Xaviers!

The warehouse in question is a blocky building as most warehouses tend to be. It's largely made out of brick and the windows are the opaque filthy things that Sam remembers from her time here as a raven. The more magically inclined in the group can feel the dark magic draped on the building like a greasy film that may never wash off. Even the non-magical among the group find something about the building makes them uneasy. From Sam's memory, the best and easiest entrance is from the dockside portion of the building where a door had been left somewhat ajar, the padlock on it long since rusted away to uselessness.

Alongside the docks, a silver Ford Fiesta slowed to a stop. Perhaps not quite the glorious chariot a mythologicalically-inclined foursome would have chosen, nor the latest in high-tech equipment the X-Teams could offer, but it was, at least, relatively inconspicuous.

"This is definitely the place," Sam says as she gets out.

"Shall we go knock on the door, My Lady?"

"The door by the dockside is probably the easiest. The lock won't hold."

"Be careful. You especially, Tereza. It looked like there was a lot of silver in there."

Tereza's nose wrinkles. "It's like I can smell the blood from here. It's... I don't know."

"No time like the present," Will said, heading for the door.

Vivienne fell in behind Will, her hand on Cal and at the ready.

As promised, Shari hadn't left Maldon. What Ainsley had asked for had been kind of vague but stretching the definition of 'where I can't follow' seemed mean and she didn't want that. Ainsley was her friend, like a bunch of people at the school. She didn't owe them anything, she felt she'd done plenty to repay them for her stay there and thinking about hanging around the same place as Natalie hurt. But so did the idea of leaving everyone else behind. This was why staying in one place for too long was dangerous. She'd grown attached and now it was hard to leave even though every instinct tells her to. Speaking of instincts, the thoughts and memories of that creepy woman were still bouncing around in her head and she'd forced herself to stick to forms that stayed as far away as possible from 'humanoid'. There was a very real possibility that if she let her body go that direction she'd end up imitating that ghastly creature. So she prowled around Maldon as various animals for a while, mainly dogs (of the more terrestrial kind) and the occasional large cat. The whole town felt weird somehow, although she couldn't quite put a finger on why. It probably had something to do with that creature, but smarter people than her where probably on that case.

Right now she was swimming through the harbor, a fish caught between her sharp teeth. It was big enough that she had trouble maneuvering out of the water and onto the dock. She'd have to hurry before too many people woke up and got to work. She was kind of inconspicuous but still out of place. A large otter, dragging a fish out of the water and into a nook underneath one of the piers sticking out from the shore. She's about to dig into her meal when an engine noise draws her attention. She pokes her head out from her hiding spot only to see a silver car pull up in front of a warehouse, a bunch of people climb out, some familiar, some not. She watches as they approach the warehouse and she curiously skitters after them, sticking close to things that provide her cover, long sleek body close to the ground.

The door is exactly where Sam says it should be and the padlock on it is in terrible condition. It takes only a moment before it to be snapped off and the door swings quietly inward with a creak. Separate from the creak are some distinct scuttling noises, but no apparent sources for them.

Will pushed the door open and walked into the room. Better he get hurt than any of the people on the mission, right?

The warehouse is full of shadows which seem to move as the dim light from the windows shifts with the clouds. From the doorway, he can sort of see where Erica is. Nothing immediately jumps him, though there's a lot of suspicious noise in the warehouse.

Vivienne open a large water pouch at her hip, spilling the water on the floor and pulling it with her as she moved beside Will.

Will strode forward, trying to get to Erica as quickly as possible -- though he wouldn't cross the boundaries of the circle just yet, if he got that far.

As he gets closer to the circle, the scuttling ceases entirely. A few feet from the circle a long filament arcs out of the darkness and hits him, sticking to him like glue as the filament begins to pull back, trying to reel him into the darkness.

"Bloody hell. Of course this can't be simple."

"Viv! Can you cut Will loose?"

Viv nodded, stepping forward quickly, Cal arching downwards across the line.

Will shot his own arms out in opposite directions, trying to reach the wall and stabilize himself, straining against the force pulling him in.

Cal severs the line easily and the remainder of it whips out of sight, leaving Will with a filament dangling from him. Oddly, only the end of it actually seems to be sticky. Another one arcs in from a different direction, hitting Viv in her sword hand and yanking on it hard as another filament launches itself at Sam only to have Tereza step in the way and catch it on some ice on her forearm, starting a tug of war with whatever's on the other end. The scuttling noises begin to resume in earnest.

Will quickly wrapped his arms around Viv, trying to yank her away and free from the tendrils.

He didn't know what was going on, but a mystic sword was probably not a good thing to lose.

"Looks like they threw a whole bloody party just for us," Sam frowns, casting her mind out to try to locate the entities in the shadows.

Vivienne releases Cal from her right "stuck" hand, still holding it in her left. She quickly lifted it up and away before bringing it down across the new line holding her.

Will's leverage gives Vivienne the brace she needs to slice through that thread, the rest of it zipping off into the darkness like the first one.

The minds, such as they are, aren't particularly sophisticated when Sam makes contact with them. They're predators and opportunists and vaguely alien. Food's wandered into their den and now they're going to eat it.

Several more strands launch out of the darkness, catching Vivienne in the arms and yanking her arms in separate directions.

The strands have to be coming from somewhere, right?

Will charged forward, looking to engage wherever or whatever was shooting them out at point blank range.

At this point, he was not going to stop at the ritual circle.

Another mind might stand out to Sam, similar in some ways to the thing in the shadows. Predatory and alien. It's followed them into the warehouse and is swiftly and quietly moving along the wall, sticking to cover and shadows as well.

Sam grits her teeth, her hair going from black to wild red as she tries to project to whatever's in the shadows that there's a bigger predator than it here.

Sean was fortunate to avoid being targeted by threads and built up a spell. A glowing light formed in his hand that he tossed up towards the ceiling and it began glowing brighter. Sean was hoping the bright light source would help them fight whatever it was that was hiding in the shadows and maybe avoid getting eaten. Hopefully.

It's unpleasant running across the ritual circle but Will isn't in it long enough to note much about it. As the light flares to life, Will comes face-to... um... face with a crab-like creature the size of a large dog hanging on to one of the support beams. It shielded its eyes from the light as one of it's claws made a swipe at him.

Around the room were six more of the creatures, two currently occupied anchoring Vivienne with filaments from their "mouths."

Will tried to take advantage of his 'shorter than normal' situation by flattening out along the floor to try to avoid the claw swipe.

If successful, he'd try to make his way to Erica, positioning himself between her and the closest creature.

Sean shouted several words a glowing circle formed in the air. Through the circle came a crimson crystalline lance. With a gesture he directed it at one of the two crabs holding Vivienne with filament things.

There's a sudden chittering, kinda bubbling shriek and a three foot otter suddenly jumps out of the shadows and charges at one of the crab-monsters, growing as it does until it's almost twice it's original size. The giant otter jumps and tries to clear the crab's head and pincers to land on it's back.

Samantha McManus wrote:Sam grits her teeth, her hair going from black to wild red as she tries to project to whatever's in the shadows that there's a bigger predator than it here.

The creatures cringe a bit from Sam's mental assault.

Will Stanton wrote:Will tried to take advantage of his 'shorter than normal' situation by flattening out along the floor to try to avoid the claw swipe.

If successful, he'd try to make his way to Erica, positioning himself between her and the closest creature.

The claw goes over him and the creature shuffles towards him, claws snapping at him as it tries to pinch various bits off of him.

Sean Hall wrote:Sean shouted several words a glowing circle formed in the air. Through the circle came a crimson crystalline lance. With a gesture he directed it at one of the two crabs holding Vivienne with filament things.

The lance sheers all the legs off one side of the creature and it collapses to the ground dead. Vivienne's arm on that side is now free-ish, though the creature's filament (and by extension the creature) is still stuck to her arm.

Shari wrote:There's a sudden chittering, kinda bubbling shriek and a three foot otter suddenly jumps out of the shadows and charges at one of the crab-monsters, growing as it does until it's almost twice it's original size. The giant otter jumps and tries to clear the crab's head and pincers to land on it's back.

The crab creature actually seems to register some sort of surprise at the sudden appearance of the otter and the two of them go down and a tumble. It scratches and claws at the otter, but the otter has both size and flexibility on the creature and is rapidly coming out on top of the scuffle.

Seeing that Vivienne is at least partially freed and the creatures are mostly occupied Sean moves to the ritual circle. He tries to examine it to determine if something untoward, like a demon being summoned or a time bomb, is going to happen while while the team is engaged with the crab-things.

Will's skin turned hard and metallic, to try to prevent bits and bobs from being snipped off. Half of him was already down the drain; you can't afford to just lose everything!

Sam tries to latch on to that reaction from the creatures, intensifying it by pulling out something they fear and superimposing that on Viv, Will and Sean in their minds.

Shari's battle with the creature is not particularly graceful. The two roll around as they tussle on the ground, the otter trying to hold on to it while it flops around like an angry rope, trying to find a good angle to get it's teeth to crack the shell, all while making high-pitched screaming noises.

Vivienne twists inwards towards the dead creature, wrapping her hand around the tongue/line. She continues the rotation using the momentum to swing the dead weight around and send it crashing into the still living creature attached to her other arm.

Sean Hall wrote:Seeing that Vivienne is at least partially freed and the creatures are mostly occupied Sean moves to the ritual circle. He tries to examine it to determine if something untoward, like a demon being summoned or a time bomb, is going to happen while while the team is engaged with the crab-things.

The ritual circle itself seems to be designed to both contain the power of whatever is within the circle and cause pain to that occupant. Given that Erica's currently staked in the middle of it, she's probably the target. The construction of the circle is messy though, leaking some sort of mystical energy.

Will Stanton wrote:Will's skin turned hard and metallic, to try to prevent bits and bobs from being snipped off. Half of him was already down the drain; you can't afford to just lose everything!

The sudden clanging noise as the pincers clamp down on metal seems to confuse the creature, causing it to resort to just hitting Will, which has predictably little effect as well.

Samantha McManus wrote:Sam tries to latch on to that reaction from the creatures, intensifying it by pulling out something they fear and superimposing that on Viv, Will and Sean in their minds.

The creatures begin to shy away from Viv, Will, and Sean as Sam firmly establishes that they're the bigger predators in the room.

Shari wrote:Shari's battle with the creature is not particularly graceful. The two roll around as they tussle on the ground, the otter trying to hold on to it while it flops around like an angry rope, trying to find a good angle to get it's teeth to crack the shell, all while making high-pitched screaming noises.

It's not long before Shari finds a chink in the creature's exoskeleton and cracks it open. She's rewarded with a pained screech from the creature which begins to draw the attention of all of its fellows.

Vivienne Chinnoir wrote:Vivienne twists inwards towards the dead creature, wrapping her hand around the tongue/line. She continues the rotation using the momentum to swing the dead weight around and send it crashing into the still living creature attached to her other arm.

The dead creature cracks into the live one, knocking it to the ground and loosening the tension on that line. The creature struggles to extricate itself from its dead companion, giving Vivienne a moment to breathe.

With the moment's respite caused by Sam's mental juju, Will...

...Punched the creature in the face. Not all tactics need to be complex!

Narrator wrote:The ritual circle itself seems to be designed to both contain the power of whatever is within the circle and cause pain to that occupant. Given that Erica's currently staked in the middle of it, she's probably the target. The construction of the circle is messy though, leaking some sort of mystical energy.

Sean begins looking to see where the leak is coming from thinking it should give him an idea of how to dismantle the ritual circle. A weak point perhaps that should let him unravel it.