Keble College

“It’s not safe for you to be out here. There are strix here at Oxford, they’ve been attracted by the bullshit the Mabinogi are trying to pull off.” Mehdi points his thumb behind him, gesturing to Liam jamming without any apparent concern for his safety. “That one has a deathwish, I’m just here to yank him back to the Hedge when shit goes bad. The two of you should…” it’s only now that Mehdi notices Rae’s missing finger and finds it in Aubrey’s clutch. “Wait a minute… you guys aren’t here just to watch the show and grab a bite to eat, are you?”

Before Aubrey or the others can say anything, Rae responds in a grave tone that resonates unnaturally outwards. As though the sound of her voice had been layered over itself a dozen times, then cast through a vast, cavernous space. “We’re here to kill a strix.” The shadows around her shudder, then crowd in closer to her.

Merric sees a new face approach, a bit reserved given the situation, but also excited to meet someone new. Rae introduces him, and he silently waves hi to the new face. Merric hears a term he hasn't heard outside of study that piques his curiosity. He pulled out his pocket notebook and pen and approached the new face. Ignoring social cues and breaking the tension, he asks, "You're name was Mehdi, right? You mentioned the Hedge just now, right? That has to do with the Fae. Are you related to the Fae somehow?" with excitement and pen in hand.

Mehdi blinks, wide eyed, at the strange yet blunt response from Rae. ”Right. Of course. Uhm,” he starts, turning to Merric. The stranger’s eager curiosity is offputting, especially with the notebook and pen readily in hand. Mehdi’s thoughts immediately return to Alice and her sketchbook skin. He shifts backwards, clearly uncomfortable. Of course, it would be hard for the privateer to hide her Mien from a fellow Changeling, but it certainly wouldn’t be impossible. “Uhm, yeah sure, I guess you could say that. And you’re a… mage?” he asks, making the easiest assumption given there is no pallor of undeath on the guy and there is another known mage present.  “So… two Mages, a bunch of Kindred, a bunch of cheshire cats, a Changeling and his Terror Toad against a Strix… or two or three. What exactly is our game plan?” The Strix feels far from the biggest threat to Liam, but it certainly isn’t a small one. As long as there is a team here looking to go up against the birds, he might as well throw in his lot and try to turn this sure to be trainwreck into a productive night.

Vesh said : "That makes two of us,” she muses to herself. “There is one more thing, however,” she turns to Khalid with a disarming smile. “The ritual requires bone ash specifically. You or your friend wouldn’t happen to know of a furnace or means to quickly burn this, would you?” Khalid gives Mehdi and Liam a nod, his eyes lingering on the changeling as he briefly recalls their last choice encounter. He turns back to Aubrey, matching her smile, "I could do it, but I'd need a crucible or something similar to contain the heat. I've got another idea but it's risky."  He briefly gestures over to his fellow mage, "If Merric has enough of a handle on Matter, he could just transmute it here and now."  He looks over the bloodied bone, "What's the ritual for anyway?"

Aubrey perks up as Khal speaks, and her eyes follow his words to Merric rather optimistically, before being drawn back by his question.  "Well as I said, it's a rite of fire, yeah? The same my professor used—"   seemingly ineffectively , she keeps to herself,  "—the other day to set Brasenose quad aflame. It's like, magic spectral fire, so our hooty shadow friend should have a hard time crossing it and be loathe to even try." How  exactly  she'd use such a flame — and how much she could feasibly control it — also failed to get mentioned.

Merric is interested in hearing more about this spectral fire, but his mind is preoccupied with the thought of transmuting the finger into bone ash. He turns to Khalid as he thinks out loud, "It's one thing to turn the bone into dust. That would be easy. The hard part is that turning to ash requires a stronger sense of matter transmutation than I currently have." He Looks to Khalid with an idea, "But, there is a way for us to combine our skills to make this work, Khalid. I can strip the flesh and weaken and shape the bone, while you can burn the bones into the ash. It's a bit complicated to combine multiple arcana into one, but it is doable if you want to try?"

Khalid looks at Aubrey with newfound interest, "Spectral fire? Well if it's fire I might be able to control it, could come in handy."   As Merric speaks with collaboration in mind Khalid nods, "I think it's possible, we'll have to work quick. Just focus on decaying the bone to dust and I'll attempt to turn it to ash." Khalid turns inwards preparing the imago of his spell. He conceptualized a self contained crucible to superheat the dust to ash, its heat localized within a pressure vacuum. Satisfied with his improvised spell he turned to see Merric's progress only to see the Moros finished. He raises his brows in surprise, "That is quick work Merric. Nicely done." He approaches Merric's finished work and casts his own spell, cupping the bone dust in his hands. The radiation of the heat warms him but not to the point of discomfort. Khalid opens his palms revealing the bone ash with cooling embers. He turns to Aubrey, offering the ash in his hands, "That's about the best we can do on short notice."

Aubrey marvels at the ash in the mage’s hands. It had hardly looked like anything had happened and yet, where once was a finger, only ash remained. Unfurling a small cloth handkerchief from her bag, she carefully wraps the ash securely within, securing it in the style of a small bag sealed with a hair tie. “That’s like, simultaneously incredible and disappointingly unremarkable,”  she laughs. “I thought there’d be more…”  her hands wave about, rising up and expanding out like the rising of a great inferno, “you know, FWOOSH  and all that, yeah?” “Anyway, cheers.”  Tucking the ash into her back pocket, she nods to Khalid. “That’d be splendid to see but I’m not so sure if it’d be possible. I don’t… totes understand it myself honestly but it’s not just spectral. It’s wild , living, in a way. Hungry . I’ve only tried it once and it took a lotta willpower to keep it in check. But I’d welcome your assistance and expertise, Gandalf.”

As he watches the crowd of students that has gathered, Mehdi feels the  world around him sharpen, part and rearrange itself into layers of meaning. The Mask, the Mien and the echoes of the Hedge itself, wherever reality grows thin. To anyone else, the Keble quad merely looks dim under the college's lamps. However, it becomes clear to Mehdi that the light is bending incorrectly.  Every lamp post casts two shadows.  A normal one, crisp under electric glow,  and second one beneath it that is  softer and slower-moving .  Shadow-within-shadow.  Furthermore, the air tastes like old smoke.  Like soot scraped from a chimney lined with bones.  It’s faint, but present everywhere. The taste is thickest around the entrances of certain buildings and strongest of all near Keble's library, where McDermott's office window glows faintly from within. Students are out tonight, drifting towards the quad where Liam's band is playing, drawn by free music and the thrill of a midweek party.  Among them is a girl that Mehdi does not like the feeling of.  At first glance she's just a fresher in a big coat, talking on her phone.  However, her footfalls don’t match her body . She's t oo quiet and  smooth, but she does  glance once towards Rae's group.

Mehdi becomes increasingly fidgety as the group continues to stand there. He glances as the mages do their work, and to his surprise the only thing remarkable about the magic is how banal it is. ‘Efficient’ or ‘pragmatic’ might also be used to describe it but still, Mehdi is used to the razzle and dazzle of wyrd magic rituals from the Hedge, and now the pomp and gravity of the Mabinogi. He quickly resumes scanning, continuing to keep an eye on McDermott’s window and the fresher in the big coat. ”You guys better hurry up with whatever this is. Something is off, feels like the shadows are closing in. And there’s that girl,” he says, nodding to the stranger, “She’s been giving us the eye, something’s definitely up with her.”

Rae looks on in shared astonishment with Mehdi and Aubrey as the mages transmute her severed finger into the needed material. She's about to comment when Mehdi brings their attention to a woman paying close attention to them while talking on a phone. She immediately notices the strangeness of the person, and allows the satin shadow of her soul to envelop the woman's mind.  Immediately, she is greeted by the icy malice that is the impression of the Strix upon the woman's body and mind. She is human, but the creature has overcome her and imposed its will and guiding her movements. This is the source of her unnatural movement, giving the impression of a Kindred poorly adhering to the masquerade.  Pressing in on the impression of the Bird of Dis, she finds that it regards them directly through the woman's eyes. It focuses particularly on Merric, Mehdi and herself. Yet behind her eyes sit black tendrils that lead up onto a rooftop above the quad where she sees the creature plainly, its head swiveling with eyes like molten tar.  Finally, she presses into the woman's mind to find the owner of the voice on the other end of her call. Her perception dives into the fresher's phone, which becomes a reflection of a face behind the girl. It's a man’s shape, inhumanly still with blank, yellow eyes like dying candle flames. The image shatters into shards of sound. Faint whispering like flapping wings, bone scraping stone and a voice layered over itself like a chorus of echoes. When she comes back to herself, she looks over to find that the girl is gone. "Shit. "  Shadows in her immediate area furl and flutter with agitation.  "That girl had been dominated by the Strix and was reporting our location. Perhaps our conversation. We need to move,  now. "  She turns on her heels and begins walking quickly across the quad towards Keble College.  "This creature dies  tonight."

Aubrey’s head spins, looking for the girl in question, only to get lost scanning the crowd for a shadows in a sea of moving lights and sounds. But Rae and Mehdi seemed sure, and the former was already taking off, and all at once a twinge of something white and hot was lit within her gut… a kernel of flame bouncing between the sum of all fear and the limitlessness of potential excitement.  Bounding after the kindred in turn, she strides up alongside Rae, keeping lock and step. “Okay so like, what’s the actual plan here?”  Eyes flit repeatedly to the edges of their peripheral vision, straining to see that which lay just beyond. She considers more than once to turn her head back around, but something within warned her not to. “We kick down this professor’s door and light him up or like… is Francis even here yet?”

“Wait, what? The professor? You mean McDermott?! Is he working with them?” Mehdi asks frantically as he rushes to follow. As they pass by the stage he glances at Liam, hoping to catch his eye while the musician plays. Part of him thinks to stay, to protect his charge, but in all actuality a stage in surrounded by a bunch of mortal students is probably the safest place the kindred professor could be. So Mehdi follows after the Strix-Hunters, dread building like a layer of late November frost across his nerves. Red violet leaves and soft pink petals drift from his Mien as he goes. The Changeling’s senses are on high alert, and he’s ready to shift into his familiar panther form the second that violence erupts.

Rae walks with haste, almost oblivious to the pace of the others. As Aubrey catches up, she answers the Daeva's questions as succinctly as she can.  "It will likely target me, since it has been hunting me. I will try to reach my brother and get him out, while you all fight and do your best to prioritize your safety. I notified Francis that we arrived when we first stepped onto the grounds, he should arrive at any moment. He largely travels by-"  Her mouth shapes the final word, but her voice is delayed by several seconds. When it finally does sound out, it echoes as though through a great cavern.  " shadow shadow   shadow shadow ... Shadow. The experience is jarring, and the darkness around her rises and falls subtly, as though with a breath. Refocusing, she continues.  "Francis will be here to fight with us. It will fear him." She turns to Mehdi.  "The Strix has possessed Professor McDermott. He is lost, I'm afraid. A Strix will only abandon a body once it has been destroyed. There is no other way to drive it out that is known to us."

Aubrey continues to keep pace, Rae's last words sitting with her as they move. If a professor like McDermott had been possessed and taken by such a thing, what did that really mean for any of them? Her and Rae specifically were no elders. Were the Strix to choose to possess her instead, would she even have an opportunity to  try  and defend against it? Or would that just be it? Her nerve had cracked just ever so slightly, and in that vacuous space spilled all at once a thousand questions. Why had the Strix not taken over if they were so nearly unstoppable for Kindred? How did they know there weren't any more about Oxford lurking in wait, perhaps ready to ambush them all here? If it already had Rae's brother what chances were there he hadn't already been killed? Was this not all for nought before it even began? She thought better of asking most aloud. "...He had better be there." They rush along, Keble awaiting them ahead.

The change upon crossing the threshold into Keble proper  is immediate.  Outside, the quad had been loud with the human noise of music and voices pushing back against the night. Inside, the air feels emptied and  hollowed out, as though sound enters the building and forgets how to echo , swallowed by thick walls and older silences.  The temperature drops perceptibly and  the mineral tang of old masonry hangs in the air, along with something else underneath. Stale smoke, scorched feathers and cold iron. The corridor ahead is long and angular, its brickwork swallowing light rather than reflecting it. Fluorescent fixtures hum overhead, but several flicker out of sync, casting the hallway in a stuttering rhythm of illumination and shadow.  Every bannister, carved niche and recessed doorway seems to possess a second outline, a darker echo that lags just behind reality. The shadows themselves lean away, as though making space for something moving ahead of them.  Further in, the corridors narrow. Student noticeboards line the walls, but many of the papers flutter despite the absence of any breeze. A few have curled inward, edges blackened as if singed. Footsteps echo too loudly, then abruptly not at all, as though the sound itself is being selectively allowed or denied passage. On approach to the wing where Dr. McDermott's office is located, the smell intensifies. Old books, dust and ink are overwhelmed by the coppery note of vitae gone rancid. There is no fresh blood here, only residue soaked deep into the stone over time. A place where feeding has happened carefully and repeatedly.  The room itself lies at the end of a short corridor that feels longer than it should. The lights here flicker in response to proximity, dimming and brightening like a nervous system misfiring. The wood of the door is dark with age, but now appears lacquered, as though polished by unseen hands.  The door itself is closed and  the brass nameplate bearing Dr. Daniel McDermott is warm to the eye, subtly distorted, its reflection bending at impossible angles. The shadows are thickest here. They crawl along the ceiling like smoke trapped under glass and gather beneath the doorframe in a slow, breathing line. From behind the door comes a pressure rather than a sound. The sensation of being observed by something patient, intelligent and deeply amused.  Somewhere deeper inside Keble, a door slams shut  and, somewhere above, on a rooftop, in a stairwell, or perhaps folded into the space between shadows, something shifts its weight.

Rae's steps are slow and deliberate as the group makes its way through the building, the ominous and uncanny atmosphere of the once-familiar college confirming that the creature is indeed still here. The smell of rancid Vitae is sickening, and the awareness of eyes on them is impossible to ignore. Every atom of her being is pointed towards this moment, considering each sensory stimulae, contemplating strategic reactions should they be ambushed. Yet, some distant thought manages to surface through the veneer of focus and controlled fear.  "This will be my eternity. Treading spaces just like this, to hunt what hunts us." Taking one more breath as they round onto the corridor of McDermott's office, she wills the shadows to coalesce around her knife. The darkness of this place belongs to her just as much as it does this creature, she is the progeny of an ancient line meant to fight on this very battlefield. She pushes the shadows beyond the boundaries they occupy within her, acquiesces to becoming the knife herself if it will allow her the strength she needs to fight. A shiver, a sensation of tension. And the Pseshkf materializes, inky tendrils of dark wrapping around the steel, fortifying it. But the manifestation is unstable, quietly vibrating as the force of her will keeps it from falling apart as it did so many times before. Still, she cannot suppress a smile.  Reaching the door to the former Ventrue's office, she whispers to the others.  "I don't know where Francis is, we can only hope he gets here in time. I will walk in first, file in behind me. I'll draw focus."

The corridor answers Rae's resolve with resistance,  the ambient darkness recoils in subtle, almost petulant, ways a s the shadows coil and harden around the knife. The light overhead flickers once, twice, then steadies at a dimmer setting, as though conceding territory, rather than losing it. The vibration in the Pseshkf sends faint ripples through the shadows that cling to the walls, distorting them into warped silhouettes that no longer resemble the architecture that cast them. The door to McDermott’s office opens with unsettling ease.  Inside, much of the space's former academic identity has decayed. Bookshelves still line the walls, but many of the volumes have been pulled halfway free, their spines warped and their pages swollen and blackened. Several books lie open on the floor, their text obscured by greasy soot or clawed through entirely, leaving only scraps of paper behind. The air is thick with the smell of old vitae and cold smoke, as though a fire burned here long ago and never fully went out. The desk has been pushed aside, its surface gouged and splintered. The chair behind it lies overturned with one leg snapped clean off. The room’s shadows do not obey the geometry of the space. They stretch upwards along the walls and gather at the ceiling, where they swirl lazily like storm clouds trapped indoors. McDermott stands near the far wall. What remains of him is still recognisably human in outline, but the posture is wrong. It's too still and balanced, like a statue waiting for instructions. His head is tilted at an angle that suggests curiosity rather than discomfort and his eyes reflect no light at all. The skin around the vampire's mouth is darkened and cracked, as though burned from the inside. Black veins spider across his neck and vanish beneath his collar. The thing wearing him notices the intrusion immediately.  The shadows in the room react as one, pulling inwards toward McDermott’s form, before flaring outward again in a sudden, predatory display. The temperature also drops sharply, causing breath to fog in the air. Then, something else moves.  From the ceiling, where the shadows are thickest, a distortion peels away. It doesn't fully separate, but suggests the outline of a vast, avian shape folded into impossible angles. Molten-black eyes blink open from within it, fixed unerringly on the knife and the one who carries it. The presence radiates contempt and hunger in equal measure and  the shadows on the floor begin to slowly creep forwards, flowing around furniture and up the walls like rising water.

The vile, corroded state of the office of the former professor serves as a testament to the anathemic nature of the Strix. She steels herself, fighting her instincts to appear calm, perhaps even unphased. She moves slowly into the space, allowing room for the others to come in behind her.  She keeps her eyes on the Kindred, even as the shadows coalesce to form the outline of the creature's true form. The Strix's fixation on the pseshkf provides the smallest margin of comfort, clearly wary of the harm that can now be done to it. Despite herself, she forces a smirk. "You have a gift for interior design. Very Tim Burton, Mr...do your kind have names?" She takes another step forward, dropping the   frivolity to leave her expression cold and angry.  "What have you done with my brother?"

The thing wearing McDermott tilts  its head tilts further, making his vertebrae grind softly,  The avian outline of the  shadow pooled along the ceiling  sharpens and its wings fold inwards with the sound of dry parchment being crushed.  When it finally speaks, the voice comes from the wrong place.  McDermott’s mouth opens, but the sound leaks from the shadows behind him as much as from his throat. It's a layered, echoing sound, feathered with whispers that scrape against the mind. “Names,” it murmurs, the word stretching thin. “We shed them. Like skin. Like lies.” A faint, wet sound, like something between a chuckle and the flexing of wings,  follows . The shadow on the ceiling shifts again, its eyes burning brighter as they rake over the blade and then return to Rae with predatory focus. At the mention of her brother, t he lights flicker violently, plunging the room into near-darkness, before stuttering back on. The desk shudders as something unseen brushes past it and a smear of black ichor seeps from beneath McDermott’s shoes, crawling outwards like oil seeking flame. “Your brother…” the chorus breathes. “He walks . He breathes . He dreams of falling.”  McDermott’s lips curl into something close enough to a smile to mock the very concept.  “He listens very well.” The shadow behind him unfurls further, its wingspan briefly filling the upper half of the room and blotting out the light entirely. “You hunt boldly,” the Strix continues, its attention lingering on Rae. “You smell of old blood and new steel. Of fear taught to kneel.”  The shadows along the floor creep forwards another inch.  “Come, daughter of knives,” it whispers. “Show me what your line has learned .”

The grinding of bones, the distorted smile, and the displaced voice register on a subconscious level and make Rae want to scream. But she chokes down the reaction, particularly as the creature speaks of having brought her brother to heel, perhaps even corrupting him in some way. It is also on some subconscious level that she understands the game being played here. Attempting to force the other to blink first, to give in to the impulse to rush forward, teeth bared.  So she refuses to cede ground, even as the ichor seeps towards her. Instead, she takes a calculated step to her right, moving into the room's shadows while casting her line of sight briefly towards the desk. In that instant she searches for any sign of her brother, but she cannot yet consider what she sees, as the game demands that she return her focus to the creature.  "Right, I am thy ancient enemy. For thou art mine."  With a knowing smile and a flourish of her weapon, she begins to dissipate into the shadows.  "Shed your puppet, then. Face me in our shared home.  Fight me in Twilight."

The corroded thing wearing McDermott’s skin stills, its grin freezing as Rae’s words cut through the room. The ichor creeping across the floor ripples and the shadows along the walls pull inwards  away from Rae.  Then, it laughs.  The sound peals out of the vampire's ruined throat in the layered harmonics of many voices stacked atop one another. Some are mocking, others furious and some are keen with hunger. As Rae steps into the shadows, the outline of the Strix grows clearer, peeling itself loose from its humanoid shell.  McDermott's body twitches and jerks as  black feathers push through flesh that no longer bothers pretending to bleed, fighting to remain upright as its occupant’s attention drags elsewhere.  The shadows deepen, thickening until all  sound in the room is muffled as though underwater, and t he temperature drops sharply. Frost creeps along the edges of the warped furniture and, in the half-seen space where Rae’s form thins, she feels the creature’s presence swelling and stretching. The Strix unfolds  in Twilight, n o longer bound by the crude limits of flesh. Its true shape blooms like an oil slick across reality’s seam. The Bird of Dis is vast, avian and skeletal, with wings too long and joints bent at impossible angles. Its eyes burn with the same glow of molten tar, fixing on Rae with predatory delight.  Behind it, McDermott's body sags against the desk with thin strands of shadow trailing from his spine like umbilical cords, anchoring the Strix to its vessel, even as it turns its full attention to Rae.  Wings scrape against unseen boundaries as it shifts, coiling for violence that has not yet broken loose. The office groans softly, strained by the pressure of two predators claiming dominion over the same shadows.

Rae hardly has time to react to the creature's transition into Twilight before the horrific weight of its predatory nature bears down on her with the unyielding fury of an entity that had truly never been human. It announces its strength fiercely, crushing her attempt to withstand the bearing of its full power. This creature is old, far too old for her to last more than a few moments against it. Those moments would have to be enough. Had she not been forced into a state of aggression at its provocation, she would run from the great and terrible enemy she now beholds.  Her Beast thrashes within her, demanding blood, violence and gratification. She bears her fangs as her body gradually seeps into the formlessness of Twilight, gripping the handle of her dagger so tightly that she faintly fears she will tear the skin of her palm. Turning to the others, she does her best to temper the anger as she speaks.  "Merric, Khalid, try to break its tether to the professor if you can. Bri, help the boys, they'll need help if it can still control McDermott in Twilight. Mehdi, work what magic you can to perhaps hinder the creature."  All but her head and shoulders have been consumed by the shadows by this point, and even these are being rapidly encroached upon. She isn't strong enough to do this any faster. As the darkness gains ground on her neck, then her face, she gives a weak smile.  "Don't die."  With that, she's cast fully into the realm of spirit. Facing down the colossal winged figure, she brings her weapon to her front, the blade turned downward over her forearm as she'd been taught to wield it.  "Come on then, you damned parasite!"

The oppressive, umbral forces grate at Mehdi’s finely tuned senses as they make their way to McDermott’s office. Fear bubbles up within the Changeling, like frost lining his gut, but there is no turning back now. All he can do is trust that the others know what the fuck they’re doing. Mehdi follows Rae’s instructions, slinking in after her and letting her taunting distract the horrific bird’s attention. Meanwhile he circles around the edge of the room, picking his away across the swathes of greasy shadow as if he were wading through a landfill. He waits for the Kindred’s cue, ‘Fight me in Twilight.’ But can it, will it? The answer comes quickly, the arrogant Strix expanding into that ephemeral space to meet its foe there, presumably one on one. The Helldiver wastes no time in joining them. He melts into a flurry of petals and serrated leaves, vanishing from the sights of the mages and Aubrey. Only Rae and the Strix can see him now, and hopefully the bird is too distracted to notice that there is now a panther stalking through its own gloom. This is a room full of predators after all. The chiropteran feline crouches low, luminous pink eyes glaring at the monster, corded muscle taught and ready to pounce.

The Strix's presence  In Twilight  expands in answer to Rae ’ s challenge, blotting out what little structure the space still pretends to have. The air, if it can be called that, buckles, compressing inwards, as though reality itself is being folded around the creature’s vast wings. Each beat of its pinion-bones sends ripples through the umbra, warping distance and depth, until the room becomes a cavernous distortion of itself, its boundaries lost in oily darkness. The Strix's tether to its host body snaps taut and,  back in the material world, McDermott’s body convulses violently. His spine arches as shadow-cords pull tight, dragging his limbs at unnatural angles. The desk behind him shudders, drawers bursting open, as though struck by invisible hands. Papers lift and tear themselves apart in mid-air, their scraps dissolving into ash before they hit the floor. A low, wet sound  escapes the professor’s throat as though  dragged out of him by force. In Twilight, the Strix's  head swivels with an avian crack, its eyes blazing brighter as it registers the presence of multiple threats. The panther-shape stalking through its gloom registers only as a ripple  at first,  but irritation flares immediately. Feathers bristle and the shadows around its talons sharpen, elongating into hooked silhouettes that scrape soundlessly across the umbral ground.  It plummets  downwards , collapsing its vast frame inward in a grotesque inversion of scale.  Trading reach for killing speed,  the creature compacts itself into something denser and heavier. Twilight screams under the shift and reality recoils as the Strix becomes less a thing that exists in the space and more a thing that is the space’s worst intent given form. The umbra responds to its will and  shadows surge upward like grasping hands, forming jagged pylons and flensing currents that tear through the air. The ancient, frigid pressure of the Beast that is the creature crashes outwards in waves, threatening to drown thought beneath instinct and terror.  Beneath it all, threaded through both worlds, the tether pulses.  The office, both real and unreal, cannot endure this much longer.  Cracks spiderweb across the walls in the material world, leaking shadow like smoke. In Twilight, those same fractures yawn open into bottomless voids, hungry and unstable.

Meanwhile, the sound of applause and cheering drifts on through the window, almost as if an audience is celebrating the begining of the fight, excitement bubbling over as people stand on the tips of their toes and crane their head forwards to watch the primal, violent exchange. The deadly dance that is beginning. In actual fact, it is a change of song, to something familiar to the young student audience. The baseline follows the cheers through the window, building in power as the celebratory noise quiets to a dull roar. Then the voices, melodic and intertwining in perfect harmony. Liam clearly recognisable, even at this distance to those who have heard him before, complemented perfectly by that of a girl, sweet and innocent.    In the shadows

Rae registers Mehdi's presence in Twilight with both relief and great concern, for the entity before them could potentially kill them both with relative ease. No sooner does she have this thought than the creature careens downward and manipulates the very yolk of the ethereal realm itself. The sight of it is reminiscent of Lovecraft, and it fills her with that same terror. She hurls herself through the umbra as pure shadow attempts to sunder and gore her, dodging as deftly as she can.  But it isn't enough, and one of the jagged pylons tears through her thigh, halting her long enough for one of the currents of shadow to rip viciously into her abdomen. The pain of it is unlike anything she has ever experienced in her unlife, an agony that diminishes you to an animal desperate to escape a trap. Who would tear their own limbs to escape. Her scream echoes through the umbra, a couplet of high notes as she wrenches herself free of the pylon as quickly as possible to avoid the remainder of the onslaught.  She stands, trembling, when the subtle and miraculous magics of the Life mage go to work. Having bolstered her physical constitution before leaving her flat, Khalid's magic rapidly repairs the damage that had been done. Muscles stretch and reconnect with severed tissue while bone snaps itself back into place and weaves back into marrow. Within moments, it is as though she had never been touched at all, the frenzied pain a faint memory in her body. Yet she also feels the magic falter under the strain, understanding that such reconstruction would not be possible again. She will need to capitalize on her augmented strength while it lasts.  So she calms herself, taking a breath and visualizing the complicated architecture of her favorite routes through the city. Free running, avoiding the loss of speed and momentum at all costs as she vaults and twists around obstacles and obstructions. Unknowingly, she had been training to survive this exact moment. And she will do just that.    Almost imperceptible, the sound of the music outside of the building floats through the umbra. Despite everything, she chuckles.

The music bleeds into the umbra like a living thing.  Bass notes roll through the fractured Twilight space in slow, tidal pulses that vibrate through shadow and thought alike, grounding the chaos with a rhythm that refuses to break. The sound feels wrong here. It's too warm and human, but it anchors the moment all the same. Applause becomes thunder muffled by walls that no longer fully exist. Cheers blur into a distant surf, a reminder that beyond these warped layers of reality, people are smiling and dancing, unaware that something ancient and obscene is unfolding only metres away. The office exists now as a palimpsest of worlds.  In the material realm, furniture sags beneath impossible weight and the walls sweat blackened vitae, the ceiling groaning as hairline fractures spread like frost. Thick, viscous shadows cling unnaturally to corners, refusing to disperse even where light falls.  In Twilight, the same space stretches into a cathedral of ruin. Columns of darkness loom where filing cabinets once stood and the floor ripples like oil underfoot, responding  more readily   to emotion than to gravity. The air bears the metallic, bitter tastes of scorched feathers and old blood and every sound carries too far, the echoes folding back on themselves until distance loses meaning. At the centre of it all, the tether pulses. This living umbilicus between worlds is taut with stolen vitality and parasitic will. Each thrum sends a shiver through both realms, rattling loose fragments of memory, fear and rage. It hums in counterpoint to the music outside, producing a grotesque harmony of celebration and annihilation. Shadows cling to Rae like a second skin, still roiling from the violence forced through them. Beneath her feet, the umbra tightens, ready to give or betray, depending on her next choice. Somewhere nearby, petals drift and dissolve into serrated silhouettes, their edges catching faint reflections of pink light like eyes watching from the dark.  The Strix’s presence alone is crushing as it   towering above all of this like a gravity well of malice and patience. In this realm, the creature appears both vast and coiled, but also content to let the moment stretch. It has no need to rush. The song outside swells toward its chorus.

Mehdi continues to slink through the warped office, circling the monolith of shadow with a hunter’s patience. Where normally his sleek black fur would provide ample camouflage, in this place of deepest darkness he feels exposed, as if his sheen and eyes are beacons in the sentient gloom. Still, the panther does his best to stay on the fringes in the hopes that Rae can continue to hold the Strix’s attention. His eyes fix on to the black cord tying the Strix to McDermott and this umbral realm to the real world. He doubts that his claws and fangs can do much harm to the creature itself, but perhaps he can sever that artery. Glancing back at the faint impressions of the others beyond the veil of Twilight, he knows that his strike must come at the perfect time. If he separates the Strix from the real world completely, it might render their efforts null. So for now Mehdi watches with predatory hunger, claws itching for Strix blood.

Aubrey's skin prickled with an unnatural sensation as her beast flared at first upon entering the room and was summarily silenced; squashed down by an overwhelming dearth of reality that warped the walls of the room into a kaleidoscopic nightmare of shadow; the pride so carefully baked into her flesh with every other layer of makeup she wore stripped like paint from a cracking wall, leaving only the exposed and huddled child of a beast within to pulse with all the primacy of a heart left frightened by the sound of its own beating. In short, she freezes.  Raziel and even the odd one that clung to Liam's side, Mehdi, vanished as if into air. She knew, deep down, that they were there — somewhere — in the twilight, but it provided little comfort regardless.  Call Cammy,  her dirge cried out.  The others can die in your place,  it argued, rather effectively. And perhaps a week ago, she would have. But the other part of her, the one that'd taken its first life and been birthed anew in the womb of wanton inhumanity, kept feet firm to ground. Francis had told them the plan. Rae is baiting it. She was doing her part. Aubrey's was to find her brother. Easier said than done, of course. There was no obvious sign of a random mortal sitting around this nightmare and even further, she doubted the bird of Dis would just have him tied up in a closet like some B-movie mustache twirler of a villain. If he was truly still alive, she'd have to think like a Strix… …an endeavor which left little in the way of hope for this human. If he yet lived — and that was a big if  — he’d likely have been withered and bent past any sensible point of return. A husk of a boy ghoulified at best and possessed and eroded at a spiritual level at worst. He was just as likely long dead, of course, but a Strix was unlikely to waste a human that had potential benefits to be extracted.  No, more likely than anything else, Rae’s brother, her professor, all of this… was to get at Rae herself. And if that was the case, then why the fuck would this thing care so much about her of all people?  She bites her lip, eyes flitting to the door in hopes the final member of this soirée was here yet… …Shit… … Could this all just be a roundabout way of getting to Francis?

Khalid stands frozen at the sight of the professor and remains so until both Mehdi and Rae chase after the Strix in twilight. McDermott with limbs twisted at unnatural angles, stands almost tauntingly in front of him. The dumb shit I do for friends. Khalid tilts forward in a short sprint crouching low on his approach in an attempt take his mark off his feet with his burst of speed. As he makes contact with the professor he recalls a very apt lesson given to him by the Adamantine Arrow upon his induction, his years of training were always against human opponents and when he fought instinctually that is where his mind would go. McDermott turned the tables on him, twisting with unnatural speed from a mere standstill leaving Khalid with an option to commit to his maneuver and risk being overexposed or reset the position. Khalid chose the latter, facing the professor with a bladed stance. His eyes flit to both Aubrey and Merric, wondering about either of their chances against McDermott. Aubrey was likely as strong as himself, perhaps more so with the current enhancements, but still had little combat experience and Merric was in the same boat but worse. Khalid would have to be a distraction. With a deep breath he reflexively suffuses himself with the essence of life. Movements become smoother, senses sharper, and his reaction speed almost on par with the preternatural creature in front of him. It would have to do.

As the door to the professor's office opens, the palpable dread in the air becomes nauseating. Rae leads the way into the room as she instigates the Strix possessed vampire. As quickly as the Strix appeared, it, Rae, and Mehdi disappeared into Twilight. Khalid rushes forward to take on the vampire head-to-head. I have to pull my weight. Merric's eyes turn pitch black as he channels magic and focuses on the supernal realm. As if peering into the gods fighting in the clouds above him in this tiny room, he sees the Strix fighting his new friends in Twilight. I'll try to contain this beast in any way I can. Merric holds out his hand, and the etched runes on his bracelet begin to glow as dark wisps leak out of the skull pendant's eye socket. They reach out into the supernal, trying to grab onto the strix's ephemera like amorphous hands. He strains as he imagines shaping the Strix's form like clay. I can't contain it like this. He looks around the room for a moment and glimpses a thermos on the professor's desk. I guess I can try that again With a downward motion, he pulls the strix's form to enter the thermos and trap him if only for a moment. Merric thinks he succeeded; however, he notices the thermos begins to corrode and warp as the Strix's infernal energy corrupts it. He sees yellow eyes glaring back at him from cracks in the container, piercing his will, as they smile at him. "Not good guys! I think I made it worse!" How do I get out of this?

There's a spike of pressure and the thermos screams , a sudden inversion of inside and out making Merric’s teeth ache and his vision swim. The cracks in the metal yawn wider and, from within them, the Strix’s eyes flare sulphur-bright, amused and  hungry . The vessel has become a lens, rather than a prison, and the thing on the other side is leaning forwards through it, focussing its attention along the thread that the mage has unwittingly opened.  The room around him dims as the resonance tightens. Merric’s shadow stretches, elongating against the wall and peeling itself free by a fraction of an inch. Cold seeps into his bones as the presence of something that knows the man's shape all too well presses at his thoughts like talons probing for purchase, rifling through fear and intent alike. The mage can see himself reflected in those eyes as a husk, a convenient hollow waiting to be filled. Then, the pressure abruptly breaks and  the shadows behind the Strix fold, collapsing inwards, as though swallowed by a deeper darkness. In that place, a figure resolves, silent and precise.  Francis de la Fontaine moves like a guillotine,  his pseshkf manifesting in a long, brutal arc of impossible geometry. The blade of congealed night hums with a resonance that is utterly anathema to the Bird of Dis. He steps forward from the shadows and drives the weapon home in one efficient strike . The blade punches through the Strix’s corpus with a sound like wet silk  tearing and  bursts from its chest in a spray of shadow and corrupted ephemera. The blow carves deep, ripping  devastatingly  through the coherence of the creature's form and  it shrieks in outrage . Twilight ripples violently outwards from the point of impact, the air itself buckling under the force.  Fractures of darkness bloom and spiderweb through the Strix's wings and torso, making its vast, monstrous shape stutter and nearly come apart. The creature reels back through the umbra, its  tether to the physical world straining under the sudden violence. I ts corpus shudders, torn and bleeding shadow, but far from finished. Despite the grievous wound, t he thing still holds and does not yet fall. Its  yellow eyes snap towards Francis, blazing with furious, focused malice . The aftermath of the strike echoes through Twilight, collapsing the resonance around Merric. The pressure lifts, like a nightmare broken mid-sentence, and sensation rushes back into his body, the thermos clattering uselessly to the floor.

Raziel watches in unabashed awe as her grand-sire emerges from the hadal shadows of Twilight itself to tear through the dread creature with his blade. As if a demigod, his single strike brings low the Strix and, for the first time, Rae witnesses fear move through its body. Even with her abilities augmented through the pneumatic engine of a human soul, she had only attained a portion of the strength Francis effortlessly commands. Through the noise that is her fear, anger, and desperation, she silently commits herself to a task as she spots the tether's Twilight manifestation beyond the Strix.  "If I want to thrive as a Khaibit, I have to become just as fearsome."   She launches herself forward, sprinting full tilt towards the creature in Francis's clutches. When the tendrils and spindling roots of the Strix's torn form reach for her, attempting to sup power from her, she pivots on the ball of her right foot as she'd done a hundred times before in the streets of Oxford. She lunges left, then right before ducking, avoiding the corruption of the creature with an ease that instills a modicum of confidence. Lowering herself to the ground as she runs, she falls onto her knees to slide beneath the bulk of the shadow thing, just as its claws seek to sever her from her immortal coil.  Quickly reaching the tether, she rears back her own stygian blade and plunges it into the coiling strand of undulating darkness and madness with all her might. To her horror and chagrin, she is proven the lesser hunter yet again. The dagger bounces harmlessly off of the nonsense of shapes and streaming shadow, warping her blade into the same collection of nonsensical forms. In that same moment, the tether snaps even tighter in response to the force exerted on it, causing the blade to resonate with it and dislodge the corruption from the blade to flow down onto her arm.  The pain is excruciating. Not the panicked, burning agony she had felt before, but enough to make her vision color as she grits her teeth and cries out. The pain is revealed to only be the beginning, as swirling disorientation and failing control of her own limbs force her to try to still herself back into clarity. In her malaise, she watches the inky Vitae of the Strix drip onto the ground beneath her, onto the shadow she's impossibly casting from some sourceless light in this realm. Her shadow twitches independently of her, then fails to perfectly follow her as she sways to the left, lagging behind by several seconds. When she glances to the Strix, her shadow moves far more than she does. Her outline raises a hand, as if to get the creature's attention, then points directly to her. This eldritch betrayal shunts her mind back into fevered desperation to survive, hoping that she has precious moments before the Strix notices her shadow and how it might be aided by this turn of events.  Yet, in all this pain and confusion, something is gleaned. The tether is of the make of the Strix itself, unable to be destroyed while anchored in a host. Turning to Mehdi, she sends an echoing yell through the umbra.  "We have to  disrupt  the tether, not cut it! Or neutralize McDermott!"

Mehdi looks down at his claws and then back incredulously at the Kindred's umbral form. He'll be lucky to damage the thing at all without getting eviscerated by the razor-sharp planes of fractured shadow-stuff. To suggest that he possesses enough finesse to pull a punch against this horrific entity is laughable. Still, he can see Rae's attack has left vulnerable, and left him with the perfect opening. Dark refractions echo out as the panther bursts from the pool of gloom he'd been hiding in, pouncing for the tether just as the Strix shifts forward towards its prey and draws the thread taut. Medhi's claws fall right through the black artery, yet the movement is slowed, the moment stretching for too long as he pushes through the half-coagulated corridor of shadow. The tether is not completely severed, though sinewy strands of the thing do snap apart and splatter inky viscera across the room. Where the droplets land they create ripples that ricochet and warp the room, causing the whole place to pulse with the tension of a silent, strained scream. In the material world, McDermott's body spasms violently, his marionette corpse jerking and snapping, shadow strings snapping his body into joint-popping angles. He shuffles forward, head hung to one side and mouth lolling open for a second just before a deafening shriek erupts from McDermott's ravaged throat and the Strix's black gullet in unison. The warped landscape of the office shudders, angles collapsing and darkness flickering, the whole room throbbing like a wound trying to knit itself back together. Where Francis has injured the bird this clotting effect is most noticeable, and already the tether as well is shuddering and flexing in an attempt to mend the tear.

The tether seizures and convulses, the room — if it could still be called such — shuttered as if fighting against its own existence. Aubrey’s eyes widen, bewitched by a vision of nightmare beyond any she’d had the privilege to bear witness to in her short requiem. And in the center, warped around each other in a vice grip of interlocking shadows, the ire of her eye danced a duel of daggers and darkness aside the Strix. Francis was here. And for all she loathed of the man, he was, in a word, incredible. A blurred dervish of movement and precision that wrought fear from even an apex predator. Fingers fumbled back for the pouch of ash and she grits her teeth. Rae had found a vulnerability. Her grandsire had created an opening. Mehdi had torn it asunder. Didn’t take being told to know she was up. She closes her eyes, opening them in her mind to the night before, in Odin’s office. The sigil he’d shown her then burns into her mind, her vision black where its marks daren’t go. She tears at the flesh on her thumb, freeing the vitae within.  As the battle raged around her, the Daeva dragged her bloodied hand across the ground beneath her feet, inscribing the arcane sigil in crimson ink. She glares up now, eyes locked on the duo in the center of it all. This time, the words come quickly, leaving her throat in a voice beyond her own. “Fire birthed from marrow—” She grits her teeth, squeezing a rain of red down to the symbol below. “—Consume the vile—” Eyes linger on the ancient Mehket’s twilit form and malice floods her brain… but her inner thoughts fixate on the bird of Dis. “—in blood and flame.” Vitae splashes across vitae… …and the dark is swallowed in verdant light.