Taylor had barely escaped the battlefield that the bathroom had become. Somehow Gideon had attracted a new lover. Not that she cared if he was gay, it actually explained a lot. What man has more brocade cloth than his mother? She had goaded him into a rage, and now the bitter taste of magic still curdled on her tongue, slugs slipping past her lips in obscene little plops. One such magic-borne slug landed with revolting precision on the polished shoe of an unfortunate guest. Taylor didn’t even register who, before shame burned her cheeks hot enough to rival the hearth before it was abruptly cooled. She was halfway through forming some awkward broken apology when the entire world came apart at the seams.

The first sign was the shatter, a window exploding inward, spraying glass like a volley of knives. She did not have time to inspect the cause, the two women and a very large man. One of her uncle's friends was outside, the one being paid to keep Erin on a short leash in case she was never actually 'cured' of the change. Before she could react, a part giant came barreling through the front doors, like an avalanche given legs, bowling over her older cousin Erin as though she were little more than a chair in his path. His bellow however was for Uncle Thaddeus, and his voice shook the walls.

Taylor’s instincts screamed at her to move. She knew what her uncle was capable of, how her uncle cast spells like a man flinging lightning into a storm, destroying first, sorting the remains later. She’d seen the aftermath before. People didn’t just get caught in his magic, they were claimed and then leveled by it.

The ballroom cracked open beneath her without warning. Her feet failed to find purchase on the crumbling floor. The fissure ripped across the floor like a wound, swallowing marble, guests, and furniture alike. Taylor went down hard, breath punched out of her lungs in a ragged gasp. Something sharp flared in her wrist, was that a snap? She wasn't sure. Her stomach twisted.

Taylor blinked upward at the jagged mouth of the fissure. It was deep. Impossibly deep. At least to Taylor and her noodle limbs. The buffet table, glorious in its abundance moments ago, now teetered before sliding in after a slow, horrible hesitation. Plates and platters spilled into the dark, raining down in a glittering, gravy-slicked cascade. The real tragedy was the desert table that had perished with the rest of the meal.

Taylor pushed herself upright with her good arm, ribs screaming in protest. The Cloister shuddered again, this time from above. Brock, not that she knew the part giant's name, had struck one of the great support pillars, and the air turned to dust and doom.

The ceiling gave way.

A block of stone, jagged and merciless, broke free and plummeted. She didn’t even have time to flinch before it clobbered her where she sat, the world going white, then dark.

Warning: The following post contains mild mentions of topics that may be uncomfortable for some viewers. Please read with caution... or don't.

The link twisted, the wires embedded into the thin flesh of her fingers.

Her blood circulation was slowing down, she had been losing blood too quickly. Still, Nabi's eyes remained wide, glossy like those of a porcelain doll, searching for a sign of him. Anything... Her bloodied fingers moved in cracks, her eyes beginning to half lull.

Weighing.

Like a doll's ghoulish eyelids, Nabi slowly blinked. Eyelashes fluttering along with her heartbeat, there was something comforting about the cold rush that coursed through her while the world seemed to slow for only a few seconds; her shoulders slumped a little as her hand slipped off her back, momentarily releasing the pressure on her wounds. Her once tensed expression eased, her furrowed eyebrows returning to her stoic neutrality.

A morbid etherealness.

To take what would have been her final breaths in the most sacred place her bloodline could ever set foot on, suddenly had a different feeling. Neither odd nor fearful, simply fitting for the heiress who had yet to find out what would truly be her fate.

But oh, did the Park's fate had yet to be understood.

The blurry sight of the same hand she had seen at the ceremony came into view within the chaos before she heard what Nabi registered as Miss Decipio casting a spell. The curse of the angels began to lift, her pain soothing over as her vision and strength returned once more. Nabi's eyes fluttered open, the doll winded, her shoulders moved disjointedly while the cracks along her porcelain skin sealed. Crawling back onto her feet, Nabi took a deep breath, Damn the angels... Before she turned to Miss Decipio, looking at her with narrowed eyes while figuring out what to do with her, She is most definitely useful. Perhaps she may have even saved her life. With a small nod and her hand gently resting on her chest, Nabi said in sincerity, "Thank you, Miss Decipio, I am indebted to you."

Be wise with your favor. For she rarely, if ever, gave favors without a cost.

Her hand would fall and extend to the girl in a silent gratitude before she began to look around. Like the blurry hand that had gestured for her, Aamon was nowhere to be found. She would take a step, glass crunching beneath her heels, He can not be... dead? buried beneath the bodies? Damned by the angels? Her voice would die in her throat, forming a lump as the sharp tone of brute brought her out of her head.

Of gods and angels, Nabi was neither...

But something of a nature less divine.

Moving, she would gaze at the man who looked around at those in attendance. Nabi would see past him to the older man who had stated the groom as his heir. Sir Athanatos... was a man she had only read about in the newspaper, but had not met in person. Too many rumors and speculations regarding the Athanatos house, it was no surprise the young Aamon was so... peculiar. Her eyes widened as she saw the head of the Athanatos raise his wand before the ground beneath grumbled like a beast in hunger.

Attempting to ease its own starvation, the ancient wood split, and a mouth formed. Consuming everything that fell into its stomach, screams mixed with the groaning of the ballroom, and the brute's proclamation cut through it all before a large crack caused her to look up. The ceiling began to give way, the walls crumbling from an impact strong enough to wake a god.

It was nearly theatrical.

Like dying stars, the ceiling crumbled when an absurdly large chunk of molding fell. Nabi had not stopped to see if the young Decipio was still nearby when her body reacted on instinct, her hand curled into a fist, her bony knuckles visible beneath her thin skin. To say that the impact did not hurt her momentarily would be a lie. Nabi's knuckles ached while the molding appeared to forget about gravity's existence. What spell did Miss Decipio cast? She might need it someday...

Nabi looked down at her hand, her knuckles already beginning to bruise, unaware that she had accidentally launched the slab of molding toward the smelly germlin of a child who had managed to out-creep the boy of golden hair. That was until she felt a sudden pain in her arm as the short dweller headbutted her.

Stumbling, her hand quickly withdrew her wand, an ease dangerously followed by a loose link breaking. Had the boy decided to omit an attack on her, Nabi would have reacted differently. Unfortunately, that was not the case, and she was not kind, especially to those who lacked the neurons to know any better than to become a pest. Her wrist would move effortlessly, the incantation rolling off her tongue as if it were second nature, her unamused gaze focused on him, "Incendio." Some people simply lack the proper manners...

Nabi had gotten her proper footing, her hand raising once more, about to cast another spell at the dwarf, when her eyes narrowed as she saw someone who should not exist yet stood in flesh and bones... well with an eye missing. Impossible, he- The ceiling finally gave way in a loud thunder that had Nabi ducking, falling to the ground in a hard thud.“Protego Maxima!” The bride's voice boomed nearby, and Nabi would groan from her fall. Her gray eyes opened to see a pale shimmering dome over them, What in Merlin's name? Nabi began to sit up, her free hand rubbing her temple while she gripped her wand with the other. She would cough before looking up in realization, "Lady Athanatos!" Her voice came out rather quiet, dry from all of the dust and smoke.

Nabi was mildly dizzy but alive, which was enough considering the events that transpired. Her gaze would land on a dazed groom, Good... he still breaths... The last thing needed was a groom dead on his wedding day, "Sir... wake up." She shook his shoulder before turning to look for Winnie, "Mrs. Athanatos?" Nabi walked toward what her squinting eyes registered as Winnie, "Are you alright, madam?" Facing the top of the dome, she sighed softly, We need to get out...

Merlin knew how long they had.

Just as Aly ducked behind a table with Dee and grabbed her wand and knife out, the whole room shook and suddenly the ground was gone. Surely there was an actual spell behind it, but to Aly, it just seemed as if the floor of the fanciest ballroom she'd ever seen had vanished - revealing nothing but a gaping gorge below. The screams around her echoed loud in her ears - were they from people or from the wood and stone that had so forcefully been torn apart? Though Aly didn't see who had cast the spell, or if it had been no spell at all, she and Dee reacted instinctively - both girls leapt to the side, sliding dramatically across a floor that was already littered with debris, blood, and things Aly really didn't want to look at. Yes, if she'd ever thought of a Healing career, let's just say that idea was long gone by now. Her dress tore in the slide, catching on some rock or other, but at this point Aly cared about the gown even less than she originally had - and hey, maybe an extra leg slit would do her well in what was sure to be an upcoming battle. After all, more freedom meant easier mobility.

She happened to slide right next to one of the house-elves, and as Aly leapt to her feet, she barely bothered to give him a second glance - there were other things to stare at, of course, like the half-giant who was surely about to ravage the room, for instance. But her eyes were still keen, and motion out of the corner of her gaze caused her head to snap at the pink-clad creature when he moved towards her; it was only then that she saw the knife in his hand, going straight for her stomach. Aly was only a few feet taller than house-elves on average, and so the creature would have had full reign over where he wanted to stab - if she hadn't had reflexes honed to a sharp point from years of being everyone's favourite target in Quidditch. Aly dodged backwards, the blade just barely missing her, and instinctively kicked out with one foot, hoping to get the murderous elf as far away from her as she possibly could (or at least catch him off guard). If he fell into the large crevasse behind him, well... that would just free her up for battling more imposing figures.

And more imposing figures there were, for although the humongous wedding crasher had fallen into the fissure, he still definitely posed a threat. Aly crept forward until she was at the edge of the gorge, peering downwards; it seemed that almost everyone in the room had become one of its victims, and she cast a glance backwards at her best mate to make sure she was safe. Luckily, though Dee was still on her feet, it seemed that the other members of the bridal party hadn't been so lucky - Aly couldn't see any of the several familiar red heads of hair up here on what was left of the ballroom floor. Winnie and Eve must have fallen in, the Ravenclaw realised, but she couldn't see them. Oh, Lear's baggy bloomers, I hope they're okay.

What she could see, though, was the giant himself, already clambering up the side of the crevasse with terrifyingly brute strength. Her Conjunctivitus Curse hit him square in the face, but Aly couldn't breathe so much as a sigh of relief - for before he slid down, roaring in pain, she couldn't help but feel as if his own gaze had locked upon her. Memorising her face. Knowing the dress she wore. And the fact that there were others in the same colour, the same clothing, didn't help much when she also knew that those who might have looked similar to her at the moment were her friends. People she cared about.

But then, smoke hissed out from somewhere across the ballroom, and Aly looked backwards to try to find its source. This was enough of a momentary distraction for her, and when the ground rumbled angrily, the Ravenclaw could only turn back to the fissure, eyes widening as she realised that the blind giant had managed to clamber out in her second of interference. Roaring something about the House Athanatos and rot and roses, he blindly punched a pillar, and Aly looked up in horror as the cracks spread quickly - faster than even the eye could see - up to the ceiling, which then came crumbling down directly on her. She screamed, but she wasn't the only one, and tried to dodge with her arms wrapped over her head, but all her evasion had seemingly gone into evading the fissure earlier; a giant chunk of rock slammed into her, and the Ravenclaw was knocked to the ground with all the breath gone from her weary lungs. Something wet and hot stung at her back; she knew she'd been cut or bludgeoned or something of the sort by the ceiling. She would need to heal herself later.

But first, the giant took precedence. It mattered not what side he was on - that he disliked Winnie's new family probably more than Aly did. The longer he was allowed to go on, the more destruction he would cause. Death could very easily follow. Though she was no duellist, Aly refused to let that happen to any of the innocents here - or, worse, her friends.

She forced herself to stand as Dee ran to her aid - her best mate had somehow managed to dodge getting hit by the falling ceiling, and Aly let loose a dry chuckle at the surprised tone in her roommate's voice. "Don't ever take a rock to the back, if you can avoid it like just now," she groaned, grabbing Dee's hand to pull herself up. "Zero of ten, I definitely do not recommend this experience."

In less than ten seconds, what had been a subdued (and semi-preludial) wedding reception became an all-out war, and somehow, Aly ended up at the helm with her best mate as a co-captain. They were the only two who had managed to land a hit on the crazed crasher, with Dee just having yanked him into the air by his ankle; Aly caught her eye and gave her an approving nod, though her voice was still strained with pain. "Here - ugh - you control, I'll damage." Her eyes frantically darted about as she took in the scene and all that had happened just in the few ticks of a clock since her bullet of a spell had left her wand, trying to figure out a spell she could use to deal the promised injury. Rubble. Blood. Magic. Smoke.

Smoke!

The idea popped into her head like a firework in a cold, clear night sky, and once again Aly raised her wand, though this time her voice - weakened by the ceiling's blow and from the amount of dust she'd just inhaled - was not nearly as strong, puncutated with coughs. Still, she managed to get the word out and the movement done. "Pluviae Acuta!"

Mundane Action: Kicking Nubby into the fissure
Magical Action: Casting Smoke to Daggers on Brock
@Dealla Prince, @Winnie Athanatos, @Evelynn Decipio | July 5^th, 2025 | (sleeveless) bridesmaid dress | #C47DDB
paragon allies: dee, winnie | lovely creature & charmer affect everyone | keen eye on

Note: Thoughts can be accessed by Evelyn and Mathias due to their wands.

Gideon escaped the bathroom of horrors. He had no idea what the hell he encountered there. Behind him, the slugs he had evacuated from Taylor before the untimely intervention of a deeply delusional teen who thought being set on fire was a prelude to courtship. He did not have to worry about him anymore, he was stuck to a wall until someone peeled him free.

Clark. Merlin, that one. Somehow, in the part-goblin’s chaotic mind, their skirmish, full of violence and seething rage, had passed for foreplay. As if setting a man ablaze was just the appetizer before a kiss. Gideon could’ve laughed, but the sound would’ve curdled in his throat. He would not spend another thought on the lovesick parasite. He rubbed the scorch mark on his trousers. "Romance," Gideon muttered darkly. Perhaps Clark would make a straight man of him yet. Wouldn’t Taylor be pleased.

The confident Hufflepuff didn’t look back. Not at Clark, still pinned to the wall like some lovesick parasite. Not at the stall he had tried to save Taylor in. The same girl who had screamed and fought him, biting at his arm as he dragged her into the stall like a wild animal. No, he didn’t look back, because if he did, the weight of what was really happening might break him.

What Giddy felt toward Taylor had never been physical. It was older than that. Deeper. And watching her, sick and vacant, those wrong eyes unfocused and shimmering with some unseen tide. It terrified him. It threatened to crumble whatever postured itself as a soul.

His younger cousin was being hollowed. Claimed. Not by a lover, but by something darker and more ancient. Hags. It had started. He knew it. He recognized the signs by now, he had seen it happen enough times. Only then, he was a helpless observer, but he was an observer no more. He could intervene. Stop. Master this madness, shatter this change. Clark’s interruption, his obsession, his leering madness, had nearly cost Gideon the only chance he had to pull Taylor back completely.

Gideon paused, knuckles white at the edge of the archway. His heart still thundered, not from lust, not from fury, but from fear when he entered a war zone. The Athanatos boy had heard fragments through the tile walls. screams, crashing, the tremble of falling earth, but none of it mattered. Not then. Not when Taylor had been vomiting slugs into porcelain, her mouth slick with something wrong, her eyes unfocused. Not when saving her was the only thing that had existed for him in that moment. And not in the moments after, when Taylor stormed out and he contended with the part goblin terror.

He should have ignored the mentally-ill suitor and ran straight after her. Because now the ballroom floor had been ripped apart. A jagged fissure cut across the grand reception hall like an open wound, swallowing tables, chairs, and guests. Splashes of blood marred the opulence. Shattered glasses, limp arms beneath a collapsed buffet table, the flicker of once-beautiful chandeliers still trembling from the violence. Some guests were groaning, others unconscious. A few would never rise again.

And there, as conspicuous as a troll at a tea party, stood a part-giant: Brock. The towering brute of a man wasn’t difficult to recognize, even through the smoke and the dust. Gideon did not know the man personally, but he had seen him once or twice. The sort of man who gave teenagers hard liquor to make fast friends in Hogsmeade. Gideon had never taken him up on the offer. He had his vices, sure, but they were curated, cultivated like rare poisons. Brock was unrefined rot in a whisky bottle.

Brock hadn’t caused this. All of this in any case. Not alone. But Gideon would not ponder this for long. In truth, the boy did not care.

Gideon’s eyes scanned the ruin for her, Taylor. A cold, clawing dread dug beneath his ribs. Something tight, something alien to his carefully controlled equilibrium. It wasn’t anger this time. It was something sick. Sharp.

He took a step forward, he needed to find her.

Then he smelled something awful. The return of Clark Baird. The scent was distinct: shit with a hint of desperation. And then came the voice.

“Giddy Boy!” Clark chirped brightly. “I’ll catch you soon! I’ve got something to deal with!” His voice was candy-coated, almost singsong. And then...

The switch flipped.

“If I catch you,” Clark growled, the words laced with bile, “you’re not surviving the encounter.”

Gideon didn’t look his way. He didn’t flinch. He simply stared ahead, scanning the wreckage for a glint of yellow hair or the hem of her dress. The rest, including the mad dog behind him, was just noise. Mixed signals? This entire day was a curse.

He didn’t have time to deal with bipolar-boy.

A middle finger, it was all Clark deserved, maybe even less. But Gideon knew better. With someone like that, any response was encouragement. So he offered nothing. Not even a glance. Just a cold, calculated feigned deafness, the kind that comes naturally to the privileged and deeply unbothered.

But then he saw her, his cousin, Taylor Athanatos. She was sprawled at the bottom of the fissure, her pale body twisted in a way that made something primal scream inside his chest. Dust clung to her silver-blonde hair. Her wrist was bent at a wrong angle. Blood smeared the corner of her mouth. Her dress was torn, one shoe missing. She looked battered.

Yes. Some of that was him.

He was not gentle with her, but his spell had worked. The slugs had come up. The parasite, he did not see them leave her and there was a nagging sense of horror that he denied himself... that perhaps maybe he had gotten it wrong. But this broken, unconscious shape at the bottom of a chasm was his nightmare.

He moved without hesitation. A blur of designer coattails and clenched jaw, he vaulted over the edge, boots skidding on unstable stone. A glimmer of light, something flying fast from the periphery, Finnegan’s wand had cast an attack from above? Gideon never noticed. He didn’t see it. Didn’t feel it. Finnegan had missed and Gideon did not care. Another came from his brother, another miss. The threads of fate had already chosen who was meant to die and it was not him.

The impact of his landing on the fissure floor sent a bolt of pain up Gideon's legs, but he ignored it. He was already dropping to his knees beside her, hands trembling as he reached to brush the hair from her bruised cheek. She was too still. Too quiet.

Her skin, normally warm, had cooled. “Tay…” he whispered, his voice breaking in half. “Taylor.” No response. His hands hovered above her, afraid to touch her too roughly, afraid to feel how many bones had broken. His breath hitched. What if I’m too late.

He thought of the slugs. Of the slow way she’d changed. The twitching. The distant eyes. The loss of her voice. The way she’d bitten him. She had been hollowing. And he had been so angry with her. But now all he wanted was for her to open her eyes.

She looked like something else. It was the way his brain tried to cope with the horror. She did not look like a hagling. She did not look like Taylor either. He could not see his cousin, the girl he used to braid terrible knots into, the girl who used to shadow him in gardens while whispering about secrets the moon told her. The one who laughed at things she shouldn’t and always knew more than she let on.

And now as Taylor laid there like discarded porcelain, and something ripped in Gideon. “No,” he said, sharper this time. His wand was already out, trembling in his hand. Healing spells. Stabilization. Would it be enough? Was he enough?

Gideon knelt in ash and ruin, looking like death’s last wish. He bowed his head against hers, forehead to temple, closing his eyes. “Please,” he whispered. “Stop dying.” The ballroom continued in its chaos all about them. But Gideon Athanatos, heir to cruelty, to legacy, to vision felt nothing but helplessness.

His voice trembled as he uttered a word of power, "Episkey."

Action: Gideon attempts to heal Taylor using the spell Episkey.

Mathias was rattled. Bruised pride, aching bones, and a rapidly unraveling wedding day weren’t exactly what the newest heir apparent had planned when he commissioned a band of women hot enough to be veela and spent a small fortune on color-matching hex-resistant dinnerware. But now, here he was, dusty, furious, and flung into a goddamn chasm with his new wife, as well as a few dozen others and a rapidly cracking grip on reality.

And then came the voice. Not Pride's voice. Not Pride's thoughts. Mathias did not know that the voice belonged to Harlan, but his wand spoke to him. Harlan's voice clawed inside his skull like Mathias was wearing his skin wrong. Screaming. Panicking. Demanding answers to a question he was never told. He could barely parse the words, but the desperation was unmistakable. And maddening.

"What the hell is going on! What the fuck is this? What are you doing to me? Give me back my body. What did you do? Why? Who are you? What is this? What language were you speaking? Why me? Oh fuck. Why me?"

“Shut up,” Mathias barked, aloud or not he didn’t know. It was definitely out-loud. He winced, clutching his head with one hand as he pulled himself to his feet with the other. He felt disoriented. Split somehow. Like someone else was wearing his nerves.

But none of that mattered now. His goddamned spell missed his ass-hat of a brother. Where was Winnie? He turned, she was not hard to find, considering most people had sense enough to not wear the same color as the bride and she was wearing the most princess of dresses. There she was. Her wand raised, fierce and red and powerful, already protecting them both like the badass bride she was.

...and Nabi.

Not that he remembered her name or even recognized the girl. Mathias frowned at the space behind the shield, which suddenly felt very cramped.

Mundane Action: He reached out and shoved Nabi. Not hard enough to injure, but firm, entitled. He does not care if he does in fact injure her.

“Make yourself useful or make yourself small.” Mathias declared, sweating, bleeding somewhere probably, and full of impotent rage. Gideon had not gotten himself killed. His wedding was ruined, he wanted speeches and a chance to lord his new position and name over the wizarding world.

“Winnie, we need to get out of here,” he growled, eyes wild. “We are not dying in some dirty hole!”

And then, the spell. Not pretty magic. Not impressive. Just what he needed. His fingers curled around his wand like a man gripping a lifeline. He raised it toward the fissure wall, voice cracking with focus and fury: “Ascendio!” Aimed at Winnie rather than himself, a test run to see how well it goes and if leaving the pit was a sure-fire way to get killed. Winnie would likely see it as him saving her, rather than him dangling his new bride like a piece of bait. But what she did not know could not hurt him.

Magic Action: levitate Winnie to the upper level. If she does not attract a barrage of spells or blows, he follows.

Interacting: @Nabi Park | @Mathias Pride

Outfit: ✿

Mentioning: @

English | Irish | Internal thoughts

Winnie didn't have time to properly cast before the world around her tilted, she only could scream for her husband. "Mattie!" The name ripped from her throat, but was swallowed by the rumbling of the ground shifting below them. She remembered seeing a flash of his face, then just pain. She was not unfamiliar with pain given her history with Quidditch, but it did knock the wind of her lungs.

When the ceiling groaned, she did not have time to dodge or think before the rubble begin to rain down on them, the collapse announcing its arrival with a thunderous boom. The sharp pieces sliced into her skin, spilling her blood like maroon ribbons. The skirts of her dress, too tangled around her ankles from her earlier fall, had hindered her movement.

There was a loud RIIIIP as the gossamer fabric of her veil, once placed with painstaking care on top of her head, was wrenched away, snagged by a stray piece of the fallen ceiling. Mere minutes ago she had been surrounded by loved ones, a vision dressed in a princess gown and veil. Now her dress hung off her, the torn white fabric marred by crimson blooms from where the rubble had sliced into her skin. Stray locks of her copper hair clung to the sticky blood smeared on her face but otherwise had stayed in place; Aly had done a damn good job.

But there was no time to cry over shattered dreams, no time to wonder why she could not have a day of happiness. Only time to survive, to protect. The shield charm boomed over her with a crack of light, a shimmering translucent fortress.

As soon as the shield was in place, her mind focused on Mathias. She spun on her heel when she heard his voice, just in time to miss him pushing Nabi out of their little bubble. "Mathias!" She practically sprung on him, trembling fingers cupped his face, wiping away smears of blood. "Thank god, thank god..." She whispered, her tears streaking through the grime and blood matted on her face.

Breathe. He's alive, he's fine. Smooth the cracks.

She faintly registered someone calling for Lady Athanatos, taking a moment before realizing that was her. Nabi. The poor thing was also injured. "Y-You can call me Winnie, and I'm fine, are you okay?" At least she seemed to be in their dome, or... if she wasn't, Winnie would try to usher her back inside.

"I mean, yes! We need to get out, but you're hurt, I need to heal you!" She protested when he told her they needed to get out of the hole. Her hand gripped her wand, ready to cast until she suddenly felt an unknown force lifting her. NO! Not without you!

"Matt, no!" She pleaded, trying to grab his hand and failing, the shadows of the pit blurring past her. She thought he was trying to be the hero, trying to get her to safety. Her heels clicked against the stone as she landed outside of the fissure, her heart lurching in her throat.

She moved quickly, her wand hand shot out, "Episkey!" She cast, sending a jolt of light towards Mathias.

"Grab my hand!" She begged, trying to lean into the fissure and grab whatever part of him she could, "Nabi, we'll get you out next! Stay inside the shield, it's safe there for now!"

INVENTORY: ❤︎ Wand (Wandmaker ability)

Reducio

Phoenix Feather
• 10% chance that a random spell known by the caster will be cast in addition to the spell that they have already cast. The spell will target the same target the caster had attacked/aided with a spell that round. If the spell cast had no target, then a target is assigned randomly with no consideration of friend or foe. The second spell still has to go through the normal targeting mechanics, it would not be an automatic hit or anything. This effect will not take place if the wand is not drawn.
• In duells the wand only chooses from the list of official duelling spells.
• +2 accuracy to spells cast.

❤︎ Hairpins (in hair)

❤︎ Cosmetic Puff

PARAGON ALLIES: Mathias & Evelynn (10% health boost based on their stamina).
MAGIC ACTION: Casting Episkey on Mathias (+30% whatever she heals him due to Healing Sage ability).
MUNDANE ACTION: Reaching to either grab Mathias or help him out of the hole.

@Aly Salinger | Dress

Dee and Aly barely managed to dodge the fissure suddenly racing across the ballroom, swallowing anything and everything in its path – including the rest of Dee's friends and the wedding crasher. She whirled around, confused – she'd marked the part-giant as the main threat for now, but the source of this destruction had been in the wrong direction for that, and the giant hadn't done anything that could have caused it. Her eyes skipped over the few remaining people, most of them watching from the safety of the bar, but she couldn't make out anyone for certain. Athanatos was there (the old one), Professor Lécuyer … Harlan? There was some commotion going on, spells flying, but their sources and targets were hard to make sense of. It was clear, however, that they had to watch their backs as well as their fronts. At least she had Aly around, and they had a moment of reprieve since the giant, too, had gone down.

"Is Winnie going to be mad about this, do you think?" Dee mused, hiking her stained and torn dress up to her thigh for better manoeuvrability. Not the ruined wedding – no, that had been doomed from the start. Fashion was clearly the primary concern. When she peeked down into the sudden chasm, she was relieved to make out a few silhouettes below. They'd survived the fall, at least, and she had to believe that her friends were fine.

She turned back to Aly just in time to see her kick at the nearby house-elf, and she blinked, surprised. "Wh– Aly, what the fuck—" Was this the right moment to start a lecture on house-elf rights? The tiny things were fragile; they'd likely be the first casualties of this disaster anyway. Did she really have to kick them on top of everything? But before she could decide whether to bring down moral judgement on her best mate, their reprieve was over. She spotted the giant climbing up the side of the fissure at a mad pace, and casting the spell she'd prepared earlier took priority. She saw Aly's spell go off, afflicting the part-giant with one hell of a conjunctivitis. (He didn't seem happy about it.)

But just before Dee managed to grab him by the ankle, the friendly part-giant escaped the dungeons and promptly decided to bring down the ceiling. A sharp crack, then the screaming of marble coming apart in ways it was never meant to. After half a second of gaping in disbelief as the cracks spread across the ceiling, support beams buckling like matchsticks – how could anyone be that strong? Caving in the roof by punching a pillar? Ridiculous – Dee managed to dive out of the way just in time to evade the rock chunks raining down all around them. It took her a moment longer to realise that this time Aly had not followed.

"Shit – Aly? Aly!" Dee called, increasingly frantic as she tried to spot her best friend in the settling dust. She found her a moment later, looking battered but already climbing to her feet. "Are you okay?" she demanded, panic lacing her voice. Her earlier humour was gone. "Shit, you're bleeding!" Which Dee seemed to be vastly more concerned about than Aly herself, who immediately went back to casting. Dee's eyes widened. "Wait—" Knives? Was Aly trying to kill the bloke? He had just brought the ceiling down on their heads, but still… Perhaps it was experiences and beliefs from years past at work in her subconscious, but a lot of wizards ganging up on one part-giant who didn't even appear to have a wand seemed… wrong. She wanted him incapacitated, not dead. Gritting her teeth, she changed tack, and could only pray that she was fast enough – that she would catch him before he dropped, or was skewered by knives.

Magical Action | Casting Orbis at the (levitated) Part-Giant
Mundane Action | Judging Aly smh

Sta 7 | Eva 16 | Str 4 | Wis 18 | Arc 10 | Acc 22
Evasive Maneuvers | Charmer | Perfectionist I + II | Spell Spread | Restricted Potions | Apparition

Inventory | Wand, 2 x Felix Felicis (1 used), 1 x Moonseed Poison, 1 x Antidote to Uncommon Poisons, 1 x Blood Replenishing Potion

There are 5 dead house elves, 8 KO'd house elves with 2 failed death saving throws. Taylor & Dylan are KO with 2 failed saves each.

On the fissure's edge... [Erin Ryan, Sayaka Ito, Avery Grey & Mikey Forville]

@Avery Gray was surrounded by chaos, the broken ballroom had shown the guests of the wedding no mercy. The marble floor beneath them, once polished to a sheen, was fractured like glass, each crack a reflection of the chaos still unraveling throughout the Augury Cloister. The air once sweet with flowers now hung heavy with the scent of dust, smoke, and something metallic, the unmistakable tang of spilled blood.

“Do you hear me? I’m here now, it’s okay. You did it, you’re out of the pit. Don’t close your eyes, okay?” @Mikey Forville’s voice wavered somewhere between command and plea, people don't say "okay" when they are confident. Those words were soft but taut with desperation. Comfort was a fragile thing, they were far from safe. The roof still groaned under the weight of itself, the ballroom was littered with collapsed stone and the aftermath of spellfire, and their friend, @Dylan Astor, lay crumpled in the pit below, unmoving.

Mikey couldn’t let the chaos swallow Dylan too. Someone had to help, and if not him, then who? He would have to leave Avery, but perhaps there was some hesitation. “You’re going to be alright, yeah? You’re out. You’re safe now.” Mikey repeated it as if saying the words enough times could make them true. As if willpower alone could rewrite what had already been written in blood and ruin. They were far from safe, and he was about to leave her alone. “I just, just need to get him out too.” Mikey announced. Maybe he was trying to get her to stop him. Maybe he wanted her to come with him. Maybe he was delaying his descent in case someone else was willing to do what he was about to do.

Within the dark fissure, where the light from devastated candelabras flickered faintly over motionless shapes below. So many people had fallen in there. Some were simply scraped and bruised, but others were unmoving and a few looked like they might be dead. The walls of the Augury shuddered again, a tired groan from a dying building, and somewhere nearby, the wizards still fought, their fury echoing through what had once been a dance floor.

Mikey was not able to wait any longer. He descended into the pit.

Mikey enters the pit (DC 20)
Roll: 13 (Evasion +7) 20 Success
Evasive Maneuvers: 52

Mikey’s shoes scraped against the fractured marble as he half-slid, half-fell into the pit. The slope was steeper than it looked, nearly vertical, each handhold and foothold crumbled under his weight, dust and debris cascading down with him.

Mikey hit the bottom hard, knees buckling, palms skidding across the uneven floor. Pain from his braded palms flared, sharp and fleeting. Just a few steps away, Dylan lay sprawled across a floor of the fissure on uneven ground. His friend was motionless, his limbs bent in ways that would make someone's stomach twist. His face, pale, dust-streaked, and far too still, Dylan looked nothing like the person Mikey had shared jokes with only hours ago.

Dylan Death saving throw
Roll: 49 (failed)

Dylan was not doing well. His life was slipping away.

Another girl had also found her way to the teenager; she was tall for a woman and had blonde hair. She shared features with members of the Athanatos clan despite her part-Veela heritage. Her name was @Erin Ryan, too distant a cousin to share the infamous name. In truth, Erin was still touched and she was just as frantic as the rest. The paranoia she once had those years in Hogwarts did not disappear, she just learned how to pretend she was 'normal', to the point of abnormality. It made her present vocation, an Auror hopeful, a logical choice. As bad as today might be, she already knew the cost of days like this.

Erin was hardly an academic during her years at Hogwarts, Erin Ryan had never been one for books or lectures. Charms had bored her, Transfiguration had frustrated her, and Healing... well, that had always felt like a discipline for gentler souls. The former Slytherin had been a fighter, not a mender. She knew this, but she had to try she reasoned. Erin raised her wand. The motion was steady, measured, a gesture born of necessity, not confidence.

Erin cast Episkey on Dylan
Roll: 1 critical failure

Again, Erin was hardly an academic. She tried, said the words, made the wand movement-thing. She had even tried, despite her limited confidence and obvious lack of competence. A spark of temporary hope surged through her when a glow rippled over Dylan's skin, seeping into the bruises, the shallow cuts, the places where life had started to slip away. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The light flickered, dimmed... then steadied, pulsing once, twice. Then, as if she had dropped a cinderblock on his ribs, his chest collapsed, became slightly concave.

Failed Death Saving Throw x2

The color had already left Dylan’s face, he was dying and if they did not act soon he would surely pass. Others were in a similar dire state, @Sayaka Ito had survived the impact and the fall but she was bleeding badly. Ignored, she bled out.

Sayaka Ito is KO

On the Fissure Floor [Elizabeth Stonewall, Nabi Park & Clark Baird]

The part-goblin's voice chopped the air like a rusty blade. "Giddy Boy! I'll catch you soon! I have something to deal with... If I catch you, you are not surviving the encounter."

@Clark Baird lived somewhere on the knife-edge between lust and violence, there was no room for anything softer, anything one could define as moderate. The part-goblin's temper was a volatile cocktail: quick to ignite, impossible to pour back into the bottle. One moment Baird's eyes were too bright with want, the next they were hard and hungry with a promise of harm. Tonight, whatever restraint the teen ever had had already skidded off the edge.

Standing opposite him was @Nabi Park, the catalyst of Clark's latest indignity, and the only plausible obstacle to Clark’s theatrics. The rest of the guests were focused on survival, on escaping, healing their friends and dying family members, on managing the rampaging part giant. Not Nabi, she was apparently as petty as Clark was. In a strange scene on the floor of the fissure, the stand-off between the girl and goblin would seem strange. The Slytherin girl was tall in a way that made the part-goblin look small and petulant, not merely taller but comparatively composed. Nabi was far from perfect, her gown torn, her hair askew and her make-up smudged, but she looked like she belonged.

They tried to dominate the space in their own way, diametrically opposed in how they did so, but both equally effective. Her with posture, perfectionism and dignity and Baird tried to dominate the space with power, volume and force. A head-butt against Nabi would not be a clever move; but Clark put little thought into most things he did. This would be an admission of miscalculation. She was nearly a foot taller than the part-goblin and acrobatics of reaching her head alone made the threat bravado rather than a promise.

But Clark Baird would attempt anyway.

Clark attempts to head butt Nabi
Attack 8 (+8) 16
Evasion 20 (+6) 26

Clark lunged forward with all the reckless energy of a firework launched too soon, his face twisting into something between fury and anticipation. He meant to make it brutal: a headbutt meant to crack bone and pride alike. Instead, the head-butt was almost graceful in its failure.

The part-goblin’s momentum carried him forward in a blur, missing Nabi’s face by a wide, nearly comical margin. His forehead sliced through nothing but air before his balance betrayed him, boots slipping against the debris-strewn floor. The sound that followed was an ugly mix of grunt, skid, and impact, like someone trying to fight a wall and losing spectacularly.

Not to say that Nabi escaped without offense. A sour stench clung to Clark as he scrambled upright, a rank odor of fear and sweat and something gone terribly wrong. Still reeling from his failed attack, the foul odor continued to radiate from Clark like a visible haze, thick enough that even the nearest students recoiled. Nabi would have the unpleasant honor of experiencing the fetid scent up close.

Other students, equally offended and even diverted from the true threat, that being the part giant, the collapsing building, the dying family and friends. That was when another voice cut through the chaos.

“Maybe wash up next time or I won’t do this.”

@Elizabeth Stonewall stood a few paces away, posture straight and unbothered, her wand already leveled at Clark. Then the incantation passed through her lips, her tone dripping with equal parts disdain and composure. “Scourgify.”

Elizabeth attempts to cast Scourgify on Clark
Attack 4 (+9) 13
Evasion 9 (+15) 24

A jet of cleansing magic burst from her wand, slicing through the air in a bright arc. The spell hit, just not the intended target. The stream of light veered just slightly off course, flashing past Clark’s shoulder, cleansing the wall behind him. The stone gleamed with pristine cleanliness. Clark Baird, however, remained a human disaster. Thus, the stink lingered powerful and triumphant. A few onlookers groaned audibly, one muttering something about transferring to Koldovstoretz, boy would they be disappointed in a few weeks...

While Clark was the assailant now, he was looking to enact revenge in the only language he knew: unreasonable violence. His headbutt had missed, Elizabeth's attempt to cleanse him of his shame had veered off miserably. Yet Clark was still focused on Nabi. The part-goblin's wand slashed through the air and a word of power escaped his lips, “Flippendo!”

The common duelling jinx burst forth, blue light arcing wildly as if fueled by raw spite more than focus. It streaked across the pit, casting warped shadows across the jagged walls. The energy snapped against the air, too much power in a spell meant for a schoolyard scuffle: reckless, volatile, and all too fitting for the part-goblin’s blind rage.

Clark cast Flippendo on Nabi
Attack 1 (+8) critical failure
Evasion 7 (+6)

Somewhere in the back of Clark's mind, perhaps a rational voice (smaller than even his stature, buried deep) whispered that he would regret this. But Clark had long since forgotten the meaning of restraint. Perhaps he should learn it. Perhaps he would, but not today. In fact, today was not Clark's day. The spell backlashed and sent Clark flying backwards into the wall of the recently fissure. Elizabeth's scourgify completely undone, a strange, dark moisture splattered on the wall where the teen had landed.

The pettiness of it all in a life-or-death situation should have been comical. Nabi, for all her poise, lashed back at the boy. She was still standing behind thar shield that was at the moment unnecessary for her defense considering Clark's lack of luck or competence, perhaps both. Nabi should be trying to help the dying teens of the ground, both Dylan and Taylor both lay dying. Those attempting to render aid were failing brilliantly. Nabi should be trying to climb out of this pit, find an escape before the walls fell on them and buried them all. But she was not doing any of that. She was not trying to save anyone, she was trying to set Clark Baird, the smelliest goblin on fire.

Nabi attempts to cast incendio on Clark
Attack 11 (+5)
Evasion 16 (+15)

While her intent to harm might have been present, her capacity was limited. She would have been lucky to hit her mouth with her fork with that level of accuracy, but luck was certainly not on Clark's side until now perhaps she reasoned. All the same, the spell missed, she nearly lit a stone afire.


A Father's Intervention [Octavius Kennedy & Clark Baird]

That would not be the end of this deluge of actions, oddly focused on the teenager rather than the veritable threats in front of them. One could be thankful, or concerned that @Octavius Kennedy was there. Octavius, the former Professor of Astronomy, former school nurse, and present History of Magic Professor. He had a rather... extensive catalog of skills or at least a knack for getting hired when credentials were questionable or limited. One would have thought a man with that level of experience could compartmentalize the numerous elements and prioritize the most important. The floor was split, the ceiling had collapsed, there were dozens injured, several unconscious and even dying, but Octavius seemed to be preoccupied corralling his charges. Of all the elements he could have focused on, he had decided to take note of Clark's attempted assault of Nabi Park.

Professor Baird moved on pure instinct; a father’s panic sharpened into deadly precision. His shoes skidded across the fractured floor as the marble floor groaned beneath them, every crack in the tiles threatening to swallow them whole. The former Professor lunged, arms wrapping tightly around the small frame of one of his sons, Baldric. They, Octavius and Baldric both, hit the ground hard, the breath punched out of him, but his son Baldrick was safe for now at least. The Professor could have possibly been put to better use defusing the violent scenario, but perhaps this was a good second choice.

The Hogwarts Professor was already rolling to his feet, wand out, his movements practiced and desperate. The chaos around him blurred, the collapsing rafters, the screeches, the smell of scorched stone and oddly enough fecal matter, but through it all, he found his mark: Clark Baird. His son, probably adopted but the narrator did not bother to look it up his dating history. Clark was mid-motion, his face twisted in the throes of that familiar, feral rage, his wand still raised from the spell he had cast that had backfired spectacularly. Octavius didn’t hesitate, the boy was a greater threat to himself than this act of terror was.

Octavius cast Portrait Curse on Clark
Attack 20 (+15)critical success
Evasion 3 (+15)

The incantation tore through the air, sharp as a whip crack. The spell hit like a hammer, unerring, unrelenting. A swirl of magic burst outward, splintering the dim light into ribbons of blue as it enveloped Clark in a whirl. For a heartbeat, Clark's expression was perhaps frozen mid-snarl, body outlined in a shivering aura of silver and white. Then the light folded inward with a sound like shattering glass, and where Clark Baird had stood, there was only a painted figure on the wall, trapped within the brushstrokes of a mostly finished portrait, eyes wide in impotent fury.

The portrait curse was a dangerous spell, reckless even, especially here. The curse tethered its victim to the place of its casting. If the building fell, so too would the painting and the soul within.


To Fight a Monster one Must Fight as a Monster [Aly Salinger, Brock, Thaddeus Athanatos, & Dealla Prince]

This. Was. Sparta!

Or, more accurately, an offensively overpriced wedding venue filled with fragile egos, questionable fashion choices, and too much imported champagne. The Augury Cloister had seen better days. The ballroom was an amalgamation of chaos and perfume, with curses flying like confetti.

Beside @Aly Salinger, Nubby, the house elf whose treachery had apparently crossed the line from inconvenient to unforgivable was unconscious. He was unconscious and fighting a winning battle against death.

Death saving throw Nubby.
Roll: 78

That is until Aly exacted her revenge which was swift and final. Indeed, there was no more fighting, no chance to apologize or run. Then, in a move that would’ve made even Leonidas proud, Aly sent the house elf flying backward. There was no means for the house elf to defend itself, to brace itself or save itself during the fall. There was a distant thud.

Nubby is dead.

There were several other troublesome heathens dying all about the Augury Cloister.

Death Saving Throws:
Stinky 48 failed - dead
Gopher 21 failed - dead
Lally 60 passed
Kibert 69 passed
Frumpy 36 failed
8 unnamed house elves 6 failed x2 (dead), 61 passed, 81 passed, 50 passed, 33 failed, 17 failed, 69 passed, 9 failed x2 (dead)

Several of the house elves died on the floor. Some, so inconsequential that they were not even named. That was the bitter truth for many creatures that existed on the margins of society. They worked, some even thrived, but they were not valued and they were not known. Not that there was no assistance, no advocacy, but some people chose to stand on a soapbox not for the merit of their work and their endeavor, but for the favor and opinion they garnered from their kind-hearted stance. There was a sense of theatre to all things and this was no exception. In the end, you can offer a hand to someone or kick them in the face, but were they truly a rival or a friend if you did not bother to ask their name?

The ballroom trembled as if the very bones of the estate recoiled from what it contained. Dust and heat shimmered between the two men: one, a mountain of sinew and fury; the other, an unmoving figure carved of composure and command.

The part-giant Brock’s voice tore through the air. “You hide behind shadows, old man! Let me see your power without the tricks, without the blood!” He bellowed with a rage of a lifetime of consequence for just being.

Thaddeus’s reply came like a calm wave crushing a city. Thaddeus was the personification of power as legacy. Not to say he did not earn his power, he most certainly did. But there was a difference between the two of them and it was becoming more and more apparent as the seconds passed. “Tricks?” He raised his hand, gloved fingers still glistening faintly with blood from the earlier fissure. “Child, I do not hide behind shadows. I simply give them purpose.”

The spell left the wizard without flourish, without shout. It was a simple, unadorned act that lacked the theatrics of his opponent. The air rippled, silent, invisible, then the chandeliers above Brock screamed, their crystal guts liquefying into molten glass that twisted downward like fanged rain.

Thaddeus manipulates the chandelier, causing it to fall from the ceiling like weighted daggers into Brock.
Attack 3 (+25) Success
Evasion 11 (+ 15/7)

Brock threw up an arm, the infernal shards biting into his flesh. He bellowed through the pain, “you think this will break me?!” Brock had all the subtlety of a charging troll and roughly the same self-preservation instinct. A room full of wands turned toward him, and he grinned as if that were applause. Broad-shouldered, blood already crusting at his temple, he refused to give in, even as he grew weaker. He seemed to simply possess that peculiar confidence reserved for those too stubborn or too stupid to feel fear.

Aly Salinger, on the other hand, knew exactly what fear was and how to gift it to others. She twirled her wand once, the tip leaving a pale arc in the air before it snapped forward.
“Pluviae Acuta!” The room, still dark from the creeping fog, seemed to twist under her command. The darkness drifted in lazy ribbons that suddenly coalesced in response to her incantation, every wisp sharpening into sleek, glinting blades. For a heartbeat, the space filled with the hiss of a thousand invisible knives drawing breath. Then they fell.

Aly cast Smoke to Daggers on Brock
Attack 11 (+16) 27 Success
Evasion 19 (+15/7) 26
100 damage

It wasn’t a warning shot; not that Aly Salinger fought often, but she was also not in the habit of giving warnings when finality would suffice. The spell rained down with the deliberate precision of someone who had long since decided mercy was a waste of magic. As deceptively agile as Brock might have been, without the necessary traction, he was not able to avoid the hailstorm.

Brock might have been strong, might have been fearless, but as the storm of spectral daggers descended, it became very clear that Aly intended to test which of those qualities would break first.

Keen Eye: 2 Success

Aly’s sharp eyes missed little, even through the blur of motion and chaos. As one of her conjured blades sliced across Brock’s chest, the fabric of his plain shirt split open and there, for the briefest moment, she caught sight of something strange beneath. Not a wound. A mark. A scar that looked less like the aftermath of injury and more like an emblem, burned into his flesh with cruel precision. It was faint, old perhaps, but unmistakable: a brand etched over his heart.

The sight of it was almost as jarring as the violence unfolding around them. “Is this your legacy?” Brock rasped, choking on his own blood, voice half fury, half something else. “A dying breed that hides behind one's cruelty?” Brock slumped over, his massive form so battered by the barrage that his features would make it a challenge to recognize him.

It was then that Thaddeus spoke again. “No,” Thaddeus answered, stepping forward, voice deepening as the earth itself seemed to lean in to listen. “Breaking is for the living. You will simply end.”

The scene itself was carnage, a macabre dance of light and steel. The daggers Aly had conjured whirled and dove, glittering like a murder of metallic crows. The iron maiden transformed from a light fixture. Brock's fury was a physical thing, but he no longer moved and he no longer fought. Hovering in the heart of the ballroom, blood running in small rivulets wherever gravity took them. No longer conscious, he would fall.

@Dealla Prince watched, horror hollowing her chest. She had seen dark things before, she nor Hogwarts was no stranger to tragedy, but this… this was something different. They weren’t defending themselves anymore. Aly wasn’t trying to stop Brock, not that Dee likely knew his name. Aly was trying to kill him. And Aly just killed that house elf, Nubby: another nameless tragedy. That realization should have hit the girl like ice water.

She saw it all. How daggers rained down in shimmering arcs, slicing through the air with eerie precision. Brock’s blood splattered the broken marble, the smell of iron thick in the air. He thrashed, swinging his fists at shadows, teeth bared in futile defiance. But Aly’s spellwork was cruelly elegant, he could reach nothing, no one. Brock could hit the walls, the ceiling, even the supporting pillars, but each impact sent cracks racing up the structure, threatening to bring the entire venue down around them.

It was chaos balanced on a knife’s edge: one trembling breath away from complete collapse. And Dealla knew, with gut-deep certainty, that if Brock didn’t stop soon, the whole ballroom: every screaming guest, every broken wall, every trembling soul would come down with him. But did he need to die to prevent that from happening?

And who in their right mind would end things like this? Who would tear down everything around them just to prove a point? Dee didn’t have time to find the answer. But she was also not trying to kill him, but she might see him killed all the same. With no room for understanding, no space for conversation, when Brock fell limp and he started to fall she had to act. The world had narrowed to motion and instinct. Dealla wand snapped, “Orbis!”

The ground shuddered in response, the marble beneath Brock’s feet rippling like liquid.

Casting Orbis at Brock
Attack 7 (+22) = 29 Success
Evasion 19 (+0) = 19

The spell was earth magic in its purest and cruelest form. The floor split with a deep groan, cracks spreading outward like veins, and from within rose a swirl of churning soil and dust that possessed an azure glow. The magic coiled around the half-giant, pulling him downward, encasing him in a tightening orb of stone and dirt.

Another knife cut him, that one too deep, as he was pulled into the ground. The earth was hungry and her command absolute. But he was not screaming, nor was he thrashing anymore...

___________

The Executioner's Dulled Axe [Harlan Montomgery]

@Harlan Montgomery was a ladies man, just not in a way even a teenage boy would have wanted.

Hags, often described as crones, twisted and terrible creatures whose appearance was as twisted as their strange, dark hearts. The three crones were beautiful, impossibly so. Their faces were masks of youth, perfect and ageless, but their eyes were older than sin. When they spoke, it was not aloud but through the marrow of the boy’s bones.



The command reverberated through Harlan’s skull like a tolling bell. His body moved in spite of his mind's protest. The Imperius-like charm that bound him gave his limbs a dreadful grace, his wand rising with the inevitability of a noose tightening. He was a child in motion, a puppet on invisible strings, and the hand that guided him was cruel.

The incantation for the Fire-starting spell, empowered by years of learning and practice came like a crack of thunder. “Incendio Duo!”

Fire leapt from the wand, a brilliant arc of orange and blue, flaring across the debris-choked air. They struck, almost true, but not quite. Flames brushed Thaddeus Athanatos’s coat, licking up the edge of his sleeve before dying against some unseen ward. The scent of scorched wool mingled with the ruinous air. What would have been the consequence if the spell met it's mark?

Those hags were trying to kill him like Aly with a wand near a giant.

Harlan’s chest heaved. The magic fought itself inside him: one force commanding, another resisting. His muscles spasmed; his wand hand trembled. Stop, he tried to wrest back control. Stop stop stop!

The Impedimenta still held him. A spell of restraint woven moments ago now served as his salvation. Locked mid-motion, he strained against it, every nerve screaming to move, to act, to disobey. The firelight reflected in his eyes as twin suns: madness and defiance burning together.

Harlan attempts to break free of the Impedimental Spell (DC 25)
Roll: 12 (+13) 25 Success

Then, suddenly, it broke. Unseen tethers snapped. Harlan would feel his knees buckle slightly. He weight of freedom would feel strange, like his limbs did not have the right weight. He was still not in control of his motions, his mind might have screamed to back away but his foot still stepped forward.

His mental fortitude battled against the manicured grips of the coven.

Harlan attempts to break free of the hag's control.
Roll: 18 (+ 12) 30 Success

A gasp tore from his throat as the invisible shackles of both spells—control and stasis—fractured like glass. The air shivered with the release. The charm that had ruled his will collapsed, and the echo of the hags’ voices faded, leaving silence, heavy and human. A strange gap, a hollow was left in their wake. Control was his once again, and where he had a singular focus: freedom, what did he have now?

Harlan staggered forward, free. Whatever he had been a moment ago: a weapon, a puppet, a curse in motion, a distraction... was gone.
___________
A Husband's Caution [Mathias Athanatos (Pride), Winnie Athanatos (Harper), brief mention of Nabi Park and Clark Barid]

@Mathias Athanatos was, above all else, a man of self-preservation. Even on his wedding day, especially on his wedding day, his priority was clear: survival first, sentiment second. What good was love, after all, if he wasn’t alive to savor its benefits?

With the venue quite literally collapsing around him thanks to the unwelcome appearance of a terror organization, Mathias had no qualms about making a tactical decision: namely, using his newly minted wife, @Winnie Athanatos, as a decoy. It wasn’t that he disliked her. On the contrary, he loved her as much as a man with a sociopath’s heart could possibly love anything... selfishly, transactionally, in the way one might “love” a priceless artifact while keeping an eye on its resale value.

He was not selling anything dead.

To the onlookers: panicked guests, shrieking bridesmaids, wide-eyed house elves, it might have looked like gallantry. A husband shielding his beloved from danger, pulling her from the pit and staying behind to face disaster. A tragic romance in motion. But those who really knew Mathias (and there were precious few) understood that this was not heroism. This was calculation. She was an easy target, hovering prey wrapped in silk and tulle. If there was a dangerous offense on whatever remained of a ballroom, Winnie would take the brunt of the attack, now an Athanatos in name and regard.

“Winnie, we need to get out of here,” Matt growled, eyes wild and frantic as falling debris rained from the ceiling. “We are not dying in some dirty hole!” He shouted, face flushed. There was no tenderness Pride's his voice, only the guttural edge of a cornered animal. The Slytherin's grip tightened around his wand; not like a wizard reaching for a tool, but like a drowning man clutching at a rope that might snap. He was scared, not that he was willing to admit it. He wanted to live. He wanted to be able to fight or flee another day.

And then came the spell. Not beautiful, not complex, not even elegant, just raw necessity made manifest. “Ascendio!” The spell would lift her from the floor and if his arcane skill was great enough, and he expected it was, she would find herself on the ballroom level within moments.

Mathias attempted to cast Ascendio on Winnie
Attack 7 (+15) Hit!
Evasion 6 (+14)

The incantation cracked through the chaos, and the air itself seemed to bend to Mathias' desperation. Dust and silk and shattered light swirled upward as Mathias aimed not for glory, but for escape, dragging his bride, and his pretense of devotion, right along with him.

His bride, Winnie would find herself rising, her body jolted upward with the sudden, unnatural grace of a spell well-cast. Mathias had succeeded. Ascendio. The word still echoed in Winnie's ears as the ground fell away beneath her. The girl screamed, but not for herself. Never for herself. Her cry was for him. Not that she did not know better, because a part of her did. He loved her at times, or at least he allowed himself the delusion of love and she sometimes played along, leaning into the fantasy. But love came in various forms, those being possession and control. Not for lack of want, but an abundance of it.

Mathias stood below, his face half-lit by the sickly glow of collapsing chandeliers, the other half swallowed by shadow. Winnie reached out, arm trembling, desperate to catch his hand. For one agonizing second, their fingers nearly brushed. But the spell was faltering, she could feel it, the pull weakening as though the magic itself knew what he had done. Mathias' magic could not lift them both. And he knew it.

Mathias’s jaw clenched; his eyes flicked to her, then away just as quickly. He lowered his hands. A stubborn, deliberate motion. He wasn’t saving her. He was choosing himself although perhaps it could be taken differently, by someone that chooses rose-tinted glasses and the illusion of the life wanted rather than the one lived. She was letting her rise above it all and he was staying behind.

Indeed, Winnie refused to believe it, but part of her knew it. Denial was a softer pain than the truth. It was easy to contort perception, he was being brave. A hero. A husband willing to risk it all. She would find herself at the edge of the fissure, near her bridesmaids. Her heels struck stone as she landed.

“Matt, no!” Harper screamed. She could barely see him now, just the echo of his form against the flickering light of destruction. Her wand was in her hand before she realized it, her healer’s instinct overriding all else. “Episkey!”

Winnie attempted to cast Episkey on Mathias
Roll: 15 Hit

A surge of light lanced through the gloom, a pulse of gold aimed at his battered form. The energy sparked against the darkness, a fragile thread between them. Pride was feeling much better, but he was still in this unfortunate hole, alongside some weird little girl (Nabi Park) and a boy with a smelly vendetta (Clark).


Manifest [Evelynn Decipio & Finnegan Conner]

A scream, no a cry for help would be heard by @Evelynn Decipio. It was @Finnegan Conner, an underclassman who was, like several other young men, was enamored by the older Gryffindor. Eve was older, more mature than most and in their eyes she generally knew what to do. She made better decisions than most and maybe, to some, she was untouchable.

It was simple fact. Evelynn was the one who didn’t lose her head when everything went to hell. The one people had come to know would act, not falter. And, proving them right once more, she knew what to do when she heard Finnegan's cry.

Without hesitation, she moved, her heels slipping across the debris-strewn floor as she raised her wand. “Erecto!” she commanded, her tone cutting clean through the pandemonium. This was a spell that could construct from found resources nearby a structure, whatever she could form in her head.

Eve cast Erecto
Roll: 15 (+18)

The construction was crude, even if the intent was more decorative, only so much can be done with floral garland and gravel. The spell hit the earth ahead with a reverberating hum, and beams of light shot upward. The fractured earth shuddered, then burst upward in a controlled surge of magic. From the wreckage, a staircase began to form, its edges gleaming faintly with the golden pulse of spell light, each step rising and locking into place like the spine of something alive. The spell built quickly, bridging the gap toward safety.

A slab of granite balanced on a fractured beam of wood. Crushed plates made another platform step. “Up! Now—move!” One of the guests in the pit cried. His tone left no room for hesitation, and several others followed without question; faces pale, eyes wide, the relief of direction breaking through the panic. “Keep going!” someone else urged. “Don’t stop until you’re out!”

The building groaned in protest, but the stairs held firm. A march of wizards and those who were not touched with the gift of magic yet were somehow invited rushed up the stairs.

Eve is able to reach the ground level, many guests follow after her.

Gideon's breath hitched again. “Episkey,” the incantation left his mouth sharp and clear, wandtip trembling an inch above her battered collarbone. He’d said it before, dozens of times. It was a spell a schoolchild could manage, a balm for bruises and shallow wounds. A thing of mending. A comfort, usually. A concept that was alien to him, but he had never cared much for mending the things he broke. He knew, even with his remedial learning of the healing arts that it was not enough to cure her, he knew that Episkey would be enough to get his cousin on her feet. Enough to prove that she was still alive, because he was not even sure she was still with him.

Gideon cast Episkey
Roll: 4 Failed

A spell he was certain he could cast, that he would succeed in if he applied himself... But this time, the spell did nothing. Not even a shimmer. Not even a spark of warmth. The spell failed. It was like speaking into a void, like the magic had recoiled from her, or worse, passed right through her as if she were already gone.

Clark howled out in frustration. First he couldn't land a damn hit against a girl that seemed a bit too much like a prat, second he almost got scourgified, and third he flipendo'd himself. Finally, and the worst of it, was not so much Nabi and Elisabeth attacking him and threatening his manliness, it was the fact that his own father trapped him into a portrait.

Damned soul. He tried to scream, but also felt himself going kind of loopy, almost like he was detached from himself, then back to reality, then detached again! What was this feeling? Why did he feel like this? He wanted help, but he also felt very overwhelmed and worried. "Help!" He would call out, hoping someone at least knew a spell to reverse the effect.

He couldn't be trapped in the portrait with his stink. No, that would be torture! He had to subject it onto everyone else like a normal being, a normal soul.

It was like.. farting then asking someone who cut the cheese, or blaming someone else for it when everyone knew it was you. He couldn't own up to the scent, not unless Gideon was there. Wait, his father should trap Gideon in the portrait with him.

Clark would yell and yell and yell, but through the frames, it would appear that his own father was taking Baldrick and leaving. Did that mean.. he was being left behind? He screamed and growled and punched the floor in the painting. "FUCK YOU!" He howled with anger. "LEAVE ME HERE WITH CRAZED MANIACS? OH NO! NO NO NO! NO ONE LEAVES ME HERE WITH CRAZY PEOPLE! LET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE! GET ME OUT!" He had no idea if anyone could hear him outside the portrait, he had never been trapped in one before.

Action: Yelling and trying to escape (would this be a resist dc??)