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4 solas

The concept of interdimensional travel and teleportation wasn't at all a new one to Szel. Why would it be, after everything that had already happened, after all? It may as well have been just another Saturday at Velvet Lust at this point, right? Ho hum, just another instance of dimensional displacement, same as it ever was every other week, la dee da.

Except no, it wasn't, and no, he isn't going to act like he isn't interested. At least, not when no one was around to call him out on that. The second he was sure he didn't have an audience, he was invested in this situation, slipping away into more empty areas of the club for a little investigating. It was a task easier said than done; Velvet Lust attracted more than just Azrael's and Camael's attention, the place was almost immediately swarming with curious fae and even the odd intelligent undead and ghost. It almost acted like a magnet for them, something he honestly shouldn't have been all that surprised about but he was going to be cranky in regards to it anyway.

In any case, here he was, hunting for anything even remotely different about the club after it's unexpected jaunt. Midge's eyes darted over every single feature as the two of them moved through the empty hall, the sound of one hell of a party thumping loudly in the rooms adjacent to them. At least everyone else would be preoccupied, he'd just have to tolerate all the goddamn noise.

The demon paused suddenly as a difference in the hall caught his attention like a blazing, bright red beacon; a loosened brick. … Alright, not exactly what he was looking for, actually, and his disappointment was practically palpable as Midge glared at the thing, almost accusing. How dare this shitty little brick get his hopes up for something interesting? Fuck this brick in particular, honestly.

… Not hard enough to do anything destructive about it, but fuck this brick, fuck it right back into the wall where it came from actually. He lifted his cane and pressed it down upon the corner of the loosened brick, carefully nudging it back into place. It was still Tannusen's place here, after all, displaced or not. Szel wasn't in any hurry to break Tannusen's things, not anymore anyway, and he may as well do the absolute bare minimum by making sure it all stayed unbroken. With a disappointed huff, he turned his back on the wall, and was immediately greeted by a door on what he damn well knew had been a blank wall just moments prior. He didn't see the door appear, but then again, wasn't that just how Tannusen's magic worked anyway?

Made as much sense as anything else, and Midge only took the briefest moment to look around before Szel reached out and grabbed the door knob, sticking his head through first before slipping in the rest of the way. Dark in here, where's the light swi-

Where's the door. No, actually no where's the door? He let go of the handle for just a second to fumble for a lightswitch before Midge's eyes adjusted, but in an instant no light was necessary, and no door knob was available. Here he stood on a singular floating slab of earth, surrounded on all sides by the discombobulated rubble of a building? Maybe? Or maybe just a previously very well articulated mountainside, those definitely looked like they might have been stairs once. Maybe.

Well. Shit.

He would never ever, not in a million years, not even before the heat death of the universe, say he was scared. Not under pain of torture nor fear of death would he ever say that awful shit out loud, he'd scarcely even allow himself to admit that. He's not scared, he's perturbed. He is inconvenienced. He is really starting to perhaps maybe get somewhat concerned at the growing noises and increasing feelings of not being entirely alone here maybe he should consider drawing a weapon. Or doing the rough approximation of that.

The awful, wretched shrieks and screams of the less pleasant denizens of this weird liminal world would be ringing out soon enough, any demons lured in by the promise of a fat and delicious meal finding the tables ironically turned the instant they came upon the mutilated monster making his stand right here in the Fade. Tattered and broken wings spread wide, just like his eternally torn and bleeding mouth lined with needle-like teeth, the spider-demon sat now within a whipping frenzy of rusty and blood slicked living steel cables. What better way to soothe rage and fear than with a bit of a binge, after all? Sure nothing here tasted good, but he couldn't think of a more permanent solution to his current problem.

Down the fucking hatch, he'd address everything else once he'd earned a little peace and quiet.

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"Like I said, don't worry about it." He wasn't lying anyway, he knew Solas saw the condition of those wings prior to the illusion settling over them again. There was no point in lying that they worked. Midge lifted himself off of Szel's head, buzzing over to the handle of the zipline and settling upon the very top of it. Content to ride overhead rather than fly alongside, but then again the portly looking insect didn't seem like he was built for speed.

As for Szel, his form was starting to haze and drift away in swirling, smokey eddies, the smell of sweet, drug laden smoke wafting about him.

"I don't think I have to ask if you're scared of spiders." It was all the heads up Solas would get as the rest of the demon disintegrated away into smoke, swirling and slithering around in the air before coalescing again upon the other man's shoulder.

A spider, no larger than a quarter from body to the tip of each leg, dull brown and drab in appearance with only a fiddle shaped pattern upon it's carapace to identify it. Above, Midge rattled his wing guards as if in confirmation. All set to go, don't even worry about it.

Interesting.

Solas took half a second to process that, then shrugged his free shoulder. "...Alright then, do hold on."

And with that, he kicked the mechanism at the bottom of the pole, and then jumped for the handle even as the wheel started spinning and it started moving. And away they went!

It didn't show, but come on, even he could have some fun with this sort of thing.

Upon landing on the other side of the chasm, he just kept moving on foot, looking for the next of his warding statues. Szelhamos was perfectly capable of doing his smoke trick to climb off if he wanted, but the dread wolf didn't bother to brush him off in the meanwhile.

"Here," Solas pushed open a heavy door into a crumbling courtyard, and another of his statues. Another gesture from him set the eyes aflame in green, just like the last one. "More time bought."

Maybe it would have been super fun, sure. But he's not about to risk making himself look like a stupid boob in front of a stranger all for the sake of a ride on the zipline. It's been eons since he could last fly, he's not entirely sure he'd be able to make the whole trip in a dignified manner.

Solas wouldn't have to carry the spider far; the moment his feet touched down, the arachnid would simply disappear in a brief and tiny puff of smoke, re-materializing a few feet away and straightening his tie. Midge simply returned to his perch atop the fallen seraph's head, Szel pointedly not budging from his spot until the bug reclaimed his seat.

"Great, now I can get into my questions." There was one that, during the trip over, had suddenly shot right into the forefront of his mind, having been buried beneath the dim muck of fear before, "Can you repeat the name of this place for me again? The Fade, you said? Just for clarification.

I think I know where I am now." In a general sense, anyway, and further more: "It's going to impact the rest of the questions."

"Yes, we are in the Fade," Solas confirmed, a little distracted as he made a few other gestures at the statue, his hands and forearms glowing faintly green. Just shoring up the wards, here, even if he couldn't make them last long in this area.

"Did you figure out how you crossed the veil, then?" he asked once he was done, clasping his hands behind his back like usual and giving Szel his full attention once more. "That would be quite useful, in order to get you back across it again."

"Oh I know how, I just don't think that information's going to be very helpful. Like I said, I was inside the home of a fairy, and the metaphysical properties of that place are... Variable. We'd be better off just calling it a thin spot, by surprise." That was about as simplistic as he could think to make it in the moment, little knowing Solas wouldn't know the first thing about a fairy to begin with.

"But fantastic, now that we've gotten that cleared up; If I said the name 'Alley', would this ring any bells?"

Solas' already habitually-stiff posture stiffened more in surprise.

"The Inquisitor," he confirmed, his turn to be visibly uncertain now.

"Oh good, so you are that Solas and she is that Inquisitor, fantastic. Now I definitely know where I am." The demon might not have been a world champion socializer, but Solas wasn't doing very well at that moment to hide his uncertainty. Gosh though even if he didn't have a single thing against the other man, it was nice to not be the clueless one here.

"She's a uh..." There's a word for this here, he knows it. "... Friendly acquaintance and sometimes drinking companion. Not exactly best friends but all things considered, it could be a lot worse." What, not going to clarify what he meant by That Solas? Well, from what Szel could personally remember overhearing from Alley, maybe 'That Solas' required no explanation.

Nope, 'that Solas' didn't need explaining at all. That Solas did, in fact, know very well what he'd done, if not... maybe... the details about how badly she'd taken it.

Being called 'that Solas' filled in a little bit there, on top of what he already knew for certain.

So he spent a few seconds visibly processing that, then sighed.

"Well... then, I suppose it shouldn't bother you overly that we have been leading Dread away from her location."

If Szel is her friendly acquaintance and sometimes drinking companion, he probably knows she'd try to fight a mountain-sized demon any day of the year to try to protect someone.

And if it's a big enough demon to worry Solas, it's probably big enough that he shouldn't let that happen. Especially not for his own sake.

Solas himself had been decent bait for the demon, but then Szel had popped in here like a screaming magnet, so why wouldn't Solas make use of that along the way?

Edited 2024-11-11 02:38 (UTC)

"What, you don't trust a single mortal woman to put down an inconceivably sized physical embodiment of pure fear?" No yeah no he knew her, he's spent more than enough time on the ceiling of her house to know her pretty well, outside of the conversations he occasionally had with the elf. "I'm shocked, what an appalling lack of trust."

But that did answer a question he never had any intention of asking to begin with; That Solas did in fact, still care. Now whether or not anyone would be told about this encounter, that was yet to be decided upon.

"............. Wait, is that why you're leading me this way?" No shit, Sherlock. It made sense though, didn't it? If Solas still cared and Alley was in the opposite direction, why wouldn't he use Szel to drag it further away? After all if the man couldn't simply kill it, the next best option would be to lure it further away. It was sensible, but now he had to grapple with the principle of the thing.

"I'm looking for the fucking exit and we're walking towards an abandoned side road instead, aren't we?"

"This is the Fade. The direction we move in has no bearing upon our chances of sending you back to the waking world, particularly without understanding how you were sent here to begin with," Solas replied, settling back into far more familiar territory than discussing the Inquisitor.

"Ideally, we will discover a way to send you back along our route. Then, I will be free to simply vanish from Dread's vicinity once I have led it far enough away, and avoid the need to fight it."

With Szel here, he was going to have to fight it. Ditching the 'demonology expert' to be consumed by Dread wasn't an option on the table.

If it served certain goals, of course, he wouldn't have hesitated to do just that. But those goals were no longer in play.

"I told you, a fairy nightclub did it." He had also said saying it wouldn't do anyone here any good though, so telling him was sort of a moot point, but he'd said it! He said the thing! If he sounds frustrated about this fact, he is and he's very bad at hiding it. It wasn't like he was trying to be difficult!

"If it helps, I have no intention of going back there. I'm done with that fucking club, and I'm done with fairies if that's the thanks I'm going to get for fixing his shitty wall." This is, of course, a filthy fucking lie but that's not going to stop him from saying it.

"Maybe getting back to Hell will be easier, there's a few similarities between here and there, shouldn't be that much of a jaunt."

"That information might be more useful, if I knew what a fairy was," Solas pointed out, glancing up at the statue to gauge how long they had left in this pocket of relative safety.

Not long, but not short enough to fuss yet, either.

"And what you mean by 'Hell'. There have been so many interpretations of the concept over the ages."

"Normally, I'd say that depends on the fairy, but since I know the fairy who did it," He wavered his hand a little, "Alien spirit existing within the body of a human until such a point where the spirit is no longer capable of residing there due to the inherently toxic nature of the world it's trapped in, where upon it vacates the body and finds a new one, leaving the human alive but very confused as to what's going on. Magical creature with magical tendencies, enchants shit around it for funsies because apparently being a jackass is imperative to it's survival."

The next one was a little bit more complicated, despite his far better grasp of the subject as opposed to the type of fae Tannusen was. "It's a place. Kind of. Technically. Like this one is kind of, technically, a place that you can also go." He takes a second as Midge looks around. "If you hate yourself, but that's equivalent for both areas. It's a prison for the worst kinds of people and creatures so that the rest of the universe doesn't have to worry about them. I live there."

So yes, he's calling himself one of the worst kinds of people and he doesn't seem to have any issue saying that.

"Frankly between the two of us, I should be back there, so helping me out makes you a hero."

That was a lot of new information. Solas didn't respond right away, and just began to slowly pace their warded area, his hands remaining behind his back.

Visibly processing.

This... fairy, spirit, situation? Could have engaged Solas for a great while all on its own. As it was, he forced himself to focus on the most pertinent bits for now. A spirit of mischief of some sort had been involved, and that made a lot more sense than just a wall with a loose brick near a weak spot in the veil.

It didn't give a clear target for how to send Szel back across the veil, but it was a start.

And that was just the first part of what he'd just heard from the demonology expert. The second part could have tied them up for a long time on its own, too.

Being that Solas had sort of made this place as a side effect of imprisoning the worst kinds of people and creatures in the universe, and all. And the blight.

"Is it a pocket of the Fade?" he chose to ask first, because having a clear destination would be damn useful, too. "I have constructed many prisons in this place over the millennia, strong enough to hold many so-called Gods. But I am... unaware of any others dwelling within."

Please tell him you weren't collateral damage in one of those pockets he'd locked his fellow gods in, Szel.

But it explains the forms the man can take, if so. Or at least the large, horrific one. Time locked in a closet with the blight...

Edited 2024-11-12 05:45 (UTC)

If Solas had openly called Tannusen a spirit of mischief, or even that godforsaken club of his, Szel would have kept them both here until Dread had enough time to arrive and set the fucking table for dinner. Yes that's what he fucking was, or the club, both of them honestly, and Szel kept being the butt of the joke. He's taking it personally this time!

Thankfully, that was not the route Solas chose to take. Best that he stay on track really, between the two of them, the fallen seraph was far more likely to wander off far more pressing topics such as 'how to not get eaten by a Dread Demon'. Szel shook his head at the question.

"No, not as far as I can tell. It's connected to uh... Someone else's project, so to speak." He didn't dig into the information Solas just tossed at his feet, but that pointed choice of words, 'project', seemed to suggest he'd picked up enough thus far.

"Pretty sure Azrael wouldn't have kept a surprise door to a liminal space secret, especially if it's going to just randomly swallow people. They like to keep their workspace tidy and they never were a fan of surprises."

A name Solas didn't know, which was maybe promising.

Only maybe, though. What if he'd inadvertently trapped other people along with the evanuris? He couldn't shake the dread--

The ground rumbled, and that horrible howling pierced the air, closer than it had been the first time. The statue's eye flames sputtered, and Solas stopped pacing.

"I believe that is our cue."

A very calm 'time for us to run like hell'.

"This way," and sure enough, yes, the god took off at a run, although not so fast that he couldn't keep an eye on Szel.

Szel's wings flared sharply, all six of them flapping frantically as if he really did mean to try and take off. Nothing more than an instinctive reaction of course, and once he'd regained his balance again they were all quickly tucked away. He stabbed his cane into the stone to keep himself anchored, bristling at the sound of Dread's shrieks.

"How the hell can something that big sneak up on anyone?!" Midge skittered off the top of Szel's head as the demon pulled himself upright again, the bug's big golden eyes firmly locked on the back of Solas's head. As for Szel himself, he scarcely seemed too concerned with actually running here, only taking two quick bounds forward before swinging an arm out to snag Midge. Midge, who was now decidedly more suited for such a maneuver, the shift from skittering roach to a gigantic, serpentine centipede seamless and instant. It was easy to simply settle on the massive creature's back, hanging tight to the ridges that jutted off of the thing's chitin.

"C'mere, I'm not asking." As the transformed lesser demon scuttled forwards at a breakneck pace, Szel swung his arm to the side to try and snag Solas up and over onto Midge's back. The sensation of the demon's arm didn't... quite seem right for just an instant. Too stiff, too unyielding, as if no soft flesh sat beneath the sharp suit he wore. It wasn't a lasting feeling, just seconds later he'd feel organic enough as he took a moment to ensure the other man was actually safely aboard. Well, his eyes weren't over here presently, he didn't want to just guess he was here and drop the man.

It was a good thing that Solas wasn't half as uptight about this sort of thing as he usually looked like he would be.

And even if he had been, the dread wolf was nothing if not pragmatic.

Snagged and pulled, the elf cooperated well enough, getting a leg thrown over and grabbing onto carapace edges for an anchor.

This close, and in a form with such a sensitive nose, there was blood to be detected. A grunt of pain, but no complaint. Good thing everything was so chaotic and distracting right now, huh?

Like how the shaking ground definitely felt like massive, fast steps charging behind them. How the howling was now cut with a massive inhale.

It was close, close, close, and Szel wouldn't even be able to see it and not run them into something at the same time. Sure didn't help those feelings of dread, did it!

"Straight ahead," Solas wasted no time in directing, urgent but not panicked, speaking quickly and clearly. "We're heading for a cave system behind those ruins. Another of my wards is just inside."

If Szel noticed anything, he didn't appear to make any note of it. Things were indeed a bit too chaotic to go about asking stupid and unnecessary questions. If Solas had hurt himself, it clearly wasn't that badly, so nothing needed to be said, right?

Well it was going without being said, Szel tucking himself down a bit as the ground shook and the thing behind them began to suck in air. Nope, didn't want to know where that was going to lead, that could just remain a secret forever, and as if in direct response to this exact line of thinking, Midge shot forward in a sudden burst of frantic speed. Nope, this was doing very, very little to take the edge off the feelings of overwhelming fear actually, this was not conducive to calm.

The centipede sharply veered towards the ruins, zigzagging frantically in an effort to confound and elude the thing behind them. Over and under and around and through the ruins until those caves were spotted, scuttling directly into the open cavern and hunting out a place to tuck itself into.

Over and under and around, and the rumbling worsened, a staccato of earthquakes, each building off the last and the last and the last.

Solas hunched forward when it was prudent, but at one point he sat straight up and took his hands off Midge, holding on with his legs clamped as though on a war horse. A crumbling archway overhead had begun to fall, and the debris was more than enough to squish them all like bugs metaphorical and literal alike.

Hands glowing, eyes ablaze although no one could see it, Solas reached up and heaved aside the huge slabs of falling stone with his raw magic.

And then they were clear, into the cavern, as Midge went to tuck himself and Szel in somewhere, Solas finally struggled to dismount.

"I need to access the statue--"

Better let him move, fellas.

The falling stone had not missed Midge's attention, but there was no other way but forward, and Szel wasn't about to give the order to stop or turn around now. It therefore didn't escape those giant gold-red eyes that the plummeting archway suddenly seemed to have a change of heart about it's trajectory and took itself for a nice flight to the left. Something akin to a scowl briefly crossed Szel's face, but there was nothing said.

Once within the cavern, the centipede shuddered as it slithered about in it's coils, opening up a few of them to allow Solas to head for the statue. Szel wouldn't be so quick to join him, a bit too wrapped up with trying to calm the clearly distressed Midge down. They were in, it was fine, he didn't have to be right on Solas's feet all the way over to the statue.

If he was saying anything to the panicking lesser demon, it would be impossible to hear over the sound of hundreds of clattering legs and clicking chitin, the occasional hiss slipping through the clamorous noise. Look, he'll... he'll be over there, trust him.

This warding statue was at the mouth of the cave, and was a howling wolf instead of a reclining one. Solas put a hand to its side, and the eyes lit with green fire while the runes and glyphs carved into its body began to pulse with light.

Okay. Good.

Hand still on the statue, Solas leaned against it for a minute, shoulders relaxing, head drooping a little while his thoughts raced and he fought down the same emotions that their pursuer was so very fond of.

The clattering was starting to dim and slow, traces of what sounded like some broken, mangled string instrument being clumsily plucked sounding from inside the whirlwind of legs and chitin. Whatever happened to be making that awful sound went silent the very second the centipede's shape began to smoke and dissipate, soon enough leaving behind one very anxious looking cockroach, and Szel, carefully gathering up the quaking bug to him like a tiny little dog.

"How long is this one going to last us?" Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to start cooking up a good escape plan now, right? Planning wouldn't be a half bad idea at the moment, but also: "What did you hurt yourself on?"

Because first of all that might impact whatever decision he's going to make about getting the hell out of here and second of all it's important that he know for Reasons. Oh there was no use in telling him there was no injury at all, he knew better than that, and that was just one question amid an entire phonebook's worth of questions he now had for Solas, let it never be said that he didn't have any sense of priority.

The warped musical sounds were noted and filed away for later, like so many things in this encounter.

"About twice as long as the last two," Solas said, hand still planted on the statue for a moment before he let it slide away, straightening back up properly like the ancient military leader he was.

It wasn't even conscious, his posture just did that.

He couldnt help but reach up to quickly check his own face with a few fingertips. Under the glamour, the stitches around his eye held fine, and he only tasted a little blood from his lip opening again. His ribs ached in a way that told him some of the stitches there had probably come loose. The armor felt a little sticky when he moved.

What had he hurt himself on, though? Despite the glamour on his face, Solas didn't bother to claim he was at peak condition.

"An archdemon, mostly," Solas said, tucking his hands behind his back, as per usual. "Some buildings, and a great many thorned blight tendrils."

Look, grim and fatalistic was always his brand, even for humor.

"Nothing recent, however. I am simply not fully healed from my last battle."

Edited 2024-11-13 01:42 (UTC)

"Twenty minutes to a half hour, gonna ballpark that at twenty five minutes." Plenty of time to think of a way to unfuck themselves, he'll get right on that. In a minute, he will absolutely go right to pondering escape options from here in a minute, he just has a few questions.

Midge clambered from Szel's hands up his arm and to his shoulder, wedging himself there under the greater demon's chin. The creature wouldn't have been nearly so frantic if it weren't for the fact that Szel was still panicking internally. The emotion had to go somewhere after all, and the bug had always been a window right into Szel's already far too readable psyche. In contrast, at least the fallen seraph looked calm enough, if openly displeased with the current situation.

"I guess that explains the hesitation in taking care of our current problem right now." Worked well enough for him, because "Just because I can't see it doesn't mean I can't smell it; you're bleeding and it's not exactly negligible." Not fatal no, that wasn't the stench of literal buckets of blood, but it was more than enough. "How well are you going to hold yourself together past this point?"

Because... well. Taking everything into account right now, he was starting to feel a little bit like a rat backed into a corner, there might not be any other option than confrontation.

"You had enough going for you to toss a few boulders aside, at least."

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