the lives of those surrounding him, to hold them hostage, to add them to his own power so he could rise up and take even more. But something was still missing. Something that was there before and now wasn't, the reason for this second wave of fury. He cast his mind around searching for it, and all the while the darkness slashed.

The next surge was completely expected, but this time they were better prepared. Solomon grunted breathlessly at the pain scraping past his ka, but shadow was shadow and the sensation was more akin to being side-swiped than taking a blow. It hurt, but it was tolerable.

Skulduggery's death-aura shot out and Solomon reacted instinctively with his own, his eyes flashing properly red yet again. He realised too late that though Skulduggery's aura was bending around Raine's shield as if everything inside it simply didn't exist, that same shield was of Solomon's making, and his aura shot straight into it and took Raine's soul. The cold of her death felt soothing, but at a distance--he needed to bring her to him to use her.

Damn it. Can you--

Yes.

The luminescent shadows joined with the darkness, and a flurry of blue-patterned butterflies attacked Skulduggery until the skeleton's death-aura broke. Only then was it was safe for Solomon to cut off his own without having his own soul taken, and he put Raine back where she belonged with a grimace, focussing his attention on harassing Skulduggery with shadow-puppets until the skeleton's rage faded again. "Raine?"

Edited 2014-09-25 09:22 (UTC)

Raine, Solomon

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Skipping with permission

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