Halloween I.F. – “Something Rich and Strange” – Day 30

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Another thought occurred to Star, as if some of his previous planning had fallen behind and got stuck behind a wall or some such. “….Ugh, could we have rigged the building to blow and delay the demon more? I don’t suppose you already did that before we came back, Dandelion?”

Dandelion laughed. “No, a spell like that, on a delay and over a wide area, is hard enough to do under good circumstances. There was enough iron in that building to bend almost any working I tried, since I use fairy magic, not witchcraft.” He paused, then added. “Also, we agreed we didn’t want to execute the folks in the truck, at least not while they were trapped and helpless, and that would fundamentally just be doing that, if it had enough force to harm a demon of that one’s power.” Another pause. “…Also, I’m rich, but I’m not rich enough to pay for the building and all its contents, and if I used a spell that large they would find my magical signature when they investigated.”

Star waved a hand at him. “Point taken, I guess,” he said, in a drawled voice of disaffected annoyance he put on in the hopes that it would get a laugh out of Dandelion. “We can’t go back in time and do spells we didn’t do, I get it, I get it.”

“Well, I did do a spell, though,” Dandelion said, and if he hadn’t laughed he did sound pleased. “I put a quiet marker down in front of the truck door so that it’d send me an alarm when someone stepped into it—that’d include the demon. If they don’t go to the truck rear doors to open them, we won’t get a notice of when the game’s definitely up, but if they do, I’ll know.”

Dom gave Dandelion a startled look. “Didn’t you just say it’d twist all your magics? How do you know it’s fine?”

“Because I didn’t interact with the building,” Dandelion said. “I spored a mushroom circle in the ground beneath it, instead. It won’t survive long, not buried, but it’ll last long enough for our purposes. And I couldn’t do anything else with it, sadly, no binding or damage or anything else, it’s too weak to act on anything. But it can at least tell.”

“That is,” Star said fervently, “such a help actually, I’m glad to know it. Anything else, like—with your magic, is there a way to communicate with Georgio? There’s no iron here.”

Dandelion made an apologetic moue of his mouth. “Well, it’s not quite so simple, no,” he said apologetically. “Communications are extra difficult magic, though not impossible. It has to send a sense, whether a voice or sight, from one person to another despite the hundreds of individual signatures out there. And then it of course depends on the style of magic someone can use. A fairy magic like mine relies on sympathetic magic, so we’d have to have some part of the person on us to call to them with. Hair or nails, oaths, things like that. Witches can use that too, but also can use identifiers, like names or appearance. We can’t use that, but it’s why witches are good at binding demons or fairies they know the name and shape of.”

Star saw Dom shift, and glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, noticing that Dom was a little enraptured with this magical explanation, with Dandelion having shifted into a calm, knowledgeable figure like this. Star knew that Dandelion was hiding his own anxiety with it, and tried to quell a jealous swell in his chest.

“So that’s a no,” he said, instead of any of the irrational things that tried to be said.

“No, without finding a witch who either knows Georgio well enough to contact him, or is strong enough to do so without that,” Dandelion said. “Since he’s a public …mount? Figure? …that might be possible, but we just don’t have the time. Alas, we cannot coordinate with the Manotaur.”

Well, whatever. Star gave up on would-haves could-haves, and shook himself. He put the rest to the side and drew a rough outline of the track layout on the table with the dregs of his coffee. “So here’s what I think. I think we should come in the far side here, through the stables. We can try to find Halle—”

“Shit, Star, that’s a great idea,” Dom said, startled. He turned to Dandelion. “She’s a gargoyle, she’s always somewhere on site. Like Star said, usually the stables.”

Star nodded. “If she’s there and we can find her, she can at least stand guard, or maybe even help out. She’s part of the track, so it’s probably nigh-impossible to ward her out of anything on the track. Anything that affected the building would also affect her, right?”

“Makes sense,” Dandelion agreed. “So we try to find her. Just move on if we can’t, though.”

“Right,” Star said. “We circle around the flooded track to the north, and enter the side entrance into the building up on the north end there. That way, we enter closest to the offices. Fewer traps than we might have to deal with crossing through the building itself.”

“Good call,” Dom said. “And when do we go?”

“Now,” Dandelion said, and rose.

Nerves seemed to catch all three of them as they headed down the street to the track. They walked quietly in the dark, not chatting, like their voices alone might attract too much attention. Coming in from the north took them down the back road into the stables area, and while the door into them was locked, Dandelion confirmed that they weren’t magically locked. Since it was the barn side, it was a fairly simple padlock, and Star picked it quickly. 

“In we go,” Dandelion murmured, and led the way. They took 3 steps into the dark before realizing that Dom wasn’t following and, yeah, probably needed light to see.

That was fair. “Maybe fine if we keep it low and only inside here,” Star suggested. “There’s more windows in the actual clubhouse so it should be easier to see there.”

Dandelion focused and grew a plant from his hand; he blew, and seed-heads flew up in a flurry, beginning to glow and float around them, making shadows swim and flicker. Dom made a noise that didn’t seem exactly happy about it, but he stepped in to join them, and the three of them proceeded down the main stable hallway.

It was in this uncanny, shadow-flickering horror lighting that they found the body.

Halle had been smashed into several large pieces. Dom and Star sucked a breath in simultaneously as they recognized what this strange combination of shapes was, and Dandelion shifted closer, bringing the dancing seed lights in. “This was your friend?” he asked, soft.

Was. Was. Star’s gaze traced over the torso, shattered into a Y shape, the hunched legs over in a far corner, tail nearby, both arms broken in two different places and flung away. He saw, after a moment of searching, that Halle’s beaked, bald head had rolled into a stall.

“Is there anything we can do?” Dom asked, numb and hopeless.

That made the shock leave, at least. This wasn’t a fairy. Not a human, either. Her body being broken to pieces didn’t mean she was dead for certain. If it were any of the three of them, that’d be the end. A soul torn out of a body, or a soulless body torn so what energies animated it dissipated.  “Maybe,” Star said, shaky. “I think it’s possible to repair gargoyles.”

“It’s possible,” Dandelion agreed in a murmur. “Magically, we’d need a witch with a strong alignment with stone. You can repair them physically, too, with a talented enough stonemason, but with that number of fractures, a witch might be the best choice. It still might fail, though.”

Star swallowed. “Well, we can see what the Twilight Council says once we get through this.” Not if. If they died, well, a lot more than just Halle would be down and out, that was for sure, so no point thinking about that. Fury pounded through him harder than grief, now; this was his friend, for all that she was hard to talk to sometimes. This was his track they were using to harm his city in the name of cornering his lord, and this had all kicked off because they’d decided to use his jockey to do it…!

He took a few deep breaths, trying to at least focus enough to not fuck this up entirely. “No point sticking around here, then,” he said shortly. “Let’s go.”

They headed out of the stables and, as planned, sneaked low and quiet across the lawn to the north side of the flooded tracks. It was nerve-wracking and uncomfortable; Star kept finding himself glancing at the flooded pond as if looking for something there. It might just be paranoia after what had happened last time he was here, though, his old drowning trauma rising up and all that. He didn’t see anyone or anything out there whenever he checked, at least.

Still, it was with some relief that they left the track behind and huddled around the side door to the north of the building. This was also locked, but not warded, which made some kind of sense; the road was off that way, and passersby might notice if something were unusual. Any traps would be inside, instead. 

It was fairly easily picked, at least.

It let them into a hallway that went first past a set of bathrooms, then the offices and conference rooms. As soon as they stepped out to face the offices—while of course keeping careful eye out for anything that seemed odd—Star spared a moment to be grateful that they’d brought Dom.

Every single office had a horseshoe over the door: a ward that prevented entry from the fae. Star or Dandelion wouldn’t even be able to approach those doors.

Beside him, Dandelion hissed out a breath. “All the doors are magically locked, as well as physically, as well as the horseshoes,” he said. “Likely only one room would be used for this, but I don’t know as there’s a way to tell which. The stench of demonic magic fills the hallway due to all the locks.”

Star could pick up the aroma, but clearly not as well as Dandelion could. “Hell. I can pick any of the locks, but that takes time too.”

Dom looked between them and the doors. He clearly recognized the horseshoe thing—Star had told him before, given the number of horseshoes in a place that had horses. “What would the room need to be appropriate for the ritual? I’ve been in all of these at one point or another.”

“I doubt any of them have sinks,” Dandelion said, “But if they did, great. Otherwise, some sort of closeness to running water. Demons, like fairies, use a lot of sympathetic magic in their rituals.”

“No sinks,” Dom agreed. “…One of them has a pipe that runs under it.”

Dandelion’s eyes lit up. “You’re sure?”

“Fairly sure. Whenever someone flushes those toilets back by the entrance we came in, there’s a big clunk and a rushing sound under the floor in that room,” Dom said. “None of the other offices get that.

“Ahh, bless older buildings,” Dandelion said happily. “All right, show us which one, and if you can remove the horseshoe…?”

“On it,” Dom said, seeming a bit pleased. He got a chair from a bit further down the hallway and put it in front so that he could take the horseshoe down easily, then just sort of tucked it into the seat and shoved that across the hall. “Good?”

Dandelion nodded. “Good. You’re incredibly helpful,” he said, and he went down on a knee to examine the lock. “Star, can you pick this? I can work on the magical side of the lock while you do.”

“Maybe get the magic first. Just in case,” Star said.

It didn’t seem worth arguing, Dandelion just shrugged and nodded. He focused for a while, and Star became uncomfortably aware of the time passing, but there was no helping it. It wasn’t fairy magic, so lacking the connection, he probably had to do something else to understand and counter the spell. Probably find its intention and then work around that in some way.

“Aha,” Dandelion said, after seven minutes had passed—a seven minutes they wouldn’t get back. “The spell’s looking at the lock to confirm that it’s in the right position, and if it isn’t, it forces it back to that one. Since it’s essentially looking, I can just—”

There was a glimmer of glamour, not of magic, and Dandelion rose. “The spell’s still on it,” he added. “It’s just blind right now, so it won’t see the lock change. Easy.”

“Easy,” Star echoed back, and picked the physical lock. It was a Kwock, which was actually horrible security for the offices themselves, but then, he supposed anyone here had already gotten in the building. He opened it in seconds. As he turned, he caught them both looking impressed and decided that unless they asked, they did not need to know how easy these locks actually were.

Star stepped back and let Dandelion take this one too, as the most powerful one and the one most likely to be able to identify the exact moment that something went wrong. Nothing happened when he stepped through, and it turned out that they also wouldn’t need to rely on Dandelion’s senses to find the spell.

The entire office was covered in a giant magic circle, painted all over the walls and down to the floor. “No harm entering,” Dandelion promised, and stepped in.

It was hard to feel so sure, but if Dandelion was going, so was he; Star followed, and Dom followed Star with equal reluctance.

Dandelion went back into the same semi-trance, focused attention on the new spell in the same way as he’d done outside. Although this spell was significantly better, Dandelion already knew the intention for it, so Star figured it’d take faster.

It did, but not by much. Around five minutes later, Dandelion said, “Ohhhh,” in a tone of sudden understanding.

“Oh? What’s oh?” Dom asked. He’d been standing really still the whole time, as if afraid that moving might trigger anything, seeming more and more agitated. The grief and fear had come back onto his face. Standing still had left him thinking unpleasant thoughts about what they’d already seen, Star thought, and let his hand brush Dom’s reassuringly.

“The reason it was hard to recognize is that half the symbols are in a second circle,” Dandelion said. “It’s not normally split like this, but he’s connecting the surface to the water and dirt in a way that—well, it’s unusual, but it’s harder to remove, which is why they probably did it this way.” 

Star did not like that. “Do we need a specialist?”

“No, we just need to access the second circle, and to undo them simultaneously. It’s simple. You don’t even have magic to undo this. Erase or scuff this line, then this one, then this one,” Dandelion said. “All the symbols in either circle will come undone. But it has to be done simultaneously and in the same order, or the power will overflow. That’s why it’s more of a challenge.”

“So should we start checking other offices?” Dom asked.

Dandelion shook his head. “I should have recognized it when we passed. Based on the angles of writing and the pull of the spell, and what I felt outside… the other circle should be underwater in the middle of the flooded track.”

Not done in paint, then, but built in some other way down there. Star made a face. “….so two circles that have to be dealt with at the same time in two different places. Can you communicate with whoever goes out there? We talked about communication magic earlier.”

“I could send a short message to you without any difficulty given how close you’ll be and that you’re my vassal and lover,” Dandelion told Star. “Dom would be a bit harder. Might be easier if we made out.”

“Here? Now?” Dom yelped.

“Sharing saliva is powerful,” Dandelion said. “Regardless, we have three people, so we’ll have to decide who goes where. Two people in one place and one in the other. Or, I suppose, one for each circle and a third to stand watch, if we felt that was important enough to risk our strength in numbers that way. I shouldn’t stand watch, though, if I’m supposed to communicate with the other to time the line-erasure. I’d at least have to watch what was happening. I need to be at one of the circles.”

“You and I can both handle water easily,” Star told Dandelion. “So either or both of us could go there. Dom?”

Dom didn’t look pleased. “I mean, if you could enchant me to breathe water, I’d try if you said I had to, but I don’t do a lot of swimming. I think I’d be best to be out on watch or in the office undoing the lines there.”

“Okay,” Star said. “I can go anywhere, though watch is boring. Let me think.” As far as he could determine, since Dandelion couldn’t be on watch and Dom couldn’t be in the water, there were then five possible options to pick from:

1: Dandelion and Dom stayed together in the office and worked on the removal of lines there. Star would go into the water at the track alone.

2: Star and Dandelion could go underwater together, and leave Dom in the office after setting things up so Dandelion could communicate with Dom. 

3: Star could go to the water, Dandelion could stay in the office, and Dom could head out into the main clubhouse to keep watch.

4: Dandelion could go to the water, Star could stay in the office, and Dom could stand watch. 

5: Star could stay on watch while Dandelion went in the water and Dom stayed in the office and the two talked secretly with magic while saving the city together, and Star himself just waited outside on the boring job and was left behind forever.

What seemed to make the most sense for them to do, though?

[So which option are we going with?
Who at which circle (water/office),
and do we have anyone risk standing watch?
Leave a suggestion in the comments on this for sure
but also anything else you think is relevant at this late stage!

Story is not ending tomorrow; the final part will most likely be on Nov 02.]

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