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Mischief isn't just limited to the God from Asgard. There are other agents of chaos out there, and every once in a while, they bleed over. Zatanna is currently floating over a three story tentament building, her legs crossed underneath her, as magic runes float around her. She's working on a powerful spell, judging from the sweat on her brow, it's the second one in a short time as she speaks.
"Nemow Rednow ruoy em gnirb ,feihcsim rof desu dna nekat saw tahw revocer pleh ot sroirraw ruoy fo riap a em edivorp, Areh."
And that is how Cyrene and Delphyne will find powerful magicks that pull them away from what they are doing currently and drops them just outside the tentament to where near Zatanna is floating. "Hey." she greets the two women wearily. "I need a little help."
Delphyne is already dressed for business, in this case… her black jumpsuit pretty well insulated given it is still winter… and the gorgon looks around in surprise as the magic brings her here. She then looks at Zatanna with a wry expression, "Ah… you couldn't just ask? Though I guess you're doing that now." She also, unusually for some Amazons, has a smattering of guns and ammo on her person, in addition to the traditional sword.
Cyrene had been indulging in a hobby, one of the few that hadn't been affected by her relocation to Man's world: attending to her collection of weaponry. Of course, for Cyrene, firearms were a new addition that had been suggested by a friend she'd made in her first days of being off the island. It was fortunate she was wearing her armor, her bow and her quiver on her frame. When she appears however, the handgun she was inspecting is still held in her grasp any without a magazine. There's clear confusion from the redhead who looks around and immediately moves as if expecting combat…until she's greeted by both the sight of Delphyne and the magician's greeting.
A blink, the woman looks towards the Gorgon. "Is this…a normal means of invitation?"
Well, at least neither showed up in their underwear, that'd been embarassing. "Easier to ask you both together." Zatanna offers, a briefly sunny smile offered to the pair of women. "To be short and sweet, there's something in this building that is giving off a powerful Amazonian magick. It's not like anything I'm used to feeling out, and I'm not able to secure it, but I can hold the containment for now. What I need you two to do, please, is to go in and recover the item." she lets out a breath as she increases her magics. "I'm keeping it from escaping it by keeping it in a maze, but you'll need to work your way through it as well."
Delphyne hrms, "Well, I suppose that's something we should probably deal with anyway." She glances over at Cyrene and gives her a wry grin, "And no, this is a new one on me. I'm not used to magic here at all. You think I would be by now."
"Magic is not my area of expertise," Cyrene admits, tucking the empty firearm into the holster she had strapped to her thigh more for safe keeping rather than later use given the lack of ammo. She had her bow, that was more than enough for the woman. "I am more…of martial pursuits." Even so, the woman nods her head, looking the woman whose name she'd not yet been told. "We will help you."
|ROLL| Delphyne +rolls 1d20 for: 6
|ROLL| Cyrene +rolls 1d20 for: 2
|ROLL| Zatanna +rolls 1d20 for: 12
|ROLL| Zatanna +rolls 1d20 for: 7
"Thank you." Truth be told, Zee would have hoped to have gotten Diana here, but in this case, Amazonians are Amazonians. "I'm going to open a portal in. I can't guarantee where you'll enter, but I'll try to get you close to where you need to be." She offers a warm if brief smile before her cobalt eyes flare brightly, the young woman in a leotard and fishnets speaking aloud, "Cigam eht ot esolc ezam eht ni tops a ot seilla ym dnes."
A portal opens for the pair to step through. When they go through, on the other side of the portal they find themself in what looks like anctient ruins, lit dimly with torches along the wall, and there's a loud noise in the distance.
Coming around the corner of the hallway is a massive boar, snorting and pawing at the ground, before it starts to charge at Delphyne, the creature's massive tusks starting to swipe at the woman as it lets out an unholy squeal.
Delphyne blinks in surprise, "Now that's a beast worthy of a fight." She tumbles backwards, barely avoiding the tusks as she draws out her sword. "Not sure I have ammo large enough to faze it, Cyrene. What about you?" She grins a little, staying in a crouch as she looks ready to spring.
Cyrene? She probably had big enough 'ammo'. Drawing an arrow from her quiver and the bowstring back in a single fluid movement, the archer amazon takes aim with the 'Artemis Echo', that magnificent bow made to utilize her impossible strength and fire the amazonium arrows. She looses an arrow straight towards the boar's head, but she's already preparing a second one the moment the arrow leaves the string.
|ROLL| Zatanna +rolls 1d20 for: 4
The boar's tusk swipe by Delphyne, barely missing her, and the massive creature lets out a snorty squeal before it slides along the floor. It was just starting to turn to attack Delphyne again when the arrow from Cyrene's bow slams into the creeature's head, causing it to tumble forward and slide along the ground. When it comes to a rest, it transmorgifies, going from a ferocious boar..
… to a plush pig toy.
The hall continues on around the bend, with the next challenge perhaps laying ahead - or it could be an empty hallway. Who knows in the magical maze that Zatanna has constantly shifting as she tries to keep the Amazonian magic at bay.
Del walks over and picks up the toy, looking at it curiously, "Well, I think that gives us an idea of what we're going to have to deal with. Hopefully there aren't too many of these changed stuffed toys running loose." She frowns as she recalls the roar, "Well, besides just the one, anyway."
"That…" the redhead murmers, stepping closer to her 'kill' and bending to retrieve the arrow. There were only so many that could survive her bow after all. "…is the strangest thing I have ever slain with this bow." Shaking her head, she looks back to the gorgon and gestures for her to lead the way. "Best we hurry."
|ROLL| Zatanna +rolls 1d20 for: 8
As the women round the corner, they will find themselves in what looks to be in a coliseum style room. One one side of it, is a large metal gate. Standing in the middle of it is what appears to be a large.. tiger man. No, it's not Tigra's boyfriend, the large tiger creature carrying a large blade and shield as he snarls at the two women, and lunges towards Cyrene, the blade lashing out in her in an attack as he tries to strike and take out the ranged threat before dealing with the gorgoness.
Delphyne sidesteps in the way of the tiger-man, raising her blade to block his with a massive clang! With her other hand, she pulls off the scrunchie binding her snakes, who immediately hiss and start snapping at the tiger-man's arms with their venomous fangs… and hopefully distracting him from what Cyrene might be doing.
Even Cyrene looks a little bit suprised by the Tiger man with his sword and shield, but Del's quick interference certainly does wonders for giving her time to react. There's every certainty that the woman could probably shoot around the Gorgon without injuring her, but she'd hardly like to be guilty of injuring one of those snakes. Coiling her legs, the amazon woman leaps high and looses an arrow into the creature, aiming once more for the being's face. She had no qualms about killshots!
This time the tiger man's shield comes up, knocking away the arrow as his sword is knocked away by Delphyne. He brings the blade back around, slamming against Delphyne's blade. He can't use two hands like Delphyne can, as he keeps Delphyne close to him so that Cyrene can't get in a clean shot.
Delphyne frowns and shifts her angle, rotating around to force the tiger-man to use his shield against her… and leaving him open for a shot from Cyrene, viciously swinging at him to force the shield up to parry instead of his other blade.
Cyrene was an archer, one of the best, but that was hardly her only skill. The bow itself is discarded for a moment and she leaps forwards, bringing her right bracer upwards to parry the sword aside while Del knocks the shield the other way. Giving a cry, the redhead slams her other fist hard forward into the Tiger's face. Unnaturally strong even among the amazon, the girl could easily move 50 metric tons and now? She was throwing that strength straight into their foe's face.
Delphyne's hard feint pays off, knocking the sword and shield aside, which means that he's unprepared for Cyrene's attack. The bracer blocks away the blade again, just as Cyrene's punch slams into the tiger's jaw as he gets rocked hard, his neck snapping from the unnaturally hard hit, and he crumples to the ground, causing the creature to fall. And when he hits the ground, he's a little plastic tiger. The gate beyond opens, a glow coming from it.
Turns out Zatanna has tremendous magical power, and even when someone of a divine nature does not wish to be summoned, it doesn't always go their way. While she didn't appear along with Cyrene and Delphyne, Diana has been summoned to a different section of the maze. Being an Amazon of ancient times, the setting is not at all unusual for her. If anything, a maze like the one once braved by Theseus, King of Athens, is far more familiar than New York City in the 60s. Diana didn't ask questions, rather she brandished her sword and shield and ventured forth to find her way out. Along the way she had to best several beasts, each curiously enough turning into a toy in defeat. She gathered her unique trophies, and proceeded along the way. When she hears other sounds, some familiar, she calls out ahead, "Cyrene…? Delphyne…?"
Delphyne blinks, and turns her head, "Dian… er, your Highness?" She grins a bit, and raises her voice, "Over here!" When Diana comes into view, the gorgon says, "How did you get… ah, you're probably the one that sorceress was trying to summon. Guess she wasn't too specific about her Amazons." She gets a wry look at that, "Apparently there's a magical artifact here that's going a bit out of control, and causing toys to transform into monsters." She nudges the plastic tiger with her foot.
The sound of another's voice has Cyrene turning away from the tiger she'd just literally punched the magic out of and kicking her bow up into her hands. Eyes fixing on the sourst however, she doesn't knock an arrow and instead bows her head in greeting. "Your highness," she speaks. "Apparently there is an object a sorceress believes comes from our people somewhere contained in this maze. It may well be what is making these strange children's toys into beasts."
Reunited, and it feels so good. And probably a very good time to be reuinted. From the guilded gate on the other end of coliseum, comes a massive creature. It roars it's unholy call. It has the body and one head of a bear. It's teeth pulled back into a dangerous snarl. The back half of the creature is a donkey, the braying second head rising up to breathe fire towards the trio of women. The third head of this unholy Chimera is that of an owl, it's massive wings spread out behind it as the pinned on tail flicks anrgilly and takes to the air to approach the women.
Behind this creature, the glow with the room encases a young girl, no more than six, her nightgown fluttered around her as her eyes glow in an unnatural way, a very finely designed box of anctient runes opened beneath her, a small figure in the middle of the light coming from it spinning gracefully as it plays an anctient Amazonian tune.
"That holds with what I've seen thus far," Diana points at the few plushies hanging from her sash, apparently she kept her trophies so far. "We shall retrieve what is ours, it has no place out of Themyscira…" at least the plan seems simple enough, but how to get there.
Turns out there's no need to ponder, as the gate opens, and a new foe to vanquish arrives. Only this time, there's a glimpse of the artifact itself, "there!" Diana points with her sword, "Cyrene, distract it with arrows," she then looks at Delphyne, "try and disrupt the spell and retrieve the artifact, I shall assist Cyrene by offering another target." She looks from Cyrene and Delphyne, "if you disagree, let me know now."
Delphyne grins, "Seems good to me, Diana." She then darts towards the girl with the music box, not bothering with subtlety as she sprints in that direction, sheathing her sword as she doesn't want any accidents to happen.
Distract it? Even thought Cyrene looks a little suprised that she were not being asked to simply slay the beast, the redhead nods. She had little fear of fire and a love of a challenge after all. "As you wish, your highness." With that, she knocks and arrow and fires at the creature, aiming for its feet to try and pin it in place. Ordinarily she would stay back, continue shooting arrows, but this was to distract the creature after all. Sprinting forwards, she's already firing another arrow from her bow at another of the creature's legs.
The creature roars as the first arrow strikes it, and the tri-headed monstrosity turns towards Cyrene, the ass-head baying flame and fire at the archer, struck in the legs, it gives a massive and painful roar as it's owl head turns to face Diana and spits ice towards the Amazonian princess, even as Delphyne is trying to get by under the cover of the distraction of the two women.
When Delphyne arrives at the glowing girl, the little figurine on the music box turns to face. "Tut tut. Naughty Gorgon, this is for Amazonians ~~only~~!" coos a voice that Diana will recognize as Circe's own as the figure blasts Delphyne at point blank to knock her back out of the room.
'Sorry about that!' comes a voice in the forces belonging to Diana's heads, as Zatanna grits her lower lip between her teeth outside the building as she tries valiantly to hold her spell. 'This is really old magic, and I'm having a lot of trouble trying to hold it in check!' the young magician offers as Zatanna starts to prepare another spell. 'You need to close the box somehow, I can't feel the girl!'
Diana for her part knocks her sword against her shield to produce loud noise and further distraction for the creature, she doesn't strike, she waits. The pain arrives in the form of Cyrene's arrow, but one the Owl head shoots ice at her, she leaps aside and calls at Cyrene, "again!" She casts a brief glance at Delphyne, just to assure herself of the royal guard's progress, before repositioning and sprinting to try and get the owl head to accidentally strike the ass-head.
But it is Circe's voice that eventually steals the order of priorities, "this is no Amazonian artifact, this is a trap!" Diana asserts, "Cyrene, cover me," and once she's sure Cyrene has the beats's full attention, she'll rush towards Delphyne and the box itself. Her instincts are that there's more to this than meets the eye, but she can't send Cyrene while she occupies the beast, she'll have to brave the trap herself. What sort of Princess would she be to put others in danger before her? Truth be told, Amazonian Royalty differ quite a bit from the standards of royalty familiar to Men's World.
Delphyne winces at the blast, being knocked into the wall and going down in a heap. She does, however, pick herself up, then grits her teeth, "Sorceress… I am an Amazon." With that, she does something that might not be prudent… but possibly something that Circe isn't ready for from an Amazon. Mainly, pulling out her pistol and firing a shot at Circe.
|ROLL| Delphyne +rolls 1d20 for: 18
Delphyne winces at the blast, being knocked into the wall and going down in a heap. She does, however, pick herself up, then grits her teeth, "I am an Amazon, bitch." With that, she does something that might not be prudent… but possibly something that Circe isn't ready for from an Amazon. Mainly, pulling out her pistol and firing a shot at Circe.
There was no verbal acknowledgement of Diana's command from Cyrene, but it was pretty plain to see she'd heard it. Instead, the Amazon gives a little frown of concern at Delphyne being flung by the box and turns her attention towards the creature. She charges forwards, perhaps recklessly, but simply runs -through- the flames being sprayed at her before leaping high to land on the beast's back. Her tactic was seemingly much the same as Diana's, if not a little less subtle, trying to get the creature to harm itself while aiming for her. Knocking two arrows at the same time, she looses both at the eyes of the owl-head.
As Diana comes charging forward, the little Circe on the box grins with glee. She's coming. This time, she will have her revenge. "Ah, sweet Diana, time for you to return to the mud that you—"
KRAK!
Delphyne's shot flies true and strike the box, breaking the side of it. Little Circe screams in pain, as she glares towards Delphyne. "I'll put you in my trophy room as a statue!" she screeches, but the damage is done. And with Zatanna's spell outside preventing the Goddess from being able to repair the damage, the box starts to break and reality begins to fold in around the trio.
The Chimera dives at Cyrene, intent on bowling the redhead over, before her sudden movement causes it to lurch and roll, just as the arrows strike the owl head. The creature howls it's pain from it's two remaining heads before the spell is broken as the box is shattered. It falls, seperated back into a little owl statue, a stuffed bear, and a donkey statuette from 'Arizona'.
As reality returns, the three Amazonians will find themselves standing in the bedroom of a young girl, dark of skin, with unnaturally bright eyes. She sits up on the bed in her nightgown, looking between the three women and asks in a quiet voice, "Can you tell me another story?" she asks.
Outside, Zatanna feels the spell break and she collapses to the ground in a heap as she releases her containment spell, drawing in several ragged breaths as she tries to recover from what was a very grueling exercise.
Diana doesn't have the time to answer Circe's bravado, as her guard does just as is expected of the Royal Guard, silence those who would besmirch the royal family. Diana seems pleased, despite her own distinct opinion of these modern weapon, which likely could be surmised by the fact she doesn't have one of her own. "Well done, Delphyne, put that nasty witch in her place." Sure, Zatanna had quite a bit to do with it, but that isn't immediately apparent. A look back to ensure Cyrene has bested the creature, which Diana had little doubt about, and then reality shifts. "A story…?" Diana says, kneeling down to look at the girl at eye level, "what story shall you like to hear?" Sure, she should probably ask about the witch, or what happened, but she can't help herself around kids.
Delphyne groans a bit, "Blast… that hurt." She sits on the floor by the wall, holstering her pistol as she slowly picks herself up, muttering, "Teach her to say I'm no Amazon." Leaning against the wall, she takes a few deep breaths, "Don't think anything is… broken there. Just had the wind knocked out of me."
Cyrene just appeared in a child's bedroom, already in full 'attack' mode only to land and skid just a little on the floor and blink a little. She only -just- avoids knocking into furniture with her weapon before she blinks a little and steps towards Delphyne. "Let me look." The child's request is left to Diana, if only for Cyrene's certainty that the princess was better at the maternal grace than she could ever hope to be. "So…we were victorious, right?" she asks of the other two women.
Outside, Zatanna finally pushes to her feet and dusts herself off. She still feels that energy from within and closes her eyes. "Anaid Ssecnirp ot em ekat." A portal opens in the room, and the plucky magician arrives. "Hey. Thanks for doing that for me.. I'm Zatanna by the way.. uh, not quite a sorceress supreme, that's more Strange's thing." she says to the three women.
The young girl sits up a little more on the bed, looking starstruck at the fact that Princess Diana is wanting to tell her a story. "About Princesses and Ponies and how the bed guys can't win because girls are better!" she offers brightly. The girl gets her story from Diana, but time eventually passes.
Zatanna smiles a little, she's willing to let Diana handle that before she hears a clattering of keys from the hallway. "I believe her mother is home. Should I take us elsewhere?" she asks, lifting her her fingers after Diana finishes her story and places her hand on the child's forehead. "Peels." she orders gently, and the girl falls to a soft slumber, before she gestures, "Ytefas ot su ekat." A portal opens up at that for the foursome to step through.
Delphyne smiles and leans on Cyrene a bit, her ribs bruised a bit, but no breaks. "Thanks sister. Let's get out of here, and yeah, I shot the sorceress. Which isn't something that they teach in the legends I guess." She laughs, then winces, "Ow." And with that, she steps through the magic portal to… well, someplace nicer to be sure.
"I approve of the solution," Cyrene comments as she easily supports the weight of the other woman before looking up at the other 'Witch' that was Zatanna. She'd still not been introduced, but Diana and Delphyne seemed to treat her as friend, so she was willing to do the same. Nodding her head at Zee, she exhales a breath. "I imagine her mother would be concerned to find us here. People in Man's world are a little more…touchy." With that, she too steps through the portal.
When the quartet steps through the portals - it's not neccessarily a nicer area, but Zatanna made sure to know the parks in the area, so that is exactly where she takes the trio of Amazonians to. As she steps out and closes the portal behnd them, the younger mage lets out a breath. "So. That was exciting, right?" she asks, offering a smile to the three, before she straightens back up and trying to appear more confident than she was when she went toe to toe for a moment against Circe.