1961/Digging In The Dirt

Digging In The Dirt
Date of Scene:	13 August 2017
Location:	Staten Island
Synopsis:	Simon and Hecubah are unable to help a budget voudon when a Space Bird and Earth Oni get in their faces.
Cast of Characters:	Yokai (Sakara), Kian t'Kaeh

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Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
There is nothing like a summer night on Staten Island. Well, technically, there is, but it's not normally a thing people go to on purpose. Here in the Fort Joseph neighborhood, there is often as not something going on that could wake the dead.

Speaking of necromancy, a dog ghost yokai showed up in Rory's apartment just as the Oni was preparing to go out for a night on the town. Every once in a while, an Oni's just got to slake one of those thirsts, right? Well there are these triplets at the gym... anyway the dog completely blocked that idea. Roark is now on duty. Someone is un-burying a family and doing really terrible things with the bones.

Rory painted a firebird just yesterday, for a client who wanted one with a bit of magic, and the original has a bit too much magic of its own, so he decides to bring it to full life. He's riding it from the wrong side of Coney Island toward Staten Island, across the water, and that means he's likely to meet up with anyone else engaged in a pleasant night flight.

Meanwhile, Lagubah Donderik is sprinkling a silvery powder across the mixed bones of the family who were buried here in 1959. All five of them, and their dog. His friends are skeptical that he can do anything with the spell from that stupid old book that he stole from an old decrepit bookstore that smelled like moldy cheese. The store, not the book. The book stank of eggs.

Kian t'Kaeh has posed:
    Kian is soaring. It's what he does, and -- in his mind, at least -- something he does better than anyone else on this strange world. And he makes it look effortless, should anyone happen to be watching.
    Ah, but a phoenix -- that's something that would catch even his attention in the air. To the little birdman, this is a piece of legend come to life, a holy thing even.
    So he approaches slowly, even reverentially, not noticing the firebird has a rider. It is the firebird he greets with a pleasant "/Kié/!" as he draws near.

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
Not actually a phoenix, this one. This Firebird is a magical construct. It has the appearance of a pheasant crossed with a peacock, and it's the size of a human, and there's a rather young looking person riding on its back, cross-legged, not falling off nor appearing to burden it at all. When Kian says his greeting to the construct, it looks at the birdman as if he were part of the scenery, an interesting thing, but doesn't make any sounds. The rider, though, does speak.

"Greetings, Kian," he says in ordinary English. "Would you like to join me in preventing a desecration?"

Back at the Cemetary, Lagubah is saying to his friends, "Shut UP! It will TOO work."

The friends are named Simon and Hecubus. They're related to Lagubah. They used to have a television show but eventually someone noticed that they weren't actually FAKE evil, when one of the craft services people was found unconscious with a missing hand just before they used a Hand of Glory on their television show. It seems that you can make a Hand of Glory without it having to come from a hanged murderer if you just put the right color and flavor packets in the beeswax before you start dipping the hand. Evil is apparently not as picky as it was once.

Kian t'Kaeh has posed:
    "Ai! /Kié, Róri/! My error, thought was /kyrkáe/. I... do not know wor'd in Eng-liss." Well, at least Kían's "Eng-liss" is improving. It wasn't that long ago that he'd've had trouble with a simple 'yes' or 'no'. "I do not know what a... dese-k'ra-shun is. If is bad, I will hel'p!"

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
"They take the remains of the dead from where they were placed and use the memory of pain and life to create harmful magic," Rory says. The cemetary is coming into sight quickly; the small red lantern lighting the place where the ossuary has been opened. It's a small, stone crypt that's normally sealed by a well-fitting marble lid. The lid is on the ground, broken.

Rory whispers, "thank you" and lets the firebird dissipate. He draws the remnant energy into a cloak of invisibility for Kian, shapeshifting himself into invisibilty as well. He drifts silently to the ground as Lagubah begins chanting; the landing place is near enough to see and hear them but not enough that they might be heard themselves by normal humans.

The two friends hiss out, "EVIL!" as something approaches them.

"Tattletales," Rory whispers in Japanese.

Kian t'Kaeh has posed:
    Well, that wrings a confused look out of the little birdman. "Remains? Only remains are ash..." he says absently, then gasps as the firebird vanishes and instinctively moves to catch Rory despite the foot and a half height difference between them...
    ...except that Rory isn't falling, he's floating, and this is something else the birdman doesn't understand. But he's getting better at just accepting things he doesn't understand as things he doesn't understand, and getting on with his day. So he descends slowly alongside Rory, also not making much sense of the ground below covered with stone markers...

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
The Oni has slowly gotten taller as they sneak invisibly, finally reaching his six and a half foot height. For some reason, Kian can still "see" an outline of Rory as if he were made of a soap bubble, but the three malefactors seem not to be able to see them at all, though the two noisy hissers are sniffing at the air. The man with the sparkling powder has almost finished his chant, when Rory gestures with his left hand and a blast of water from nowhere - well, from the air in front of the left hand actually - hoses the stuff off the bones. Rory becomes visible as that happens, and he's got the horns and tail.

"Aaah! Forgive us, Master!" comes from the two hissers who fall to their knees, begging for mercy, while Lagubah whirls and sketches a sign in the air. It glows faintly.

"You don't think that'll work, do you?" Rory says with patent disgust.

Unfortunately, it does seem to work for SOMETHING; Rory finds himself unable to move, a faint silvery glow flowing over his body like static over a bad television broadcast.

Kian t'Kaeh has posed:
    Horns and tails are, perhaps fortunately, not mythologically significant to Kian, not like fur and claws are, so he is able to take Rory's transformation more or less in stride.
    Just from the timing of the drawing in the air, and Rory's immobility, Kian assumes a connection between them, and reacts. Electricity arcs from his hand, aimed at the sign, and quite possibly at the artist beyond.

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
The sigil isn't solid to electricity, and the arcs go past into the bones and into the hand of Lagubah Donderic, making him thrash and writhe while screaming like a bad movie special effect. While that happens, his two friends are ... cackling and wringing their hands?

In any case, Rory snaps free of the restraint when the loss of concentration breaks the surprisingly effective spell. Rory shakes his head and shifts into an invisible form again. Of course, Kian became visible when he attacked, and there's a whispered "o.m.g. thunderbird!" from the one of the two friend who has a white streak in his hair.

Rory confiscates the book that Lag had open on the granite of the ossuary, and there's a "Grrr!" followed by the impression of a ghostly dog biting the man who had desecrated the dog's bones... in the place where he sits.

"You two. Simon. Hecubus. I know you from the wanted poster in the hall of monsters. Return to budget hell and take your friend with you."

That's ... sort of an exorcism? Well, they disappear into the ground, dragging Lagubah with them. They'll probably get a lawyer to spring them though. Budget hell doesn't hold very well.

Kian t'Kaeh has posed:
    Kían watches with blank incomprehension. "What did you do?" he asks as the three disappear into the earth below -- he shudders, with a fluffing of his feathers, as they do so, and kicks back into the air, hovering about a meter up and watching the turf below as if he expects a hand to come up out of it.

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
"It wasn't as much trouble as I thought it could be, and your help came at the right time," Rory says. He sorts through the bones and shakes the dirt off them, putting them back into the ossuary.

"We have different practices in different places," he says. "Here, they often bury people, and sometimes they dig them up later and re-bury the bones in special vaults like this. In my country the dead are almost always cremated along with a few favorite things, and then the ashes are buried. Among the humans, anyway. Among the yokai like me, it can be different."

He reaches down and lifts half of the heavy, fitted stone from the ground, tsking at the crack.

"Looks like they broke it," he says, and places it into the proper place. The other half goes on next, and he murmurs a mantra over and over, rubbing at the crack. The stone finally flows together and he slumps down onto the ossuary.

"That's exhausting. I'm not made for direct magic."

Kian t'Kaeh has posed:
    Kían's eyes widen further, staring at the ground. "Buried? Under /there/? That... that is--" Unthinkable. Horrible. Evil. Wrong. "--very alien," he finishes weakly. "Can it be set so if something happens to me, I will be properly ashed? I must not be in the... the g-ground."

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
"Of course. It's common to tell your friends and family, and we have written instructions for the distribution of our properties after we die. You can do this as well."

He's a bit surprised at the horror of returning to the soil, though. For the Oni, it's very much preferred if possible to be buried without even cremation but it's still common enough.

"I need to go to the underworld to make sure they go where I told them," Rory says. "Thank you for your help. Please fly safely."

The ground ... opens up again, though it's still clear that it hasn't really done so. It's like looking at a separate world that is almost in line with the mundane one. And Rory bows again and then vanishes into the ground leaving the bird-man to find his own way.