Adam's got his journal out, writing and sketching in it, sitting on the concrete floor with perfect ease. Three or four little monster kids are staring at him. Jostling each other and daring each other to go talk to him. None of them are up for it yet. Adam is studiously not looking at them, but he appears to be drawing them in his notebook.
Constantine was the unknown quantity. He looked human enough. To most he passed as perfectly ordinary to an offensive standpoint for those that cannot walk above. He was walking over, without the trench coat; sleeves rolled up to the elbow and red tie hanging sloppy around his neck more like a noose than a fashion statement. A large serpentine member of what might simply be considered a 'protectorate' for failure of any formalized guard put a hand to his chest preventing John from passing. Tired eyes looked up to the serpant man, zippo idly flicking open and shut in his fingers like a nervous habit. He waited. He didn't want a tussle but sometimes a good knockaround was needed to declare teh order of things.
Curiously the 'guard', self-declared or no, took a deep whiff of the magus and then eyed him warily backing away slowly. "Your kind aren't welcome here."
Squinting an eye John laid his defense conversationally plain, "Reckon my kind really are't welcome anywhere. It's sort of the point of it, don't ya think, mate? Let us pass and we can spare one another a problem."
This went on for a moment or so more before the two disengaged and John found his way over to Adam. *click*sssshinkt*clink*shhhhinkt* went the Zippo. He said nothing to interrupt the man and waited.
Adam's weird white eyes flick over to where Constantine is having his conversation with the guard. He observes. The little kids, taught from birth to avoid normies, get nervous.
Adam seems quite unsurprised when Constantine gets in. He looks back at his sketching. One little kid thick with scales. One with an animalistic snout. One with extra hands and feet, a kind of Sleipnir. He's drawn them clustered together, staring at him, just like they've been doing.
"Constantine," he says in that resonant deep voice. "As bold as rumor has had it. You're frightening the children."
|ROLL| Constantine +rolls 1d20 for: 20
Constantine left one hand dropped into his pocket looking just as disenchanted with life as he ever did really. Still he gave them a glance. "S'pose that's the truth of it innit?" Michael said all the rumors of him were true which meant he was callous, selfish, and played high stakes games with immoral odds with fel forces. However, there was a flip to that.
John considered the polypedial child and the scaled tot. Did John generally have much time for other people? Not especially, and yet… He turned but didn't approach them, rather crouched with one knee almost touching down on the stone dround and packed earth. "Aww, not much of me t'be scared of. I know, I'm ugly as sin, and I talk funny, but iffin ya like, you want to see a trick?" Slowly he pulled a playing card out of his pocket and offered it to them. "Go ahead. Look it over. You know what that is? Six of clubs." He made for a small motion to hand it back. There was even a small smile for them saying, "You like magic? Let us show you a trick." He passed his hand once, twice, and on the third pass the card went up in flames remaining a small ball of firein his hand. "Oi,now wait for it." And cupping both hands together blew the flame out.
There was a light that shot from his hands; a butterfly with a flaming tail that eventually went out, flitted around and then up into the air… and compust into a firework teh size of a baseball letting the sparkles rain back down.
John looked to Adam with a grave seriousness pointing his first and last fingers to him, but not hexing him, "One word of this to a man named Strange and I will personally haunt you."
The show is met with uncertainty by the kids. Then growing wonder. Then, as sparkles rain down, squeals of glee and laughter. The three of them race off to wherever it is that children go to discuss the really important things in life, in gales of giggles.
Adam doesn't smile, but…he's not not-smiling? He has a lot of very subtle expressions. "Noted." He shuts his journal, tucking the graphite stick into it. Now he looks at him, intense, studying all of him, taking in the rumples and stubble and general air of malaise. "What brings you to the neighborhood?" He says it with a light glazing of irony.
"Honestly?" the magus began, "Better company than Central Park. Less congested traffic. The fritatas aren't bad." Bullshit answer. Not untrue, but a bullshit answer. Finally John gave him the scant bit to work with, "Darkening Michael's doorstop as it were. Business." He paused though his brow furrowed not without compassion for the chimera's plight. "Halgrim. Heard we found him in the tunnels. He alright you know?"
"He's sound enough, in body. The creature is a seperate being from his mortal self, he told us. He is besatt. Possessed." Adam folds those long, long arms in his lap, leaning forward towards Constantine. "You're an exorcist, yes? I have heard much, but know not what to believe."
Constantine sucked in one cheek listening. "Well, that's what it says on the card. THough it also says 'Master of the Dark Arts'…" He sighed muttering, "I've been meaning to have those changed. For teh sake of arguemnt, it's true. I have a series of disciplies but that one is my forte, yes." He listened to the curious development and arched an eyebrow "Of the Latin obsessus. Interesting. Did he say by what precicely?"
Adam drops his eyes back to his journal. "No. It pains him." Said without any sympathy whatsoever. He flips the journal open to a delicate graphite drawing of Fjorskar the wolf-dragon-raven (name written below), and a drawing on the opposite page of a handsome bearded man ('Halgrim' written below). This he shows to John. "He has no control over the Fjorskar. I believe it controls him. Rides him, in the old words." He turns it back around to study his drawings, and his mouth pulls down, causing his entire face to take on a menacing cast. "He is beautiful in both forms, yet is ignorant of his fortune."
Constantine eyed the drawings and fell silent, "blesings are curses to others. Too often one's perception becomes the reality." He could muse for a while on that but his soul was too heavy with other things to wax poetic on the beautify of the world so he let Adam do that. Focusing on the finer points he noticed, "So the lad has no idea what he's possessed by or at least not what to call it. Not uncommon. Think we'll reckon to have a talk with him about this. Exorcism is an easy word to toss across the coffee table, but in truth there're a great many variables to it."
"I would not expect anything less." Adam shuts the book. "You'll want as much data as possible. He hopes for more control over Fjorskar, at the least." One knee propped up, resting his arm on it, his massive hand hanging relaxed, he seems…mostly at ease. There's so little for him to fear anymore. Not even gutter mages with wild reputations. "Dr. Morbius is fond of you," he says, completely unrelated.
|ROLL| Constantine +rolls 1d20 for: 1
Constantine stood near the fountain where Adam was working on drawing in a book discussing something. With some slight irritation John retorted to the professed endorsement with, "He said what? What is wrong with that lad? I Swear he was once a man of reason for chrissakes. No wonder why he's bereft of his senses. Clearly they've not grown back yet. Ask him some time how he winds up in half the situations he does. Piss poor judge of character that one. Mark my words, it'll be the end of that man." He rolled his eyes but the actual concern for the wellfare of the doctor was unfortunatly transparent.
There are quiet noises, here and there. One of them is a slightly inhuman gait, footsteps just faintly out of sync with the way a normal person would walk, as if muscles have been subtly shifted. One of the tunnels has a faint light glimmering in it, which turns out to be a youngish man holding up a kerosene lamp, with a backpack on his back. As he heads into the gas lamp-ridden area, he blows the flame out and then closes up the lamp. Lambert's ears and horns are visible down here, the satyrling not bothering to hide his true nature in this area. He has, of all bizarre things, a little basket over one arm, with chunks of moss inside it. Little patches of them glow, here and there, bioluminescence adding to the dim softness of the area, the smell of wetter plants, the heaviness of iron compounds.
Adam frowns at Constantine, and it's …it's bad. It's horrifying. Dessicated flesh rumpling up and wrinkling in the most unpleasant of ways. Probably not much to the man who's outbluffed Hell, but almost anyone else would feel the urge to rapidly leave. "You mistake me. I speak from observations only." Constantine's weird reaction puzzles him, piques his interest. He looks towards the footsteps, spying Lambert. The frown lifts, replaced with interest and curiosity, expressions that sit far better on that huge awful face. He stands— all near-eight feet of him— to investigate.
Constantine was a conundrum like that. Best to jsut get used to this. If nothing else at least he's consistant to the rumors. The conflict was clearly one of agitation and some earnest attept to preserve life here. If there was more to it, and there likely was, he spoke no more of it. "well, fair enough but it still stands, Adam." Doesn't change the fact that fire hurts, radium clocks will melt you, and caring at all about the welfare of John Constantine landed on in a hazard between the two and historically, if not reliably, worse off. "Well well well, if it isn't the urban legend with the devious dad. Lambert. Fancy seein you here." Yes he knew who he was.
The lamp is packed away to the edge of the basket after fingers test it for heat, and then Lambert eyes the big man under the gelid lights. He certainly is striking with that height and the patchwork shape. After a moment, though, he just says, mildly "Good d…eve…night?" Time passes oddly when one cannot see the span of the sun. Lambert himself is only average height, and a bit portly at that, with a bright grin that is fixed even if it does pale a little at the huge man "Goodness. You must find getting shoes difficult." And then Constantine says that, and Lambert says quickly "I'm not responsible for anything he does!" He pauses "Urban _legend_? You must be mistaking me for someone like Lucifer. I'm a chef." He comes up to them both and offers a hand across, with broad, solid nails "Lambert Petropolous."
At least Constantine doesn't have to worry about Adam. He clearly doesn't care, and if he did, even Hell would find him tough to chew. "Dr. Morbius is a man of excellent judgement and reason—on the whole." Yeah, the thing about him liking Constantine is confusing, though. Maybe he does magic tricks for him, too?
He bows in an old-fashioned correct, Continental way to Lambert and takes his hand. His hand engulfs it. Dry, cold flesh. "I am called Adam. What are these you gather?" He's eyeing Lambert's basket curiously.
Constantine held up a finger and shook his head, "Lucifer's not an urban legend, he's a historical figure and persistant pain in my ass… But as we're both pissed at the same people, I'll give him that." Talk about sympathy for the devil; literally. Two fingers that still help his lighter pointed to Lambert, "Yeah well I spoke to LIndon." Oh THAT incident. He seened to harbour no direct animosity towards, well, either of them. He was jsut a bit of a cantankerous git. His tone softened and finally he turned to Adam, "I'll see what I can do for the soul keeper. See if I can research what this Fjorskar historically is interested in. Come to either some sort of eviction, binding, or mutually agreed upon arrangement." Cranky but, apparently, willing to pitch in.
"A sort of moss, lichen, really," says Lambert "Some people call it wila. You can turn it into bread, all kinds of things." He eyes Adam, and shakes. Lambert is stronger than his size would naturally indicate, but he appears to be cautious regardless. After all, Adam is huge. Lambert then says to Constantine mildly "Oh, I don't really know a lot about that kind of thing, you know. I'm just not really a…well. People find it odd that I didn't know who Iron Man was. I just don't get out of the kitchen that much." He pauses, and then his eyes widen "Oh, yes, well. That…was it's own thing. Father was trying to help me. Except he's not very human, so he doesn't seem to get how it works."
Constantine offered in a frank, dry humor to Lmbert, "It's alright. My old man was a human and he couldn't figure it out either." With that the Laughing Mage, who wa shis own tale of woebegone folklore, went back about his research heading lab-wards. He paused turning to Adam with a quit nod that relayed more than words did, a respect to the man.
Adam is huge, and distressingly ugly. Other monsters vary in how they respond to him, but plain humans? Almost universally it's fear and terror. He nods back to Constantine, respect given for respect, before the wizard takes his leave. This story, whatever it is, has him interested too. Lambert is so interesting! "Tell me, what manner of legend are you?"
From the way Lambert's pupils are huge, but oddly backlit - possibly a tiny bit cloudy? - he might not be able to see very well, and especially not in this darkness. He watches Constantine go, curiously "He didn't seem to be nervous being down here," he comments, and then he gives a sheepish (ahem) smile. His teeth are all very sharp in his mouth "I am a quarter satyr," he explains "The old kind, not the…er, well, not the created ones. My grandfather was a son of a god and a nymph. The blood's very strong, though. I'm the only one of my brothers and sisters who can pass for human. Well, could. My horns are growing in." He sounds so _proud_ of this too.
Lambert adds "Are you a giant?"
"No. That one has seen far worse than we." Adam glances in Constantine's direction. He turns his massive head back to Lambert, and he almost smiles. At least, that's probably what his face is doing. "You are descended from gods." Then, he's frowning again. Eugh. "You should have no need to 'pass'. Your blood is thicker, more vital than theirs." 'Theirs'; it's obvious what he means by that. "I am not a giant, at least not insofar as the legends. Rather I am the only one of my race, created by the hand of Dr. Frankenstein." The words are bitter in his mouth, he grimaces over them.
"Oh, wait…a sorceror?" asks Lambert "I've met a few of those recently. They seem to congregate in New York for some reason. I think it is because most of them like to drink a lot of coffee." He peers at that face, and pulls back, and then he says "Well, it's watered down. Er, yes, well, I _feel_ that I shouldn't have to, but the truth is that while I'm a very good scrapper, I'm not going to be able to withstand a mob if they decide I've hurt someone. So I play it cautious. I get mistaken for a mutant a lot." He gestures up to the ceiling "Tensions are high with that right now…oh. _Really_?" His eyes widen "So you're like a…what were they called. _Titan_. I mean, like that. I don't think any old style titans have been createdi n millenia. Er…do you not like your dad?"
Adam's inspired to restlessness by talk of Dr. Frankenstein and mortal mobs. He strides across the chamber and back. One of those strides is quite long. The word Titan pulls him up, though. "A Titan? That…is not inaccurate. My creator believed himself God." He shakes his head, brow deeply furrowed. "I would like him better if he'd thought of what my existence might be. But he was infatuated with his own genius. He himself turned away from me when I was born."
"Oh, I am so very sorry," says Lambert, earnestly "My…father is not good at. You know. Being polite in human society. Or actually probably any societies. But he is a very loving father." Just. Gives bad gifts. Lamber scratches under his chin "I see. Well, the good thing about this place is that all are welcome down here. I suppose some of the 'monsters' here are mutants, but you are like me - not a mutant at all. You are what you are." He adds "Do you eat?"
Adam turns. Very slowly. To Lambert. The expression on that huge face is indecipherable. Not a frown, not a scowl. Maybe not not those things, either. It's complicated. "You are sorry?" He seems to need a moment to figure it out. "You…are sorry." His voice is contrabass, massive, deep and resonant. "…I thank you." Apparently nobody had ever apologized to him before for Dr. Frankenstein's behavior. And he bows again to Lambert, more fluidly, more genuine respect rather than clockwork courtesy. "Yes, all are welcome. Even one such as I." He adds, "I eat. Not flesh."
Lambert focuses in the dim light, and the heavy air. While his eyes are not much chop down here, his ears move around accutely, focusing sharply. One is twisted towards Adam, the other moves away, to detect echoes in the distance. And then he says "Well, of course. I cannot be so cavalier as to say it doesn't matter how you came to be, but I think almost all creatures with human-like consciousness need to know the one who generated them had affection and hopes for them. Otherwise it's, ah…you know." He clears his throat "Abusive. But, never mind - you are welcome. I see. You prefer vegetarian food, or something else entirely? I hear Dr. Strange eats things from other universes." His voice is extremely dubious about this "I can't get him to consume anything I prepare. The man's a tough nut to crack." Lambert gestures at his teeth "My people are omnivores, but we eat a lot of meat at some times of the year."
"I suspect I could eat anything, but no. I choose not to consume animals. Vegetarian, as you say." Adam's looking at Lambert much more closely now, noting the cloudiness of his eyes and the mobility of his ears. "You are a chef, but he will not eat from your board? He does you a discourtesy." Then, musing on it as if he's not sure what it means or what the context is, "Abusive." Not really talking to Lambert so much as to himself.
"I know a great many vegetarian recipes. Moussaka without meat, sea-greens and sea weeds, moss breads, olive preservation, tomatoes and rice," Lambert counts off on his fingers "You could come to my Courtyard some time. It is open to…er, well, to everyone, but I have very strict rules on behaviour there. Sometimes monsters love humans and vice versa, and they need somewhere to have a romant…er, never mind _that_. I run a restaurant called Saganaki. The Courtyard out the back has various places for unusual people to be. The police have never come. Well, not yet." Lambert grins, and then he admits "He does drink there. I brew a lot of bevereges. Not all are alcoholic." He coughs, and then he rubs the back of his neck "Well. Look. My father is a colossal idiot, but he knows children aren't something you _have_, they are something you _guide_ until they are ready to go. Otherwise, well, families fall apart. People get lonely when they are old. And children grow up sad."
"Dr. Morbius has mentioned it to me," Adam says, still very thoughtful. "If you would welcome an old monster, then…yes. I should like to come." He bows his head. "You are wise. A wisdom I could have wished for in my youth."
"_Me_?" says Lambert, honestly very surprised, but then he eases up, and he grins, his tail flicking around "Ah, you haven't seen me tipsy. We are like centaurs. Full of philosophy when sober. And trampling crops otherwise. Come _with_ Dr. Morbius. He's a semi-regular there. He can tell you the best things. I can bake you olive bread and serve it with fresh herbs. Your tastebuds won't know what hit them. Unfortunately for me, though, I need to be back and making bread, so I must make my farewell. It was rather pleasant to meet you, Adam. I hope you can come up and be at peace in my garden." He gestures, and rises.