13331/The Open Door: Sealing the Rift

The Open Door: Sealing the Rift
Date of Scene:	29 May 2021
Location:	Abandoned Subway Station - Manhatttan
Synopsis:	The supernatural hunters return to the vampire stronghold to learn about what led to the release of the vampire lords, while sealing a dangerous magical rift of epic proportions.
Cast of Characters:	Buffy Summers, Rupert Giles, Constantine, Harry Dresden, Willow Rosenberg, Spike
Tinyplot:	Open Door

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Buffy Summers has posed:
When you enter the ancient vampire stronghold again, you notice there are two rooms: the bigger one is where our heroes fought the epic battle against an army of vamps, freeing the prisoners from cages and intercepting a sacrificial ritual taking place on the raised central dais with steps leading up to a large pentagon shaped stone table. The stone table is covered in rusted blood and has a few cracks in it. It also has some engravings on the front that looks like some form of ancient Latin writing, as well as what looks like five platforms in the five corners of the large pentagonal stone table, each with an engraved symbol on the surface. Magical sensitives may sense strong magic signatures coming from the table.

Rupert Giles has posed:
Rupert Giles takes a moment to look around and then his feet take him toward that stone table. He sees writing on it. And once he reaches the table, he's proven correct. He crouches down and, though the temptation is strong to do so, does not touch it with his fingers. He does read what it says. "Hic requiescit m? falcatae, sacra telum de homicida daemones et custos sigillum."

There's a short pause as he puzzles it out. "Herein rests the M? Scythe, sacred weapon of the chosen one and guardian of the seal." He blinks and looks closer at the stone table. Pentagon shaped. He rises to his feet and walks around it in a circle, looking at any writing he can see. Looking at any magic he can see and make sense of. But mostly looking at any writing he can see and perhaps translate.

Constantine has posed:
    At least that Deadpool idiot isn't here again. That's about the only plus John can find to this situation. He really really doesn't like this place. But he's come prepared with a stack of books tossed into a bag that's tossed over his shoulder; he's mostly guessed on what might be appropriate. In another bag, he's carrying components for spells and rituals that he thinks might be relevant, including one that, if it works properly, will give them a front row seat to a psychometric show of what all might have happened here. If it doesn't go well? Who knows, they might end up BACK at that night.
    Regardless, he enters the area with all his senses on high alert, his eyes open to the magical and the mundane. His first stop... the table. He briefly glanced over the Latin along the way and muttered, "Something about killer demons and guardian seals... and a scythe..." Whatever, he's more interested in the type of magic that's all up on that table. He does, by the way, grunt a grumpy hello to whoever he might pass as he gets to work. Seriously, he's grumpy McGrumpypants tonight. Last time he was here, he got STABBED.

Harry Dresden has posed:
The furrowed brow is deeply creased. Harry glances around the room and leans lightly on his staff. Dangling at the end of a cord, just inside his duster, his blasting rod waits for trouble. Phallic symbols anyone? He turns up the duster collar a little and mutters a word. Symbols written on the leather glows briefly as he settles the power to them.

Flexing his right hand, rings there glow lightly, power hidden in them as well. Something akin to brass knuckles rest on his left hand, also aglow with power to those sensitive to see it. There will be a great deal of humor if this all falls out without any trouble, but there is a disadvantage being the squishy human sort that doesn't last long without preparation.

A return nod to Constantine and he looks around the room again, checking for something. A soft growl muttering from him about the things he gets into with his brother's girl. Since everyone else seems to have the writing under control he continues to look over the place.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow was behind everyone, trying to figure out what was this place, and how do we figure it out. Where the others were checking things, she stood by the 'doorway' and tried to picture the whole thing before honing in on something.

Something niggled within her. But what?

Spike has posed:
Spike had come along, bringing his new sword, although it was hidden in his duster coat right now. He clearly had the same tailer as those immortal folks who manage to hide swords in raincoats. Maybe there was a pocket dimension in it? Who could say. "Right, so what's this about?" He asked, picking up the annoying slack from the absent Deadpool.

Buffy Summers has posed:
Constantine's magic sends tendrils over energy over the surface of the stone, bringing to life ghostly apparitions of past memories. This place was a war zone once, and the echoes of a battle can be heard as ghostly apparitions of a vampire army marches through the massive room, headed by seven especially powerful vampire lords. They have swarmed and corned a group of heroes among which there are: A dhampire^, a Wizard, a Witch and a Slayer. The Slayer wields a weapon of incredible power, and even in the memory of a past life, it's magical power can be easily felt.

The scythe is shaped more like a Lochaber axe with a gleaming red axe head edged in silver with a sturdy stake on the other end. It glows with power and sings as it twists through the air, easily felling vampire after vampire. The Dhampire and Witch and Wizard also fell dozens of vampires with each strike, but they are running out of time..

The Witch and Wizard yell something, closing ranks and reaching out to touch the axe head in a triangular formation. There's a blinding light and when it clears, the entire room of vampires are turned to stone. The power seems to have killed the four heroes as well, sacrificing themselves on the stone table, where the scythe rests.

The images blur and flash again, as if they may change but something odd happens, the table lights up brightly and the room shakes. The writing on the table glows brilliantly, almost dangerously.

Buffy watches with a frown and,as if drawn by something beyond her comprehension, she moves as if in a trance towards the glowing words. "Something...Calling my name..Who are you?" she murmurs. But as she touches the words, she suddenly screams in pain..And collapses.

As Giles examines the five symbols, he will notice the following: One bears the shape of surf waves. One resembles rocks of a mountain, One bears brilliant flames, One resembles airy clouds. The last resembles an Ankh and Scythe intersecting.

Constantine has posed:
    John had walked a little ways away from the table and settled cross-legged on the floor. He pulled items out of one of his bags. There wasa vial of something black-ish green that stinks to high heaven when he opened it, a little copper bowl and pestle and a , a cloth pouch filled with sea-salt from the Dead Sea, a ritual blade, two owl feathers, a raven's beak, a stick of simple white chalk and an hourglass.
    Some mixing, grinding, quiet chanting, and well, just magicky stuffs and like everyone in the room being able to bear witness the past in the form of ghostly images.
    He's good at multi-tasking though and always has one eye and one part of his brain focused on the surroundings. "Someone stop her, aye? Before she winds up suitable for display in a park filled with pigeons or the like?"
    He picks up the ritual dagger and slices a shallow slice into his own palm in order to add two drops of his own blood to the mixture in the copper bowl. The last added ingredients SHOULD allow him to fast-forward and re-wind as he sees fit so maybe they can hone in on exactly what they need to see. Like who took that Scythe and where. How to seal that rift, anything specific.

Rupert Giles has posed:
Rupert Giles keeps a general eye on everyone here, noting their general locations in his mind. But for the most part, his attention is all on what he's looking at. The table and whatever symbols and writing are on it. To John's grumpy greeting, the only response is a vague, "Mm? Yes. Hello." Typical Giles. So deep in what's caught his interest that the people around him don't really register anymore.

And then there's the ghostly replay. He pauses to watch. His brow furrows as he goes back to looking at the symbols. "Elements. Water. Earth. Fire. Air. And.. For the last, faith? Religion? Spirit?" He eyes the symbols on their platforms. "I wonder.." Whatever it is he wonders is left unsaid as Buffy screams. He hadn't even noticed her moving closer to where he was standing until that scream. Now he jerks and turns toward her. Just in time to catch her as she collapses. He pats her cheek. "Buffy," he says.

Harry Dresden has posed:
"Magic." Dresden mutters when Giles talks about the five symbols,"The pentagram is the five elements surrounded by will, magic being the fifth." Before he has a chance to think any more out loud, Buffy screams and goes down. He blinks and moves his gaze to her. A few steps before he pauses again, reaching out with magic sensitivties to see what has changed other than the images.

The scowl on his face gets deeper as he takes a few steps towards Buffy, touching the pentacle on his neck absently. It's never a dull moment with this crowd. Since Giles is attempting to bring back to conciousness, he studies the room and his hand moves from the pentacle and raises to touch his brow.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Ankh and Scythe.

Giles had got four of them, but the fifth..

The Ankh. Willow wracked her brain. It had numerous meanings, mostly with death. But some people believe that it has the power to temporarily bring back to life the dead. Twice, if.. no.. yes?

"Guys.. What if the Scythe gave life. Well, partly. The past gave me a thought. What if this was made to funnel the power down, and this scythe kill another person so that the evil people could use the dead person's life force to bring back some other being?"

As she said it, she purposefully didn't mention the part where the Slayer was probably was the victim.

Spike has posed:
Spike was further away from Buffy when she collapsed, and by the time he knew she was doing it, others had rushed to her, tending, and so, Spike had the look of concern, but there wasn't much he could do. Besides, he didn't know much about health care, especially under these circumstances. He listened to the wizards, or really, mostly tuned them out. Magical mumbo jumbo to him. He was taking more of an interest in the five symbols, and as he touches his boot against one, he said, "right, nothing ventured, nothing gained." He would stand on it, having no clue what that would do. He ended up standing on the fire one. If the movies were anything to believe, what he just did was either really good, really bad, though could just be nothing at all.

Buffy Summers has posed:
Buffy Summers isn't responding to Giles, or anyone else. She's still breathing deeply as if in a trance or a deep sleep but seems largely unconscious and non responsive. Hopefully she'll eventually wake up..

And as Spike steps on the fire symbol, it grinds as it depresses into the ground..Those with magical senses can sense a sudden dangerous shift in the balance of energies in the area..And then the room suddenly grows unbearably hot. As if that's not enough, the ceiling grows red as balls of flame start to rain down violently upon the entire party.

Constantine has posed:
    It's not often that John casts magic on the fly and when he does, it's never pretty or elegant. It also always takes a toll on him. He pushes himself to his feet. "I'm going to close it, for as long as I can," he announces quietly. It could be that no one will even hear him. He raises his hands above his head and, drawing on the power of the ley lines, he begins to attempt to put a literal lid on the rift; a magic one, but still literal to anyone that will be able to see the end result of the spell he's attempting.
    It's definitely not elegant. His voice is rough, low, the words barely audible and likely not understood by most even if they were audible. He splays his fingers, to those with the ability to see, energy from the ley lines crackles and pops in electrical lines to those splayed fingers. His brow breaks out in a sweat. His nose even bleeds. The color drains from his features. His voice rises to a crescendo, loud, booming, but the words really do seem like so much nonsense, perhaps even to Giles. What language is that? Is it even a language? Probably something he learned during a trip to Hell? He can open portals to other dimensions, rifts to other worlds, he's drawing on that knowledge now to work in reverse. At the end of the spell, he slams his hands downward and, to the sighted, there's a big old glowing lid over that table, over the rift.
    John drops to one knee, then both. The strain is obvious in his continued chanting that's grown softer again, it's obvious in his expression, even in the muscles of his arms and chest. He's literally putting everything he has to give into keep the rift sealed, controlled, putting the balance right again so that everyone else can proceed magically without everything going to fucking Hell in a hand basket. He won't be able to hold it long, so people better step up the pace! If he gets burned, he doesn't seem to notice.

Harry Dresden has posed:
"You're furthur destabilizing the rift John." Dresden comments, but doesn't see a need to comment furthur. That may be what Constantine means to do to furthur his plan. Then the rift changes and Dresden nods when Constantine gets it under control,"Nice." He looks at the table and then to Buffy with a scowl and kneels next to her as well for a moment,"The table is reacting to her presence, the words triggered it and it lashed out at her."

"Maybe fire isn't the best first choice." he mutters towards Spike when he steps onto platform of his choice. He scans the room again, starting to step away from Buffy since Giles has it under control, as much as can be expected. He scans the room and sighs, walking towards the other symbols, opting for earth. Eartch magic used correctly is beyond deadly, might as well see what happens,"Whatever Spike did changed the field, pick a seal."

Rupert Giles has posed:
Rupert Giles glances to Dresden at his word. And words. "Yes," he says, momentarily distracted from trying to wake Buffy. "This symbol, Ankh and Scythe intersecting could be magic. Hmm. What order would you activate them in? They seem to be meant to be activated. Perhaps activating them is the 'will' in this case." Now it's back to patting Buffy's cheek and trying to wake her.

He nod somewhat absently to Willow, and her words get the wheels turning in his mind. "Life and death," he says. "One gives it and one takes it?" The potential to bring back an unspecified being is not a good thought.

He looks up just in time to see Spike step on the fire symbol. "Spike, don't-," is all he gets out. Then it's done, and it starts getting hot and raining... fire? "Oh bollocks," he mutters. He lifts the limp form of Buffy up in his arms and does what he can to avoid falling balls of flame. "Don't depress the wind symbol, you'll just make the fire worse. Earth or water might put out the fire," he says toward Spike.

Dresde's words and actions bring Giles to glancing at the symbols and shakes his head and walks toward the symbol for water, carrying Buffy along with him. He doesn't step on it yet, though.

Spike has posed:
With the fire symbol grinding and depressing into the ground, the room seemed to heat up, and the ceiling grew red as balls of flame rained down violently upon the entire party. Spike would practically leap up off the dial, hoping and wishing for it to move back up, to turn it off, which he seemed to mouth, "come on, back up you go, turn off the big scary fire balls." He was having to use his coat to try and protect his head. Fire was bad for everyone, but fire for vampires was especially bad. He was looking around, trying to think, and in desperation, would cup some of the water, assuming it was water, and hopefully not holy water, Spike would try to pour some of it on the fire symbol he had just stood on... or he was going to get serious hand burn.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Spike steps on the fire rune, and, completely surprised no one, sets it off. The fire rune should be countered by water.. right? Right.

Willow looks for it. It will either help or harm. Only one way to find out!

Buffy Summers has posed:
Constantine's sealing spell seems to help a bit. At least the writing is no longer glowing and the room no longer vibrating. Even the fireballs seem to be less hot and intense. But they're still coming down. If someone doesn't do something soon, the whole place will burn up in flames.

When Harry depresses the earth symbol, it too grinds as it sinks down..And then..Now the earth is shaking violently, gaping cracks ripping apart the ground.

When Spike pours water on the fire rune, it flares to life this time, glowing a brilliant red...The flames instantly vanish.

Harry Dresden has posed:
Fireballs, because that's a good thing. Harry takes a deep breath an exhales. He shakes his wrist and the shield bracelet settles in place. He angles the shield above his head, pushing will through it and making an angled umbrella of power that defects the fire rather than try to block it directly. He kneels down to make his protection cover him a bit better, waiting to see what the seal does.

"That went well." he growls at himself as the earth begins to shake. At least the fire seems to have stopped falling from the ceiling. He sighs and drops to the floor again. It's a stretch, but it's what he has. He blows on the earth dias. It isn't wind, but maybe that will be enough to stop the shaking world. If not...

Constantine has posed:
    John might be getting singed here and there, but he keeps on chanting softly. By the second, he's growing paler, weaker. He's drenched with sweat. He can't even stop the chanting to tell them to hurry the hell up. If he does, he'll lose the spell and that might be epic bad.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Ah bummer! Now what? Willow stopped to *look* around. Surely the vampires wouldn't have no way out for them, so.. what? What would they do?

Rupert Giles has posed:
Rupert Giles watches what Spike does. For himself, Giles carefully does /not/ step on the water symbol. What he does do is look further around the room after the water on the fire symbol does the trick. "Hm.." He gently lays Buffy down, and jogs over to a torch he can see burning along the walls. "Try the opposite of each symbol," he calls back over his shoulder.

He comes to a stop next to one of the torches and lifts it from its holder. Then turns and carries it over to the water symbol, pausing to scoop up a couple of rocks. He tosses the rocks toward Spike. "On the air sign." He hands the torch to Willow so she can do the honors there. Then he crouches down to check on Buffy.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Ah! Now she sees!

Willow goes, quickly, to the air symbol, and sets it off, ready to use the torch on the air symbol! This time she is certain.

Spike has posed:
Spike, very glad not to be on fire, or in a super heated room, not that the temperature affected him as much as the others, called out to the group, "if you step on one of these blasted runes, use the opposite thing to turn it off. A splash of water turned off the fire one." He was trying to explain over Giles coming to the same conclusion, though in the earthquake, and recent fire, it was easy for things to be a bit chaotic. Spike would catch the rocks and place them over the air sign as instructed, "I hope this works."

Buffy Summers has posed:
The earthquake continues to dangerously shake the room, bringing down crumbling rocks on the party. Presumably they are dodging and/or shielding themselves from the cracks and fissures in the unstable ground. But when Harry leans down and blows air on the earth similar, it glows brilliantly yellow and the earth immediately calms down.

As Willow steps on the water rune, the water rune grinds and sinks into place, triggering a powerful tidal wave to build up, as the room now fills rapidly wuth water. Fortunately, once she tosses the flames on the water rune, it glows brilliantly green and the water also vanishes, evaporating.

And as Spike steps on the air rune, it also sinks down with a grinding noise. Bolts of lightning now streak down in flashes of dangerous light and electric energy, before he places the rocks o the air rune. It too, flares to life in a brilliant blue glow and the lighting soon vanishes.

With all the unstable magic going around! this room might normally have exploded with all the magic overload on the unstable ley lines. Fortunately Constantine's continued focus upon maintaining the magic rift seems to keep it from simply exploding. In fact, as each rune is stabilized, he may find that he has to strain a bit less in stabilizing the rift..

However, there is now one, final element to tackle, the Spirit element...

Rupert Giles has posed:
Rupert Giles contemplates the last rune. "Life and death. Death and life," he mutters. "Willow, you said the Ankh has the power to bring people back to life, right?"

Slowly, Giles steps over to the last symbol, the Ankh and Scythe. He draws a knife as he does so, and bounces it in his hand.

What he's contemplating becomes obvious the moment he steps on the rune. He draws the knife across his palm and drips his blood onto the rune. Hopefully, a blood sacrifice will do the trick!

Constantine has posed:
    ....chantchantchantchantNOTYOURBLOODHERSYOUBLEEDIN'IDIOT..." There's a moment when the seal Constantine has been maintaining starts to fail, maybe things get a little hairy in that split second, but he had to say SOMETHING. He has to raise his voice and draw in more power, more than he should rightly be able to handle, but he's always been stubborn and confidant (...in dangerous ways), just to get a handle on the spell again.

Spike has posed:
Spike hated this. He saw what Rupert was doing. He saw what Constantine was doing. And he knew enough about these things, he knew enough about vampires, life, how it all came down to blood. That red stuff that flew through our veins, that vampires craved, that boiled with passion, and stopped at death. "It'll never work," Spike explains to Rupert, even as the man drips some of his own blood onto the rune. Constantine murmured something about it. And Spike would march up to them, with a noticeable swagger, take the knife from Giles, and cut Buffy. He immediately winced, feeling the pain as his chip went off like a mother, and Spike's free hand would go to his forehead. He was doing it with expert precision, he knew it was coming, but it still hurt like hell. He knew where to cut, how much would bleed, what was fatal, what was near fatal. Recovering from the pain somewhat, he added, "like this," and poured the blood onto the rune.

Buffy Summers has posed:
The moment that Giles stepped on the Spirit rune, it would sink down...And the room would be shrouded in near darkness, lit up only by the glowing seal that Constantine was working so hard to maintain on the center of the pentagonal table. Which would be a good thing, as a lot of magic is being thrown around, even if it is ultimately necessary to stabilize the magic and the magical rift on the stone table.

From the darkness emerge skeletal creatures, hideous twisted creatures, the undead and reanimated remains of vampires defeated both long ago and recently, thanks to the combined efforts of the supernatural hunters the last time they ventured into this abandoned subway tunnel.

They are equipped with swords, and seem to emit an aura of fear as they swarm the room, swinging out with deadly weapons that strike, not with metal and steel, but with extreme pain and fear. They are actively attempting to climb the table and prevent Spike from reaching the fifth element with Buffy.

Of course, Giles' attempt will cause the rune to crackle but will ultimately be futile. It's only when/if Spike is able to reach the rune in spite of skeletal creatures blocking his way and attempting to attack him, that a few drops will cause the rune to start to glow faintly.

However, a few drops won't do it. Seems it demands more of her life force, her very blood, than a few drops.

Constantine has posed:
    Awww, bloody FUCKING hell! John is at his limit and beyond it really. It's a good thing he's so damned stubborn. "Spill some slayer blood and do it bloody quick!" Some things just have to be said even if it means another, longer, but temporary flickering falter of his seal. He gets it back under control, wrestles it back under control with nothing but sheer stubbornness and maybe a little bit of last night's booze still addling his brains. He sways on his feet again, staggers, nope he's back up... down, one knee.... both knees... Another fight, another night that John Consantine will likely be carried out off the battlefield.

Rupert Giles has posed:
Rupert Giles knew, even before Constantine's yelled out warning, that he had chosen poorly. Even as Spike comes over and does the deed that Rupert hadn't wanted to do. He nods his thanks, and then there's nothing, for there are attacking creatures. Giles isn't armed, but he's decent with hand to hand combat at least.

He does his best to clear a path for Spike, knocking skeletal vampires aside despite the pain and fear the vampires are inflicting.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
*Now* Willow knew what she was doing. She held her arms out, in different directions, and began to whisper.. Definitely different from Constantine (not 'bloody's' /that/ is for certain!), but similar. And as she grew stronger, her voice rang out till it filled every nook and cranny. She couldn't get rid of them, but with John..

Interesting. If you took what John said to music (think Gregorian chant here), and put Willow as a counterpoint.. Together they were better than each of them alone. Which is what Willow wanted.

Spike has posed:
Aura or no aura, in his closet or out in the open, Spike did not fear skeletons. Seeing them come out with swords though, he said, "how very Jason and the Argonauts of them," and would love to engage them, but he was trying to close this portal, rune, or whatever the hell it was. So he would jab, kick, or punch, and somewhere amidst it all, hand Giles the sword Buffy have given him recently, all while trying to carefully bleed Buffy. He didn't want to kill her, but he knew that it needed more blood. It needed the blood of a champion. "Come on, close, damnit, close."

Buffy Summers has posed:
The skeletons are quite skilled, quite powerful, and with strikes that cause fear and pain with each strike. But Giles is a surprisingly skilled combatant, and he manages to dispatch several of the skeletons with well placed strikes and grapples. But it seems there is no end to these skeletons.

Fortunately, Spike is also a skilled combatant, and he also manages to clear a path towards the Spirit rune, dropping more of Buffy's blood on the rune. It takes a while, and a shocking amount of blood, but eventuallly he manages to satisfy the rune's conditions for a sacrifice..

Still there is significant lag this time, and the skeletons don't vanish immediately.

Fortunately, as Willow steps up, her magic proves quite the match for even this dark power, and as Constantine time keeps the unstable powers from collapsing, her spell will eventually open a dark portal, banishing the remaining demonic creatures back to hell. They screech as they're-dragged back to hell, the portal sealing behind them and leaving the room in an eeerie calm once more.

And once the last rune flares to life in brilliant purple light, all five runes light up, connected by streams of glowing energy until they form a perfect pentagram: earth, air, fore, water and spirit. John will find that the magic rift is now healed and permanently sealed as a column of brilliant, blinding white light fills the room.

When it clears, there is a strange object resting in the centre of the pentagram. Looks like a little wooden shadowbox..

Buffy blinks and stretches, eyes snapping open, looking tired, weakened from all the blood loss. "Hey guys..What's going on..?" she asks..

Constantine has posed:
    "Bugger..." is all John manages to get out before he pitches forward... flat on his face and out like a light. At least there's no stab wounds this time, but he'll certainly bitch about the burns in his trench coat tomorrow. Seems the man's never awake to celebrate the victory!

Rupert Giles has posed:
Rupert Giles catches that sword and turns to use it with good effect. The fear and pain he's ignoring. And then it's over, as quickly as it had begun.

Giles takes a moment to catch his breath, wincing his eyes closed at the blinding light. When it clears, he sees that box and walks over to have a look. Holding the sword with one hand, he reaches out and takes the box, looking it over.

Spike has posed:
Spike had been careful with his cut of Buffy, knowing he wasn't endangering a major artery. But she had still lost a lot of blood. The good news was that she had come out of it too. Looking down at her, he had removed his jacket now that the skeletons weren't an issue, so he could take his red shirt off. He had torn a strip from it to bandage Buffy, and once she seemed to be in better shape, he would put his coat back on. Stopping the bleeding was his first priority. And he didn't taste any of it. Not one drop. No matter how much he might have wanted to.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
"Silly John," says Willow. But she only got permission to use the library. So library it is!

"Come on, I'll open the door to the library. It's the only place, except the kitchen where I'm allowed." And since she is holding the door open, she'll go last.

Buffy Summers has posed:
Now that the rift is sealed, there is an eerie calmness settling over the area. But it doesn't make this ancient vampire graveyard any less spooky. As Willow opens a portal to Constantine's house, Buffy's eyes flutter closed again, leaning her head against Spike's chest as he wraps her wound, and mumbles incoherently under her breath.

The loss of blood has made her go into a bit of shock and she shivers, feeling cold, confused and weakened. And why is her arm been cut? She frowns at Spike but is too confused and exhausted to argue.

The shadow caster seems to whisper softly, casting eeerie shadows on the walls as Giles picks up the mysterious magical artefact. It may take some research to reveal its secretes, but that is for another day. For now, it's time to rest and recuperate for our heroes..

Rupert Giles has posed:
Rupert Giles tucks the shadow caster under one arm. There's no way the thing is going into a pocket. Then he looks around the room and notes the unconscious Constantine. He moves over to the man and crouches down beside him. Gets his other arm around John, under both of his arms, and hoists him up and carries him in that somewhat awkward way to the doorway Willow's holding open. "Thank you, Willow," he says as he half carries half drags Constantine through it to the other side. Once there, he'll find somewhere comfortable to tuck the man. Probably even with a blanket covering him.