St. Peter In Chains: The Collection. [OPEN!]

[meanwhileback]

Who: Penelope Lane, her models, her muses, her admirers, the curious and the critics. ANYONE. EVERYONE. GET IN HERE!!
What: Penelope's long-awaited runway show! Finally!
Where: St. Peter In Chains, abandoned cathedralish church.
When: Friday, June 29th! Eveningtime. Show starts at 7pm and goes... well. Until everyone isn't there anymore, I guess!! For whatever reason.
Notes: IMPORTANT: There's going to be a bunch of subthreads for different parts of the night. Feel free to tag around in them as you want! I'd like fabulous things to happen here, people. Fabulous. Things.
EDIT: NOW WITH ADDED TERROR!! SEE LINK BELOW!!
Warnings: Scary things, NPC death, injuries... horrors!!

The venue has been done up quite well for the occasion, all things considered. The old pews that were still salvageable have been repurposed and rearranged to face the aisle down the center of the enormous main room, where a raised runway has been set up. Lighting and temporary walls, and even an audio system have been brought in and installed for the occasion, and the impressive wreathed columns have been dramatically lit from below to emphasize the height of the room.

All told, it looks like it cost absolute scads of money to renovate an abandoned space to this level of elegance; whether this is actually true or not is largely immaterial. As with so much of society, it's the appearance of the thing that matters most, not the reality of it. Perhaps that's a statement Penelope Lane is making intentionally. Everyone knows the designer is one of the most outspoken members of her cohort, after all, and not one to misrepresent herself.

And she is, tonight, for one, brief, shining moment, entirely in control. Take plenty of pictures; it won't last long.

AND NOW: THE REAL SHOW BEGINS

Comments

The Afterparty: At Midnight

[meanwhileback]

The party is a success. Everyone, even the people with clear agendas for being there, are enjoying themselves immensely. The models are charming, the higher-ups are congratulatory, and Penelope Lane is practically glowing with a sense of smug accomplishment.

And then, at precisely Midnight, the lights go out. There's some awkward silence, a chuckle or two, and murmuring to the effect of 'someone get the lights back on, please?'. When it doesn't happen within a handful of minutes, the tension seems at the breaking point--

But the light comes on again, and things are back to normal.

Except they aren't.

The air in the cathedral is ice-cold, so cold that everyone still in attendance can see their breath. A moment of adjustment to the light later, and it's clear that some people who were in the crypt moments ago are no longer where they used to be. Some attendees will find themselves in entirely different parts of the Cathedral itself, some familiar, some totally unfamiliar. Some which seem like a dream. All of which are freezing, teeth-clattering, goosebump-raising, shiver-down-the-back-of-the-spine cold.

The message is clear. This place does not belong to you. Any of you. And you should probably leave, or else.

The Crypt

[meanwhileback]

For those still inside the crypt, aside from the sudden temperature shift, there appears to be shifting of another kind taking place in the swanky room.

Slow at first, small things, doors opening and closing, furniture scooting away from those about to lean on it, drawers slamming shut immediately after being pulled out. The general attitude is bewilderment, followed by consternation and mild fear.

The terror sets in when (due to heavy objects and sharp cutlery being thrown through the air, plates shattering against walls, furniture lifted into midair and shredded violently) people start getting hurt. Seriously hurt.

[cestrumnocturnum]

It takes only a handful of moments for Benji Ryans to become uncertain about where she is, where she is, what's happening, light and warmth sapping away, the mutters of confusion from the scattered crowd. Someone knocks into her and in the darkness, she ducks away, skittish, and by the time the lights had come back on, she had shrunk against the wall, and uses this to navigate now as a way to leave the room, or find her friends, or--

--someone yells, and she drops to hands and knees just as glass and fine china shatter above her head, raining glittering shards down. Her low-heeled boots slide and crack on splintered pieces as she propels herself away, cutting her hands, flinching at the sound of broken furniture, almost afraid to look. To her, it seems like someone's telekinesis gone wild, but there's the cold, too, a foreboding, reminders that not everything strange happens is necessarily within her field of understanding.

There'd been longing glances, earlier, at the concept of ducking under one of the long, clothed tables that had been bearing drinks and food. Impulsively, this is where she goes until she can. Figure out what to do next.

[gramarye]

When the lights go out, Wolfgang is one of maybe a handful who aren't terribly concerned. Not because it's not alarming, but because he can never be sure what he's imagining and what's real. These things happen.

It's when other people react to it that he pays attention. That's not supposed to happen.

When things start moving, there's concern, but then — a moment of doubt, maybe this was supposed to happen, maybe...

When cutlery starts flying, it is abundantly clear that this was not supposed to happen. Someone shrieks, he moves, and he manages to haul someone to the ground right when a fork would have driven itself into her skull. "No," he says, "stop it," and it's directed at — something. Someone is looking at him weird. It occurs to him maybe other people can't see them.

Okay. So, party's over. "Out. Get out." He grabs a handful of people and starts ushering them towards the exit — not being the only people to have that idea, people are panicking and he desperately hopes it doesn't get too out of control. Most of his attention is on keeping the objects flying around the room from actually connecting with anyone, diverting their course from people to the walls or floor being simple enough, and guiding people towards the exits. He straightens, gaze sweeping over the room — he has friends here, he needs to make sure they're okay, of course he needs to make sure everyone else is okay too but how the fuck is he supposed to prioritize right now there are too many people in too small of a space and where the hell is Benji?

[cestrumnocturnum]

Benji is--

--not making much progress. It is difficult to take cover when cover is part of what you're taking cover from. Less obliquely: she spends ten seconds in relative safety, shamelessly diving for cover behind white curtaining table cloth. Above her head, she hears the clatter and clang of thrown things, temporarily protected by wood and plastic. She has her CiD in her hands, which are trembling a little too much to operate it even if she could make up her mind how best to utilise it, the light from the screen illuminating very faintly behind cloth.

Benji does not want to get caught up in mass panic, either, hence her hiding, but people are getting hurt, and everyone else is getting scared they could be one of them, and she isn't an exception. This is almost dreamlike, to her, the wild kinetic energy of real elements becoming sinister in corrupted dreams, except she can't help anyone.

She makes a breathless hhh sound of exasperation as the table, her hiding place, suddenly flips away, spinning, slamming against one of the closer exits with a broken trail of champagne glasses and silver food platters. Miraculously, she isn't clipped by its departure, just suddenly in the open. As graceful as a newborn fawn, she gets to her feet, bewildered, spying one of the very few people in the room who aren't panicking; at least Wolfgang is particularly eyecatching.

[gramarye]

There's a surge for the exit as people begin to catch on to what others are doing and he has to throw himself backwards to avoid getting trampled. In the process, Wolfgang trips over his heel, catches himself against the wall, and curses under his breath in Arabic. He has to stop and bend down to take them off, he can't move in the damn things; it's a miracle he managed to walk in them without breaking his idiot neck.

When he straightens, it's to press himself against the wall to avoid getting knocked down. He sweeps across the room again and sees her suddenly after hearing the crash of a table slamming into the wall, raining shards of glass and cutlery down. But there's a virtual wall of people in front of him, he's trapped here until they pass. A glass vase coming at them does an abrupt ninety degree turn and smashes harmlessly into the floor instead, spilling water and glass fragments and dead flowers everywhere. "Benji!"

There are too many frightened minds for him to focus on; he can't will them away. He makes a frustrated noise and starts physically shoving himself through them instead, heading the opposite direction they are, further into the room rather than out of it. He's not going to just leave her there and hope for the best.

[cestrumnocturnum]

She hates that, when she winds up a liability, someone in need of saving or attention, but it's really only something she'll feel later because right now, there's only relief for someone she recognises. To know he is safe, definitely, but her own safety too. Clutching CiD in her hand, she casts a wary look about to make sure nothing is poltergeisting its way towards her-- it's just so noisy and distracting in here-- before hoping to meet Wolfgang halfway.

By the time she's in reach, there's a vicious crack of breaking furniture. A chair slams upwards to shatter into pieces, although it's still caught up in the same force that flung it, just-- sharper, then, hurtling for the two of them. Benji just sort of flinches from sign of movement, bloodied hands up to protect herself.

[gramarye]

They're just ghosts. Some kind of spirit, anyway. If they seem angry, it's usually because they're sad. Knowing that, this is easy to deal with. If he had a minute to talk, to be alone with whatever is in here — but he doesn't. Still, a crisis is the one time he ever thinks clearly without doubting himself; he reaches her, a hand on her shoulder, I've got you, it's okay. By now someone will have alerted the sheriff who will have alerted Hellsing —

His head moves in the direction of that harsh crack of wood, sees the splinters flying at them. He flings an arm up, says, once, clearly, "No!" A word, a gesture — an extension of his will. No dramatic explosion, or fire, or lightning, or anything else flashy; the pieces dissolve into a fine powder that drifts over their heads as light as sand. He doesn't stop with that, either. Everything in their immediate vicinity collapses into itself, decays to powder and ash.

Destroying things is easy.

[cestrumnocturnum]

Her own hand has found purchase on his sleeve, not quite shrinking up to his side, but certainly flinching closer as every near miss, until there are fine fibres in the air instead of shards. Benji is breathing shallow in short bursts of steam, but panic has finally started ebbing away, with fear on its tail. Fingertips to her mouth, her posture straightens some as she watches things disintegrate, that grip gentling on Wolfgang's arm before falling away completely.

She's still drained pale enough to make traces of makeup and freckles stand out sharply, eyes wide. The ashy remains of the thrown furniture cling to their clothing and air, and particles whorl through it as she gives an exhale of sharper relief.

The implications, of course, of all he just achieved aren't lost on her. It's why she isn't speaking right away.

[gramarye]

He notices that, how her hand drops. Whatever he feels about it, he's going to have to deal with it later, because now is not the time — he can hear someone screaming like they're hurt and not just scared, which he can't do anything about, and the room is thick with fear and, beyond that, anger. The crypt is finally starting to clear as people shove past each other towards the exits, and while things are still flying around the room as if being tossed by someone invisible, none of those things are coming near either of them. This does not seem coincidental, given how they veer sharply away at unnatural angles.

"We should leave," he says. His tone is —

Not calm. But not angry, either.

[cestrumnocturnum]

"Mm," is Benji's agreement, defaulting to normal, as if Wolfgang had offered her something across the dinner table, although she remains visibly rattled and staying close by the man's side. Raking hair out of her eyes, she either follows him or starts for the nearest exit that doesn't seem to be breaking at the seams beneath the crush of a crowd -- whichever comes first and has her remaining close by. Glancing after objects that are thrown and deflected, but no longer terrified, the low heels of her boots crunching debris against the hard stone floor as they go.

Swallowing, then, the words come as if forced out of her mouth, but very sincere; "Thank you."

The Vestry

[meanwhileback]

For those suddenly finding themselves in the makeshift dressing room-and-backstage area, the same awful cold permeates the space. Most of the lights are out (and can't be turned back on), and the room, now dimly lit, plays tricks on the mind with all the drycleaning-type suit bags hanging around, looking like people.

Or maybe it's not. Maybe there is someone there. Lurking in the dark. Watching.

Or maybe it's not someone at all. Surely not even in Baedal are there anything that could be termed "people" that look the way this... creature does. Eight feet tall or taller, it has the shape of a human torso, its four limbs grotesquely elongated, scuttling on all fours. It has no skin to speak of; instead, it's coated in a sticky substance of a liquid-smooth, inky blackness. It has no eyes. No head.

But it's watching you.

The Runway

[meanwhileback]

Those that find themselves back in the main chamber of the Cathedral after midnight will discover a room transformed. No more is it full of modern conveniences like lighting and music; the runway and stage themselves are gone entirely. The pews are once again arranged facing toward the podium, where once was preached the Word of God. Presumably.

The only light in the room trickles in through the great stained-glass windows high up on the walls, forming pools of blue light on the floor and broken, dusty furniture in the room nearly as cold as the atmosphere. It's silent, except for one thing.

Softly, floating in the air so tenuously that you have to strain to hear it, but unmistakeably there, is the sound of a woman, gently, quietly, weeping. She can be found hiding in a pew, her face in her hands. She is alone in the room. Maybe someone should try to comfort her in her pain.

Or maybe she should be left alone. Maybe she's alone for a reason.

For GG

[caoineadh]

Clio's already with GG when the lights go out, but she edges slightly closer, trusting GG's senses in the darkness. GG will warn them if something dangerous is nearby, meanwhile Clio takes a moment to feel out a little further. There's... something, not a death but she's not quite sure what it is.

That's unsettling, "Is there anything--"

Her question never gets finished; she's too surprised in the sudden shift in location, the darkness of the crypt giving way to the faint light in the main part of the cathedral. She's standing between the two pews, and GG is still beside her. Clio looks up at her for a second before turning to look around the room.

Her voice is quiet, but clear, the question directed at GG even as her back is to her, "Something's wrong. What else is in here?"

[lupa]

When the lights go out, GG's head snaps up, her night vision superior to that of a human and her senses of smell and hearing meaning she has a fuller picture of what's going on--

Which makes moving even more confusing, because for a split second there is just nothing, and it's horrifying.

It leaves her disorientated when they find themselves in the cathedral, nostrils flaring as she tries to build up a picture, to work out what happened, hearing--

Sobbing.

And smelling nothing. Not a human. Not a xenian. A patch of reality that doesn't seem to have any scent at all, like it's been cut out, erased, something drawn over it, blue-white and unnatural, wrong.

Her eyes closed, she says in French, "Not sure I want to know. Hear that?"

[caoineadh]

Clio's hearing isn't anything compared to GG's, but after a few seconds she can hear the sobbing as well, barely audible but definitely there. She doubts it's another guest or model, there's a difference between someone crying because they're scared, and someone crying because they're sad. This sounds like the latter.

"I can hear it," She slips into French automatically, responding to what's spoken to her, "It's something like death. Can you find the source?"

She might be able to follow the feeling of not-quite-right, but GG following her ears is probably quicker and easier. And while she waits for an answer, Clio takes off her jacket, setting it down gently on a pew; if she has to shift or turn intangible, the jacket wouldn't change with her and it's better to leave it behind.

The Tower Rooms

[meanwhileback]

This is not a place that partygoers ought to be familiar with. Mostly because these rooms, high up in the cathedral's decrepit, condemned towers, were not in the least bit safe for human (or Xenian) habitation. The floorboards are rotting away, there are great holes in the roof, and bats and rats and insects, vermin of all kinds, have taken roost there.

You'd think, with all the holes in the structure, it wouldn't be so unbearably cold.

But those that find themselves here are at the very top of the Tower; the only way down is one rickety, extremely unsafe stairway, broken and collapsed away in parts. And they are not alone.

A flicker of a lady in grey out of the corner of your eye, descending the stair. No one else saw her. Was she really there? A figment of your own, hyperactive imagination? A chemical overload of the brain? Maybe. But everyone agrees they can hear, amidst the flap of bat wings from above, very faintly:

Laughter.

~ for Sunny

[boomvox]

Jae has his arm around Sunny's shoulders nearing midnight, smiling and chatting and holding a champagne glass. He hasn't had nearly enough to be tipsy, but he's had a great time and is in good company all around, so he's more relaxed and talkative then he might be otherwise. He's attempting to explain something to Sunny - animatedly - without being cumbersome or spilling his drink, when the lights suddenly go out.

He's startled at first, but there's no screams or crashes and he forces his nerves to settle back down. Against Sunny, he wonders rhetorically, "Is this some kind of sexy haunted house prank?"

Whether he's being quiet or bubbly, there's always a semi-predictable flow to the way Jae talks - pause goes here, and then he'll say something else, either a question or an embarrassingly bad line. But before Jae can make a crack about anything, there's a barely-there moment like he's starting to tense in fear, and then he's just -

gone.

~ for meee

[yeouiju]

Sunny's hand reaches through the space Jae occupied in a very human response, startled, before he steps aside to touch the wall as the murmur of panic and surprise punctuates the suddenly chilled air. It is tempting to simply vanish, handle things from a less corporeal point of view, but not yet. Not until Sunny knows what kind of magic this is. It would be an inconvenience to become undone by it.

He turns, then, ignoring those around him. He can hear crashing and bumping, even screams from another corner of the cathedral, but his concentration homes in on where he can sense Jae, up above. With as much sense of geography as a moth to a light source, Sunny moves, quick and quiet, finding himself at the base of stairs. In the gloom, he can see where the wood has crumpled, splitted, or fallen away completely.

Taking a breath, glancing behind him, Sunny's feet leave the ground, a hand running against the stairwell wall to guide himself.

[boomvox]

After Jae is gone, he is here - in blackness, against a rotting wooden floor, reeking of mold and dust and animals. He panics. It's not like the monsters, he could see those, and it's so dark and he has no idea where he is and he's alone and oh god what if ever being out of the facility was a dream he dreamt his entire life he's woken up and he's still here--

He's too terrified to even scream, and he just stays where he is, pressed against the stone tower wall, trying to breathe. When his eyes adjust to the barely-there moonlight flitting in through holes in the walls and ceiling, and he begins to process the textures and sounds around him, Jae actually calms down. ... A little. He doesn't know where he is, how he got here, or what's going on, but he knows he isn't there, so it lowers his panic by a degree. Just a degree, though, and after he ascertains that he isn't broken or bleeding, he manages to get his CiD out.

When he touches the screen to turn it on, the light is blinding in contrast. In the sudden visibility, a spectre turns her head to glance at him, and he hears something laugh.

And then he does scream.

[yeouiju]

There is no one around to see it, but Sunny finally does dissolve; almost like a light trick, layers of colour blinked away as if he were a mirage, the air rippling faintly around his shape, a shape that becomes amorphous in its movement up and up the stairs before any evidence of his presence is simply gone.

Dust suddenly surges up from the floor next to Jae as if a gust of wind were breathing up through the floorboards, which is probably its own element of horror; particles flurry and surge out of the way as Sunny's shape occupies the space again, in his gold-spangled pants and jewellery he was wrangled into earlier in the evening, but his skin, his eyes, his hair, these all seem to have a vibrancy and brightness that is otherworldly for just a moment before the everyday appearance of the mundane textures him back into the world.

His attention is not on the spectre; he reaches for Jae, for a hand, a shoulder.

[boomvox]

Jae's CiD hits the floor as he scrambles back, trying to press himself into a smaller space - the air moves next to him and he chokes on his own startled intake of breath, hands coming over his head and something emanating from him in a sudden, violent burst. It's a reflex, a defense mechanism that's fight-or-flight; he has no control over the sudden explosion of a spell that's all raw magic and adrenaline. GET AWAY FROM ME. It's what he did when he got stuck in the arrival room, it's what he did and does every time he feels cornered beyond escape. Kneejerk, without thought.

All the same, there's no way it's going to actually impact someone as powerful as Sunny. Or a ghost. Several birds do shriek and vacate the tower room, however, and whatever other vermin where lurking promptly clear out. Jae is shaking, near hyperventilating, and in the dark where it's almost impossible to see, he looks - unreal. Different. Like Ilde sometimes does, like Sunny did before he settled back into the corporeal world moments ago.

[yeouiju]

Sunny feels it, even if it doesn't take root and drive him from the room like the vermin and the birds. He doesn't take it personally, either, seeing it as compulsive as breathing, and so Sunny just shakes his head, his back to the glimmer of preternatural light that is the haunting creature. He slowly moves closer to Jae, eliminating distance without actually crowding, no longer trying to touch him, remaining on all fours.

He takes in that cast of strangeness that's settled over Jae's form, that hint of illusion, of something being unreal, or maybe too real for this world. It does remind him of Ilde, and it reminds him some of how they communicated, without words, only somewhat with action. It's difficult for someone like Sunny to give the animal impression of being subordinate or not meaning any harm, but then again, they come from the same place.

And Sunny would not mean Jae harm. "Jae," he says, his voice thin and ordinary in the room, but also in Jae's head, at the ends of his nerves. "It's me. No one's going to hurt you."

[boomvox]

Surviving a month of hell may have been a step forward, but it was nowhere near enough to cure Jae of these kinds of reactions; his peripheral vision sees something that's materialized out of nowhere creeping closer to him and his brain panics in response. It's overkill - even Jae who's a grade-A scaredy-cat shouldn't be this distraught, but whatever's causing this level of a reaction can't be seen.

It's not until Sunny speaks that the last remaining echo of rationality in Jae's head, fighting like a drowning man in a storm, manages to get hold of him. He startles, disbelief plain on his face, before his ill-trained senses kick in and he recognizes Sunny and believes that it's really him. That too-real aura in the dark vanishes, blinks away like a candle being blown out, as if it was never even there.

"Sunny," he manages, and begins to move slightly - the floor creaks, there's a soft feminine laugh from somewhere unseen, and Jae flinches and freezes again, pressed against the tower wall like a cornered animal.

[yeouiju]

The laugh reminds Sunny that they aren't alone, although this hasn't been forgotten so much as deprioritised. Now, when that sound trickles through the area, Sunny stops and listens keener, a glance back over his shoulder at the rest of the decaying room, where shadows are tricky but what light filters through and snags on the dust in the air is even trickier.

"Just a ghost, no big deal," he says, quiet and sort of to himself as opposed to trying to convince Jae of this with any earnestness, although his voice is heard, his smile going a little crooked, visible in the gloom. Getting to his feet; "Not the sexiest haunted house prank. Hey, Jae."

He crouches beside Jae, then, back resting against the wall, casual except for the fact each movement is well-controlled, tense. A hand creeps out with the intent to tangle with Jae's like a clinging vine.