2020-05-09 - Door Into Moonlight

It’s how it usually goes, she’s either on shift or she’s at home. This time, Stephanie is at home, getting ready to go to work, meet up with Devlin at the station. When she turns around from opening her closet door, she’s no longer in her bedroom, and it startles her somewhat. Then her mind settles into the fact that this has a tendency of happening, which makes her slightly less tense.

The last time she’d seen a forest was not a good time, although that was still in Gray Harbor proper. This... this is not Gray Harbor.

Taking everything in, Stephanie doesn’t like the starless sky or the strange clearing. But the door seems to call to her, she can hear something on the other side as she approaches to investigate, and investigate she does. The voice...no way, it’s not...no. Still, she wants to check, just in case. Devlin had saved her life in the past, if he needed her, she wanted to be there to return the favor. So she’s going to check, just in case.

Itzhak was...what was he doing? He was working on something. He thinks. He can't quite remember--the moment he looked up to find himself in a dark forest, a dark forest, the kind that was a legend in the Old Country--the light of spring and the sense that his hands were in motion fades.

He stands there, perfectly still, eyes kinda wide, hands hovering midair. He's definitely dressed for work, in coveralls with the arms tied around his waist, and smudged with dirt or oil or something all up his long skinny arms.

Then, a voice. Itzhak blinks, turning his head the better to hear. "Mireleh?" ...no. No, is she here? DID THEY TAKE HER? No, that ...no. It can't be her.

Scrubs it is! And sensible nurses shoes that were made more for comfort than fashion. Still, they sported a name brand logo of course. Her scrubs were a dark blue and she wore her official hospital issued ID on a retractable clip. "Yes, just a second. Let me get you a warm towel." Turning for the warming cabinet, Erin reaches for absolutely nothing! There's just a forest. This surprises her since work had never been a place where things interrupted her.

"Whaaaat?" Turning a complete circle she finds the darkness disconcerting until she notices the doorway up ahead. "This is because I healed people isn't it?" Voicing her own thoughts on the matter, whether true or not. Then she hears Jack and she gasps, not hesitating as she walks in a rapid pace towards the door. "Jack!" she calls out immediately, worried for several unvoiced reasons.

The sugar-brute clearly was not expecting to be here. He gives a glance, curiosity wrinkling his brows at the doorway he had walked through that ended him here. Then he turns his head around to take in his surroundings, until, suddenly, his gaze snaps to the door in the middle of the clearing. Green eyes opening wide, surprise.

With purpose, silently, Candy-hulk heads towards the door, right hand outstretched, to reach for its silver knob. Until Erin calls out and makes for the door first. His pace slows.
Ladies first.

"stomps through the tree line an calls out in a graveled, bellowing roar, "Jess... Jess get back here." Looking around, jaw tight, the usually chill bruiser finds himself rather uncharacteristically impatient. At least the majority few here would gather why without question. There is a short flat out run and he looks around, pauses on the door but looks up. "I swear if any more goddamn trees laid a hand on her I'm goin to work for Roen for fucking free." He spots Erin and Itzhak and pauses on Everett but looks to Erin in the end, "Yo, Jess is missing. I think she came through here. You seen her?"

The police captain was busy doing police captain-y things, when he looked up from his stack of neverending paperwork to find a substantial shift in the appearance of his office. He's seated not at his desk, but atop a rotted, fallen log. Which he pushes off of abruptly, once he realises what's going on. His gaze darts through the darkened foliage, breath fogging the air as he turns a slow circle and tries to orient himself. Then a voice calls his name, and it's like a caricature of what Rosencrantz's might sound like. He makes a face as he eyes up the door, then draws his gun and paces away from it. Perhaps there are others- yep, that's defiinitely Joey Kelly's voice he hears. Leaves crackling underfoot, he sets off to find the source of it.

The first person Stephanie notices is Erin, someone she knows in passing being a first responder and someone she’s seen in Dreams before. And then she notices the others, with varying levels of familiarity. She hangs back as everyone else tries to figure out the door. She figures if Devlin is in trouble, he can at least handle himself.

Itzhak's hands are filthy; he grabs a rag hanging from the back pocket of his coveralls to wipe them, his motions quick and jerky and anxious, his eyebrows up. He glances around--there's others here, and Ruiz! "Thank God," he mutters, eyes landing on him, but then he immediately feels bad for being glad he's here. And he hears Joey shouting the name of his own niece. "Kelly!" he calls to him, crossing ground to go to Ruiz. And there's Erin, and Stephanie, who he literally only knows because they keep landing in Dreams together, and the gorilla of an ice cream shop guy whose name he still doesn't know, but who he can't fail to recognize.

There's no other sign of anyone outside this group at the clearing's edge, and no light save that cast by the door. Silence and an oppressive darkness that pushes against the senses greets anyone turning away from the clearning.

The doorknob turns easily and without a hitch when Erin reaches for it; the door is heavy and slow to open, though moves smoothly and silents.

Beyond the subtle, shifting frame of moonlight lies a barren, cracked landscape shrouded in darkness. A slight color shift at the top of the door's vantage point suggests it opens out into the bottom of some sort of broad, deep hole. A single beam of dazzling, pearly light illuminates a spot maybe fifty feet from the door's opening, a little to the left. In that beam of light:

Itzhak sees Miriam, surrounded by hungry, starving wolves, riding a unicorn foal with a rose gold coat, platinum blonde mane and tail, and diamond-white horn which is kicking and bucking at them.

Everett sees Kailey fending off a huge, rabid-looking raccoon-monster, armed with a gleaming spear of silver and pale wood.

Joey sees Jessie, desparately trying to keep herself up on a stump as some manner of bubbling tar creature surrounds it and begins to climb; she's desparately trying to keep a too-big, silvery tiara set with dark purple and smokey brown gemstones from falling off her head into the ooze.

Erin sees Jack desparately trying to fend off a rotting, half-dead bear, a knife of gold and pearl in one hand.

Stephanie sees Devlin being throttled by a huge feathered serpent, a cloak of rich purple velvet embroidered with brone and silver threads depicting a phoenix forgotten and half-trampled on the ground.

Ruiz sees Itzhak curled up in a ball, arms over his head, sobbing, a swirling mass of smoke an lightning whispering hate into his ear, a book bound in black leather with silver gilt pages sitting forgotten on the ground next to him. But of course that's not him, because he's right here. Isn't he?

Turning the knob was the easy part and when the door opens and she sees Jack there fending off the bear, she lets go, a glance briefly at Stephanie and Everett before looking back to Jack. Instead of rushing over, she tries to get the things attention. Not Jacks, but the attacker. "Get the fuck away from him! He doesn't even believe in you!" The veil, always getting Erin to resort to cursing. Feeling, more than seeing the others around in the forest near the door, she hears Joey and gasps in dismay. "She's missing? OH God! I'll help find her too.." She does try and get the attention of the bear thing though, so she can save Jack while searching for Jess.

Before the door opens, Everett looks down at Erin, waiting moderately impatiently for her to open it, his spine stiffening, nostrils flaring. His single-mindedness towards the door wavers, glancing at others when they make themselves known, through speech or walking. Recognition isn't acknowledged for rudeness or determination.

Giving the door a glance when it begins to open, when Erin shouts, the Confection-Behemoth sees not a him, but a damsel in distress. He doesn't pause at the door, but ducks under the doorjamb to go through, putting a paw on Erin to gently push her out of his widths way while he shouts, his fury on his face.
"Get off of her, you furry fuck!"

Joey somehow managed not to go bolting though Everett. If that's the sound of distant thunder people think they hear that might be coming from Joey's chest. He sprints all of three steps to assess and holds a hand out. "Sprout stay there. Don't bug out on me, kiddo. WE got this and... don't... try to put that in your mouth."

Sweat on his brow he snaps a look to Itzhak when he hears his name and says in clipped words, "Help me pull that branch down." Looking to the tree he says only, "You fucking owe me." He's talking to trees now. "Help me get her out of there or I'm tearing your goddamn arm off you son of a birch."

Itzhak's spotted easily by the cop, once they're all gathered around the light emanating from the door. Which seems to solidify in his mind even further the certainty that, "It's tricking us." A hitch of his chin to what lies beyond. "Showing us what it thinks will anger us. It's a lie. An illusion." The last word's barked loudly enough for Everett and whomever else is barreling toward it, to hear him. His weapon, he keeps drawn and with the safety off; there's a non-zero chance he's going to need it. "Kelly," he beseeches the younger man, pacing in closer. "it's not real!"

Stephanie has always known Devlin to be able to handle himself so if the situation was real, he’d have to be up against something really bad for the fight to get to the point she was seeing. He doesn’t need saving. He’s ex-military, and thus does the saving.

Still the debt of gratitude for him saving her life is what compels her to act and after most everyone else seems to have done what they needed to do, she decides she’s going to go through the door with as much fire as she can bring to the serpent attacking her work partner and friend.

That's...fake. Right? It's fake. He's pretty sure it's fake, this sight of Miriam, so small and so brave, on a fierce unicorn colt. Ugh that's the problem with Dreams! Like normal dreams, bizarre shit happens and it seems perfectly sensible. The sight makes Itzhak's teeth and fists clench nonetheless. "Kemfn zey, mameleh!" he snarls under his breath--fight them, girl! He glances sharply at Ruiz, who confirms what he's suspecting.

This is a lure.

People are losing their shit around him and his expression transforms to alarm, eyebrows leaping up his forehead. "No! Guys! IT AIN'T REAL!" Joey's asking him to help him. "Yeah, I'll help but--it's not real, Kelly! It's not her!" He doesn't need to see the illusion Joey's seeing to know who he sees.

He reaches for Erin, to grab her, stop her. "Erin, no, it ain't her!" Scrabbling, he only manages to hook one fingertip in the back of Erin's scrubs, but his Song swells in him, silent roaring music, and her clothes obey him, picking her up and pulling her back. Except she's got fire, and quite a lot of it, in her hands and he yelps, half-flinching away from her. "No no no not with the fire, I can't turn it off no more!"

Once inside and Joey goes for Jess, or so she assumes, since he's talking to her, Erin goes to help Jack. It doesn't work well for her though! She begins the fall, it looks really sloppy, the rough terrain of the ground and she looks about to go face first into it, falling ungracefully to her knees, then further until she's captured without much resistance and Itzhak hauls her back about the time she gears up a fireball for lighting, to make the room a bit more visible for everyone. Now, even with Itzhak, she gives him a wary look then back to Jack as he gets the deep gouge in his chest. "Nooo!" Looking about to go again until Itzhak's words penetrate the helplessness in her head. "It's not .. real? Do you swear to me it's not?

First through the door, and like the man following him through it, Everett grits his teeth while he stumbles, but doesn't fall on the uneven terrain under his boots. Bracing himself with a hand on the ground, the ape uses his other to brush long raven hair out of his face, before he carries on after, warnings be damned, as he's overtaken by the smaller, but tougher, twin.

In the light, the thug spies a pregnant girlfriend fighting, being bitten. "Narrgh!" he snarls while scrambling over the broken ground and then launches himself to tackle her attacker. Into the beam of light, and through the racoon as it ceases to exist. He tumbles, rolling several times on the ground before sliding to a stop on toes and hands, looking up at the new, big monster.
And no Kailey.

Ok. Maybe it was a trick.
"Well," Everett says, his deep voice defeated. "... shit."

Joey looks to Ruiz and Itzhak with a a look resigned There are really only two things in this world he's afraid of and being put down doesn't even make the list; that's just a likely given. He doesn't know how else to explain to Ruiz and Itzhak all glassy eyed other than to say "She... She's five...It ain't gettin her... or..." Which is his way of saying, no, he can't walk away from her. "And I'm 'a find the fucker that put her there." They wanted him afraid? They got him afraid, and when he's afraid he reacts.

He runs toward Jesse and when she disappears. Knowing one of his fighters is on the ground he barks, "Ev, go low so they can shoot." Joey sprints, hand snapping out and polearm snapping up off the ground into his hand. He spins it to slap into both hands and takes a flying lunge with it in a sweeping arc with the back end to feint and snapping the blade to his target. "Fuck you, Build-a-Bear."

Frustration, thy name is de la Vega. With emotions running far too high for his raspy not-quite-bark to rise above the din, he resorts to funneling his own emotions into fury given form. An earth-shaking roar splits the Dreamscape, and descending out of the mist is a massive creature that can only be described as a dragon without legs. Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent. Gleaming silver-blue scales cover its snake-like form, which twists rather than flies in any traditional sense. A brilliant array of feathers sprout from its massive wings and unfurl like a headdress around its face, festooned with silver ornamentry. It dives for the ground, trying - and succeeding - in distracting the tar beast, hopefully giving the others a slight advantage with the creatures focus thus diverted.

Ruiz, meanwhile, is leaning heavily against the door while he tries to sustain the illusion. Blood trickles from his nose, his ear, his eyes squinched shut.

Stephanie picks herself up and tries to maneuver her way around the bumps and depressions on the ground. She’s still looking for Devlin and she’s still looking for the serpent he’s up against, not because she’s intent on rescuing him, but she’s wanting to back him up, because they’re partners, they’re equals. It’s what they do on the job on a regular basis. And she can’t forget that he saved her life. She owes him big time. Hang in there, Dev.

The tiara some distance away catches her attention and while heading towards her goal, her destination, she holds her hand out in its direction and focuses some telekinetic energy to pull it towards her with a great deal of success. When she has a hold on it, she places it on her head to see what happens, still on the move.

Now there's something nobody gets to see too often: big, tough guy Itzhak cringing away from a beautiful girl. The fireball she's ready to whallop him with provides some context, though. "I swear it," he says, practically bent over backwards, one hand up to ward her off. "On my father's grave I swear it. This is Them."

Like trapdoor spiders, corrupted Things rear from beyond the door. Itzhak lets Erin go, points at it, long arm and long finger. "That's ya target!"

The feathered serpent comes twisting in from the sky, and Itzhak's eyes get big. Real big. The sight of the creature lifts his heart, makes him grin huge and crazy. Then he's turning to the surrounding landscape with more control, more thought. He whistles, and a great big rock abruptly tears itself free from the earth and CLUNK smacks the creepy gross raccoon thing in the head. Luckily it's looking up, not at him!

Erin has two modes, apparently. Heal it or kill it. That's her mantra. There is no happy medium ground. Itzhak had saved her so now she could try and return the favor for Everett and Joey and the .. is that a snake? With feathers? It's in the fray too, so she'll let the fire do what it will as she attempts to take out the tar beastie with the rest of them.

The fireball wasn't targeted for Itzhak, just made to light up the room. The first one anyway. Now though, she's intending to do harm! As much as possible. Them. Yeah that's her target. "I wouldn't hurt you, Itzhak." Just a quick reassurance in the middle of chaos.

A flurry of attacks are unleashed on the bear that arose from the ashes of his illusion, the dragon on high, capturing the hulk's attention for more than a moment. And from those attacks, it falls over, alit, not at all the worst streak he had hear. Or caused. But he stayed low, like he was told, technically, even if it was over quickly. Pushing himself up to his feet, Everett brushes his dirty hands off on his leather jacket, then his black jeans before settling his hair back over his shoulders again, looking back towards the group of people that didn't pass through the doorway. With his left hand, he points, looking down at Joey, suggesting they go back since it's over.

Then there's a second beam of light.
And Everett's head snaps up, like a dog that hears a passing car. Fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again.
"Hold on, Kiki!"

This is Joey's on switch. That wicked weapon in hand it's getting stabbed all the way into a blistering pile. Fuck that, he's stirring the pile with it too. Adrenaline racing in his veins and Everett is taking off. Looking up tot eh big rainbow bird he looks at the angry thing and murmurs, "THanks... you see a lil kid around here... don't eat it. That's Jesse, not Snacky, comprende?" He watches for a moment rolling the polearm in hand, practiced. "Yeah... gracias." He spits into the inert tar puddle and looks around for traces of... anything.

The feathered serpent twists, rolls, dives for the ground one last time.. and then shatters into a hundred thousand shards of darkness and smoke, the instant before it plows into it. Over by the door, de la Vega all but slumps to the ground, blood swiped away with the sleeve of his jacket as he struggles to remain upright. And squints as he spots something, in that beam of light. "..Finch?" But.. no. "It can't be. You're not real." His gun comes up, right hand folding around the grip, left hand bracing it. He drops a round into the chamber, and lines up a shot on.. his daughter? It's not his daughter.

Or is it?

He pulls the trigger anyway. There's the sharp report of the bullet leaving the chamber, then a puff of dirt kicked up when it strikes the ground where 'Finch' is huddled over 'Ignacio'. "Fuck, it's NOT REAL," he bellows at the others.

There’s nothing more disconcerting than the sound of a cry for help for someone like Stephanie, a bleeding heart whose entire existence was about healing and mending. She knows Devlin well enough but still, the cries for help make her feel upset and she rushes forward towards her friend but when she gets there, no Devlin and one pretty tiara on her head. And a voice compelling her to trust her. Was the tiara talking to her? She is so confused but also tired. She’s disoriented and confused.

[Tell me how to get out of here or I will shatter you in a million pieces.]

Because now she’s negotiating with inanimate objects. She does keep the tiara on...for now. And steps into the beam of light.

A cry comes from the light, and now Itzhak gets hit with that terror and fury the others felt, harpooning straight into his heart, yanking to pull him off his feet. He goes awful pale, eyes wide and blank. "Naishka...NO, it ain't...it ain't real..."

but isn't it? isn't it real? Itzhak grips his chest, panting fast and harsh, his entire tall lanky frame shaking. Ruiz draws and fires on Finch, and Itzhak makes a throttled sound of horrified protest--but nothing happens. The bullet does no harm.

Well that settles it. Whatever horrors They have to show him, he is not fucking looking. He practically flings himself on Ruiz, winds his arms (still smudged in grease) around him, and buries his face in the older man's bloodied neck. "It's not," he whimpers, rocking back and forth. "It's not real, it's not, it's not real..."

A new light? Erin had seen what happened the first time so when the second light appears, it's a real no brainer. There's no Jack, just like Itz had said so she doesn't even attempt to go for it. Everett does seem to though and she calls for him, "Don't go. You saw what happened before!" Ugh. He was going to go in it.

With Ruiz shooting, she turns and looks at him with wide eyes before stepping back to make sure she's definitely not in the line of fire. She's not advancing forward beyond where Itzhak rescued her earlier, standing her ground there. "It's fake everyone, Everett, don't go in. Stay away from the light." Suddenly feeling like she's in Poltergeist, she looks a little sheepish towards Itzhak. She notices his indecisiveness and reaches out a hand to grab him to try and get him to stay...

He totally is going to do it,
"Kailey," whispers Everett, his brows upraised from the second rippled mound out. There's an attempt, the start of reaching out for the illusion, put the goon pulls his hand back before breaking light. Maybe. Just maybe everybody else shouting the obvious has finally bored into his thick skull. It's with deep sorrow, the giant turns around. Turns his back to the fetal Kailey.

And moues. "This place sucks."

Joey can't find the kid. There' s goo, and eEverett ran off. There's a broken.. bird god and fire. Well he's not singed and everything smells a bit like hot tar. Pike in hand he falls back to where Ruiz is with the Itzhak-koala clinging to him. Looking to his battle bro he informs the Captain as assurance, not surprise, "She ain't there." It's dark though and maybe Itzhak has the right idea. His hand fishes into his pocket for his lighter and he pulls out a scratched orange plastic Bic and strikes it. He needs it to illuminate the area and ya know, Bic makes a damn fine reliable product for $2.49. "Sooo that thing smelled about as good as it looked. Where's the rest?" He bellows out because he can project when he wants but this isn't to tell the ice cream slinger to stay in his lane, "Everett, the fuck is over there?"

"No es real. Es un truco, te lo dije. Te lo dije." Ruiz is hoarse voiced from trying to bellow at the others, and holsters his firearm before throwing one arm around Itzhak when the younger man launches himself at him. "We need to get out of here. We need-" Then there's someone running toward Everett and Stephanie, and she seems different somehow. He moves neither toward nor away from her, though tension slides through his shoulders as he waits to see what she'll do. And, of course, he's going to keep himself between her and Itzhak, if he can. "No," he concurs with Joey, not looking over as his frenemy moves in on his nine o'clock. "No, it's nobody we know." His face is still bloodstreaked; a drying trickle working its way from his nose, into his beard; another leaking from his ear. Summoning that serpent clearly cost him.

Stephanie sees the flash of the imagery overlaid in her vision and isn’t sure what to think until the tiara speaks to her again about the darkness being safe, and everything’s screaming inside of her to disbelieve and just to prove a point, she stops to pull the tiara off her head and throw it off the ground then use her powers to shatter it, focusing her energy towards it on the ground. She’s so preoccupied that she doesn’t even notice anyone heading in her direction.

Itzhak pries his face out of Ruiz's neck enough to look at him, eyes wet with tears. "...yeah," he mumbles, the sight of the man bleeding snapping him out of it a little. Then there's the woman's voice crying not to touch the light. That's when the lighter Joey's holding up glows brighter and brighter and bright, a light that's clear and soft like a snowy day, but takes no lip. Also, there's a swell of violin music out of literally nowhere, accompanying the light. Man, Bic does make a fine lighter.

The woman's voice makes him look up. He squints through the bad light and the good at her. "We're going!" he calls to her, but it's kind of a bluff. He knows damn well he can't open a door back to reality in a Dream. He can only open one to other Dreams, and that's a nonstarter.

No need for Erin to try and hold onto Itzhak so she takes her hand back and just stays back. Watching Stephanie, she winces as the tiara looks to be meeting its demise, but mostly, she is unable to put order to the chaos around her. Ruiz' words are taken into consideration before she nods. "I agree, let's get out of here. The same door?"

When asked what's over by him by the gymnasium owner (and definitely nothing else), Everett looks over his shoulder. Holding his gaze to the mirage writhing on the ground, holding her wrist, whimpering, the sullen man murmurs to himself, "Nothing. Nothing's here." A heavy, melancholic sigh escapes his lips before he turns his head back and shouts back, "Ain't nuttin'!"

Clearer heads being what they are, he opens his Brando-style jacket, and from an inside jacket withdraws two objects. While he puts the cigarette to his mouth and lights it, giving the figure more time to run towards him, before he puts the objects back. Taking the cigarette from his lips and taping the stick, he adds his ash to the ground while his attention turns towards the incoming woman, waiting for her to approach him and by proxy, get closer to the column of light he stands near. Listening to the music of gentle sobbing.

The shouted announcement by The Nose that they're leaving gets Everett to move again. Away from the second light source and towards the door way. His progress followable with the cherry-glow of his cigarette as he walks and, sometimes stumbles, over the rippled ground.

Joey turns both the light and the polearm raised and tucked under arm. As far as he can tell his best frenemy is injured and Itzhak...is Itzhak. Right. "Lady, I dunno who you are talking to but make it good, make it fast. Whats the threat, where is it, and What I need to do to put it into the goddamned ground so we can go the fuck home?" Green eyes like liquor bottles level with the lady rolling up on them, but slowing her roll enough that he takes her off the 'threat' list at least in part. Hard to tell if this is Boy scout logic or just years as Felix's enforcer talking.

The cop, meanwhile, looks to be focusing heavily on something while the others discuss options. He's staring at the tiara that's currently in the process of being blasted to bits, swarthy skin limned in a pale glow that rolls off him like smoke and smells like ozone. When it's over, he shudders a breath and leans heavily against the doorway. "La estrella cayó del cielo y corrompió la tierra." He swallows, and shoots both Joey and Itzhak a glance. "The Psalms of Air and Darkness. It's here somewhere." He hitches his chin toward the centre of the crater. "Maybe beyond that wall. I think that's what we need to find."

[This place lies! You lie! The darkness lies!]

Stephanie is still talking to the tiara, her display of apparent Rage is to attmept to break it without much success. This is her losing her shit.

[WHY SHOULD I TRUST YOU!?]

Itzhak kind of stiffens when Joey checks on him and really obviously considers him useless as per usual. He makes a face that can't decide what it wants to be when it grows up. But he nods, when Ruiz names the Psalms of Air and Darkness. "Okay. Show--" then the tiara cracks, unleashing psychic hell. He's stunned for a second. "...STOP!" he bellows at Stephanie, and turns out a singer can be really quite loud when he wants to be. "LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE!"

Erin puts her hands to her ears after hearing the screams. She'd already lived through losing her parents once, along with a host of aunts and uncles and cousins. Thomas.. but now everyone she loved? If there's a chance she can stop the screaming and cries of pain, she will. Watching Stephanie try and destroy the tiara as they are told not to, she can't help herself. Contradicting what Stephanie is doing, she focuses her attention and power fully on the tiara and laces it back together again, even as Stephanie breaks it, t hen she works on mending it like it had appeared before, back and forth until it's finally fixed.

To have it in safe keeping, Erin summons it to her, catching it as she does, and she tucks it beneath her scrubs shirt to protect it from anything else, holding it there with the shirt, not allowing it to touch her bare skin if possible, leaving the tank top beneath her scrubs as a buffer.

There's even an apologetic look given towards Stephanie for going against her wishes. Of course now she has a tiara she has no clue what to do with, so she looks towards the newest arrival. That woman calling them Maestro.

The glow of Everett's cigarette pauses momentarily when the psychic feedback is unleashed. When the large man returns to the dim light that lightens, he's spied holding his left temple with the hand of that side. "Da fuck?", he mumbles with cigarette shaking between his thin lips while he rejoins the rest of them.

He pauses and watches the effects of the tiara breaking and repairing, taking another drag of his cigarette. Taking the smoke stick from his mouth, Everett stares at the weapon in Joey's hand contemplatively. And just about feels it asking him not to draw attention to it considering the torture the coronet's going through. Instead, Everett taps ash to the ground, watching the flakes fall before his attention returns to the mysterious woman. "S'up?" And the cigarette goes back in his mouth while he looks on with disinterest, occasionally looking into the background.

"Yeah," murmurs Ruiz, pushing through the doorway finally, shooting a glance to Itzhak and Joey, and then Erin as she stuffs the tiara under her scrubs. Then back to Ravenna, "Yeah, illusions. Tricks. We saw. Rosencrantz, do you think you can do it?" He hitches his chin toward the markings on the wall as he draws in closer. The light from Joey's zippo makes him look even more haggard; his beard needs a trim, and he's streaked in blood and sweat. Then, "Wait." Soft, then a little louder: "Wait. Erin, and.. you." He nods toward Stephanie, whose name he doesn't actually know. "You're going to need to break it along this línea de falla-" He reaches out to touch a crack in the wall. "-before those two can open it." A flick of his eyes indicates Joey and Itzhak. "Understood?" Yes, that's his fucking cop voice. The one that's just begging for someone to step out of line and give him the opportunity to lose his shit.

Joey arches an eyebrow and leaves the lighter lit. For now. He just stares at the lady with the flattest look ever. The man can barely read much less give a shit about a book. "All this shit over some fucking dumb book??" He pauses and stands down accepting it for what it is. Fuck it. "Shit these librarians don't fuck around with their overdue queue. Roz, We gonna tear it up or what?" Because yeah, why not. This explanation is as good as any. He looks to future him(Ruiz) to see if this makes any sense to him. At all. He changes his facing to the wall and shakes his head. "I'm too sober for this shit."

Itzhak wipes his bloodied, sweaty curls away from his face, looking like he'd really enjoy going the fuck home. He looks at the wall, as Ruiz uses Cop Voice. Which makes his shoulders tighten and one cheek flinch, but he doesn't look away from the markings. "'Course I can do it," he murmurs. Of course he can. He's the door opener, the gantzeh makher, his glimmer at the absolute limit of human strength. Of course he can do it. He shoots Joey a bitter smirk. "Fuckin' yeah we're gonna. Let's do it."

But something goes wrong. The door doesn't open for him. His Song rises, but he can't grasp the door. So he snarls, at the end of his frikkin' rope, and kicks the wall in a temper.

"I'll help if I can." Erin offers, still holding the talking tiara beneath her shirt while remaining within the somewhat safe bubble near Itzhak and Ruiz. Where they go, she goes, since Itz had already saved her once and he was with Ruiz, it made an odd trio, but hey, safety! Focusing the powers on that one area, she nods as it's pointed out and tries to work with the team for the way out.

Some of the things she, Ravenna, says gathers Everett's attention from looking in the distance.
It's just an illusion. It's just an illusion.

She introduces herself, and Everett looks around, before noticing nobody else returning the pleasantry. "Everett," he offers, confirming the name Erin shouted is something he answers to. And her cautionary advice is meant with a side-ways glance. Not exactly an eye-roll. "Uh-huh," the gorilla replies, taking his cigarette out and exhaling upwards, conscious of those around him may not want. He looks around to the others while she speaks with or to them, frowning slightly at Ruiz for book. And walls. The ape's own singular focus made him miss details, but he's as equally unimpressed as Joey, albeit a slight upset sound with the other man's second sentence held in Everett's throat.

With his left fingers, Everett opens his jacket and reaches inside with his cigarette holding hand. From within he pulls out a flask, unscrews the lid, takes a swallow, then nudges Joey's left shoulder with the chrome flask. They all need their coping mechanisms. Help? With what? Finger-wiggling is for dandylion eating elves.

The moment he sets eyes on it, he knows. Ruiz knows that book, because he's seen it before. And he's touched it; with his hands, and with his mind. And the sight of it, now, makes him swallow thickly. "Don't try to read it," he warns, low-voiced, prowling in closer with furrowed brows. He doesn't make to touch the thing, but does flicker a glance to Itzhak; maybe he has some ideas?

Joey makes the effort but looks to Itzhak with a squint like he might just yell at him but instead gives him a small nod. "Nice." Because why would Joey think otherwise? Stepping inside he looks around. Positive vibes? Ruiz' warning draws a derisive, cautious look from him, " What sort of granola hippy munching malarkey is this?" He walks over to the pillar, fingers flexing on that polearm, "Unless I've got 3-5 years to do jack and shit why would I waste my freedom in a fucking book? I don't own that many cats." Looking over his shoulder to the lady he listens, none of this really striking an impression, and in the end shrugs. "Alright. He pulls back and cracks that pillar using force, forces, and that handy weapon he found. KATAAAK!

Itzhak tries not to look too guilty when Joey thinks he's the one who opened the wall. He sniffs and makes like he meant to do that. Totally. That was him. Abso-freakin'-lutely.

As he lays eyes on the book, his bow arm and his right side start to ache. He absently rubs those weird lightning-fractal scars he has there, staring at the book encased in crystal. "It's like, like," oh a bad time for words to fail him; he signs in urgent quick flashes of his fingers, eyebrowing at Ruiz like he really needs him to understand this. Hit lightning hard. Smack! one fist into the other, demonstratively. A crackle of lightning pops at the point of contact, startling the shit out of him.

Erin remembers that book from Oregon as well and the warning from Ruiz is heeded. She'd seen what happened when someone attempted to read it. The tiara continues to speak to her, promising all sorts of things. Withdrawing it from beneath her shirt, she looks indecisive before delicately placing it atop her dark hair and heeding the advice of the pretty crown. Focusing on it she tries to mentally zap it.. but she's not experienced with it in the slightest. It's not pretty. But the tiara is!

"Us?" asks Everett of Ravenna while they traverse single file. He's positively verbose, what's that now, a dozen words? Greeted on the other side of the wall with additional darkness, if not for Itzhak's enhanced bic, Everett puts his hand back inside his jacket, pulling his zippo back out. On the second try it lights an impotent light compared to the other lighter which causes the goon to give it a look, and then shrugs. It's something.

The gemstone is broken and Everett ducks, least he's speared by a shard. Walking over to one, he pieces it up, turning it over in his cigarette holding hand while examining it in his lighter's light. Meandering over to the book, Everett shivs the book with the shard.

There's suddenly a lot happening in the vicinity of the book; Joey's breaking it out of its gemstone prison, Itzhak's miming zapping it with electricity, and various other people are trying their hand at destroying the thing. De la Vega hangs back initially, perhaps trying to get a read on what they should do. Until whatever his lover is gesturing about, finally seems to sink in. Yes. Of course. He gives his shoulders a roll, prowls on in, and murmurs a low disculpe to Erin as he tries to get in nice and close. Close enough to lay his hand on the book, and lower his lashes and focus his Gift for a moment. It builds and builds, his body fairly humming with residual power. Then in a fraction of a second, it's discharged into the book with a skreeeek and a flash of light that peels away in slow-curling smoke, leaving behind the scent of an electrical fire.

Joey stands there, lighter in hand and ready to toss it to someone (hey it's gotten them this far) when it just defies one and all of the people trying. Shaking his head he murmurs to Ravenna, "People always say the book is better. I'd love to know why, ya know?" No, joey, she does not. Now there's Ruiz heaps the word upon the book like Odin's evangelist or some shit. There's the negative flux and he holds onto that spear and stuffs the lighter in his pocket as they sail up up up and he looks for a place to have his boots find purchase. Free running 101, control your fall! "Shiiiiiit!"

Itzhak wasn't even trying to zap it. He didn't know he could. Suddenly lightning is coming out of him! It crackles, fizzes out because he's too startled to maintain it, staring at his hands. What the fuck, say his eyebrows, clearer than words.

But that the book knows Ruiz is coming for it...that makes him grin savagely. All his attention gets focused on the man, watching him greedily, listening for his Song. Then CRACK and Itzhak laughs. Still nonverbal. Too much got crammed into his brain. He doesn't need words for everyone to know just how fucking proud of Ruiz he is and how much he's in love with the guy, not with his face glowing like that. He's about to sign something else--and then he's tossed away, comical surprise flashing over his face. Super hero landing incoming!!

I'm Trying! Erin tells the tiara in her own mind as the tiara tells her to try again. All of the negativity encompasses her briefly, surrounding her mind in the shroud of uncertainty. Then Ruiz does what he is good at and she looks at him from beneath her lashes. The look is brief before she watches the book seem to falter. So it's with surprise that she looks at Ravenna, ready to respond in the affirmative when the book explodes!

Suddenly, she is flying, soaring! The sun is rising and weirdly in what seems like a long moment but was mere seconds, she admires the sun rise in the distance, mentally committing it to memory. Even if it'll be a short lived one because she has to land sometime! There's no screaming though, she's too freaked out to do that. Her hand lifts to hold the tiara, if it's still there!

Being picked up is an unsettling experience and Candy Hulk's eyes go wide. He, too, reaches out, fingers wiggling trying to crap on and pull back. Not to lose his new-found love. "No!", the cry is sharp as he continues to out stretch his hand as though he could reach now.

Landing on the obsidian platform, Everett's half-consumed cigarette bounces twice. And continues to smolder while he watches it growing smaller, reaching for it in vain.

That shunting of power into the book, using his own body as a conduit, seems to have taken whatever remaining strength de la Vega had. As the last of the electricity arcs through him and begins peeling the book open from the inside, he stumbles to his knees and slaps his hands to the ground to keep from collapsing entirely. And then.. then he simply blacks out. So when they're all blasted back, he's blissfully unaware. Dead weight sailing through the sky.