4560/I've Got a Bad Feeling About This...

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I've Got a Bad Feeling About This...
Date of Scene: 01 June 2018
Location: Sunnydale, Bludhaven
Synopsis: Willow and Constantine try to figure out a way to de-pixify Dawn, when they find a solution, it leads to a whole lot of bad mojo heading their way and a hasty retreat.
Cast of Characters: Constantine, Willow Rosenberg, Dawn Summers




Constantine has posed:
John had paid for the cab ride in from the coffee shop and then using the key Giles gave him lets himself into the shop, "In you go," he says to Willow holding the door open. "Still can't believe old Ripper let me have the key to this place, must be getting soft in his dotage," he jokes merrily as he peers in through the doors at the shelves of magical goods for sale for both reasonable and unreasonable prices.

"Anyhow, before you get in a tizzy, I cross my heart, won't nick a thing that we don't need to save the world, or the Slayer's sister," he assures her with a smile.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Despite his assurances, Willow isn't *quite* convinced about John's good intentions. Sure, something something promises and bindings.. and he had to be on his mostly best behaviour with the kids, but she wasn't sure jsut how far that extended, and whether or not it included the shop.

Still.. Giles would have set wardings, wouldn't he? He would have, right?

Willow allowed herself to be mollified by that thought, and by a quick, "He'll know, you know, if things go missing." She wanted to say 'if we touch anything' but that would mean she couldn't touch either, and much as she'd like to be a good girl, there was good girl, and who were we kidding anyway? Willow dearly wanted to get her hands upon things in the shop and explore. The need to do so was something between an itch and a pressure.

Do you really think we'll find what we need here? I mean, we still have to investigate, but surely there's something right? And Oh! You wanted a favour, too, didn't you?" There's a tinkle of nervous laughter from Willow. "I almost forgot that."

Constantine has posed:
Truth be told John wasn't too sure how far the binding went either. His bad for not checking first, but Giles had found a new one to use, and he wasn't fully versed on the loopholes yet. For now though, the store was mostly a look but don't touch sort of situation. John follows Willow in and lets the door close behind them with the tinkle of the bell hung above it and he flicks on the lights.

"Giles said with you lot graduating, he's moved a lot of his books and such here in preparation for when you can't loiter about the high school library without raising eyebrows," he says, "Should be in the back, and I figure, not warded either, since they're for the purposes of helping the Slayer do her slaying."

"And right, the favor, need to find out about the owner of this Georgian Creeds place, before he gets up to no good," John lies smoothly, hands stuck in his pockets as he walks slowly through the store taking it in, pausing here and there to gaze at this item or that. "Heh, a hand of glory, didn't think I'd find a real one in a shop," he observes of a grody looking corpse hand on one of the shelves.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
"Oh, ew!" Willow minces a full half-circle arc around John and the hand. "Those things are so.. so.. so ew." She shudders, nose wrinkling in distaste. "And what did this Georgian Creeds guy do anyway?"

Willow is already running down thoughts of how to track this mysterious person, and what sorst of spells and wardings she might expect to find while doing so. She's captivated enough by her thoughts that she almost misses the rest of what John says.

"Wait, what, did you say Giles moved most of his library here for us to use?" Willow can't help the little thrill of excitment that runs up her spine and over her voice, coming across very much like a schoolgirl who's just been told she's going to the circus as a surprise date. Only, better, since she had a lot of issues with the treatment of the animals in those things and once the animals were gone it was really just a lot of sleight of hand and acrobatics.

Willow wasn't sure she liked the acrobatics. She was just a tiny bit afraid of heights, and their acts gave her vertigo by proxy.

Constantine has posed:
"Lots of magic is ew, luv," John says with a smile as he steps away from the hand. "Going to have to get over that if you're getting into these arts I'm afraid, can be nasty business even with the good magic," he says as he wanders and nods towards the stock room where Giles had said he'd left the books he'd brought.

He produces a key and unlocks that door as well, flicking on the switch, "And there we are, even got 'em sorted," he looks over the piles of books set on tables and such, with little tags put in front of the piles to list which ones were which. Though it was definitely a job half-finished, there were still loads of the bloody things in boxes. "Mostly," John amends, as he steps into the room for a closer look.

"And this guy? Working with some shady sorts, not entirely sure what mischief he's up to, but figured best to find him before he either hurts someone or someone hurts him," he explains as he pauses to look over the spines of a pile of books.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow had discovered the 'lots of magic is ew' part while researching potions. They certainly weren't cut and dried like her techno-magic skills. Code, numbers, lines of script - they were all neat an easy. Not like weighing bits of this, that, and the other thing and hoping you'd not stirred too much, or too little, or let it boil too long, or..

Willow wasn't sure Buffy had forgiven her for the last time she'd has a little 'accident' and she'd left the place smelling vaguely of swamp mingled with wet dog fur, and a grey film that clung to everything for days.

Yes, magic could be very ew.

"That doesn't mean I have to like withered hands kept on shelves. It could be in a box, or something, couldn't it?" Alright, she'd watched that horrible horrible horror show where the disembodied hand had crept through the house at night murdering everyone. She still wasn't sure if she trusted and disembodied limg, but hands came with pre-made visions of terror to haunt her.

It's a measure of her love for books and the fact that being so close to such a vast array of Giles' collection that Willow just takes John's words wholesale about this Georgian Creeds guy.

"What is it you want me to find out about him? And where do we even begin with Dawn?" Though Dawn really wasn't that hard once they visited the shop where the potion was bought. At least there they'd get information on what kind of potion they were dealing with, and possible aantidotes. "I suppose we should be looking for books on antidotes and potions. Maybe anything on transformations as well. But not transmutations. Totally different kind of magic!" Pause. Quietly, "Ask me how I know."

Constantine has posed:
"Could be, but guess Ripper wanted it out where the customers can see it," John remarks with an amused quirk to his lips. "Though if we find a box in this back room here, be my guest and put the hand on in, won't bite ya," he remarks. "Hell, I might even buy the thing when Anya's by to properly open the shop for business," he says until he removes a hand from his pocket and checks the little price tag on it. "Never mind, easier to make my own, don't know how he plans on staying open with those prices, would make a saint consider the five finger discount," he grouses.

"Mostly where to find him," John says of the owner of the Georgian Creeds, "I can handle him from there."

He pauses to consider Dawn's problem as he flicks his lighter open and closed to keep his hands busy when his mind works. "Right, transformation for sure, possibly faerie magic besides given what she looks like, a preparation of iron and salt might banish the magic," he murmurs, before cocking his head. "But given it might kill her in her current state, best we think of something else, Slayer might take issue," he jests lightly. "Anyhow, let's see what we can find of faerie lore and transformations."

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow gives another shiver at the hand. "Did you know they used to shrink heads in Victorian times, too?" Said much in the manner of curious horror. It remains a distraction from the favour John asks. "I can look him up online for you when we're done here, but if he's as bad as you say, he's probably got wards and charms in place to deter from that very thing."

She says it like she's not one of the best people around to break through exactly such things. (And she is.)

"Definitely transformation," Willow agrees. "But salt and iron... I'm not sure. If it were /just/ fae magic, why would I be able to hear her normally and nobody else? That doens't really sound right. And she said some other things, too, right? Though I guess that's something fairies would do... only..."

Willow shakes her head. "Fairies don't like people impersonating them, you know. I really don't think that's it."

Constantine has posed:
"They're still shrinkin' them today," John says with a tone of first hand knowledge. "Me, mate, Papa Midnight knows all about that sort of thing," he says with a shake of his head. "Me, never seen the point, but guess it's tradition."

He sticks his hand back into his pocket and walks towards the back room, "That's all I ask, and figured he might have a ward or two, which is why I came to you with it, from what I remember of the last time I helped you lot out, you were good with mixing the old and the new like that."

John continues to scan the books, "True, true, but faerie magic can be a touch wild at time, you being able to understand while the rest of us can't, sounds right up their alley," he says but that didn't remove the fact that they didn't much care for impersonation. "But you're right about them not liking folks pretending to be them, proud little buggers they are, so, might not be the fae then after all, which is good news for me, owe the pixie queen in these parts more than a bit, and I hate to tick off my creditors," he says.

Dawn Summers has posed:
Dawn makes her own return. She's had a couple hours away, but now she's back, hoping the magic types have figured out what's going on. The pixie flies in towards the others, landing and giving a wave of her hand, before chimespeaking "Hey, what's going on, guys?"

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow nods slowly, still trying to suss out what might be going on, only to be startled fro her reverie by Dawn. "Oh, hey! Hi!" She gives an excited little grin, and waves over at John, who really doesn't need Dawn's arrival pointed out - she's totally visible to everyone... just not understandable by everyone. "Look, maybe Dawn can help us. You know, pinpoint what might have happened."

Constantine has posed:
Flips through the pages of one of the tomes only to pause and murmur "Fir Miet, classic," then slap the book shut and move onto the next when Dawn arrives. He turns book in hand, "Sounds good, looks like you're going to have to be the one translate though," he says moving over by Dawn. "So, anything come to mind in the last couple of hours that might help us with this mess?"

Dawn Summers has posed:
"Well, I know where Marie got the potion...if you guys have some kind of a tracking spell or something, maybe we could start there, and see where it goes? Or is there a way to track back the spell that's on me?" Dawn asks, as she looks from one to the other.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow's nose crinkles as she thinks. "It's easiest if we can see what you drank. Or even where it's from. Maybe something else there will give a clue... I don't think this is a simple transmutation from what you said, right? Other magic not working correctly. So I don't think it'll be taht easy to just *track* the spell."

Of course she's not 100% convinced she's right. It's more a gut feeling than anything. That and the fact that she's not really tracked a spell backqards quite that way before. Any leads she can get will be helpful, and given John doesn't seem to be offering any other insight, it's what Willow has to go on.

Dawn Summers has posed:
"The potion bottle! Buffy took it back home when she picked me up!" Dawn says, excitedly. "You could use that! It's in my room back home, under my bed!" Dawn's wings flutter excitedly as she jangles. "Come on, let's go!" She takes to the air.

Constantine has posed:
John smirks quietly to himself as Willow and Dawn converse. "Only got half that, but I suspect Lassie is taking us to her particular well?" he asks when Dawn takes flight. "Fill me in on what you two ladies were discussing on the way," he says pocketing his lighter and heading for the door.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow's cheeks pinken. "Oh. I forgot.. Mostly she said Buffy threw the bottle under her bed.."

She turns to Dawn. "Why would she do that? Even if it weren't dirty and gross, magic residue, especially magic that backfired, isn't safe to just throw under your bed!" She groans as she says it.

Slayers. They just didn't get it.

Dawn Summers has posed:
Dawn looks over. "It's where we had to hide my stuff! We couldn't let mom see it! And she wrapped up the bottle in my clothes so the stuff didn't get on anything else." She flies to the door, but she has no way to open it on her own.

Constantine has posed:
John makes his way from the store room, winding past a couple of shelves to collect a few items to stuff in his pockets. "For the spell!" he calls to Willow to head off protests then reaching the door, he pulls it open for dawn setting it's chime a jingle as he steps out onto the street, holding the door open for Willow and then locking it up behind her.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
John gets a frown from Willow who truly isn't buying his 'for the spell!' excuse, but hasn't anything legimate to pin down as a reason for her uneasiness about his acquisitions. And, in truth, she's frowning as much for that as for Dawn's explanation of what they did with the potion bottle.

"You didn't. You didn't just wrap it up.. for all we know if anything leaked out it will have animated the clothing by now - and you thought hiding the bottle from your mom was hard? What is she going to say when she sees that?"

Willow, clearly, has already assumed the worst in this situation. Of course she's had her fair share of 'oops' to base such dire predictions on.

"Can we just go and retrieve the bottle, and maye see where you got the thing from? If it's even a real shop and still there. And next time, can we please not drink anything we buy from people without someone who actually knows magic around to check it out first, or at least make sure this" -she waves a hand at the poor fluttering Dawn- "doesn't happen?"

Constantine has posed:
"What?" John asks in the face of the frown. "Got all sorts of time to knick things from the shop if I wanted to, these things, strictly for getting Dawn back to her old self," he says though more and more he was taking that part on faith as the magic took hold and he begun to remember her as only as a pixie.

"Whichever works, for you lot, spell, find the store, either way we're on the right trail tracking it back to the source," he says.

Dawn Summers has posed:
Dawn nods, and she starts to fly onward. She'll head off to the Summers residence. "Umm...maybe you can say you're there looking for Buffy, Willow? I don't think mom remembers me at this point, so it's gonna be hard to use me for an excuse." She flitters up. "I left my window open so I can get in and out, but I can't really move stuff like this..."

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
"Pshaw," Willow says, grinning, and hoisting her bag over her shoulder, "Like I need an excuse to go hang in my Bestie's bedroom. I practically live there half the time anyway."

She can't quite manage to get the idea of Dawn being a fairie and Dawn also beng not a fairie to mesh in her mind. And frankly, whenever she actually tries to pin anything specific down about Dawn at all, she finds herself being very distracted from that path of inquiry. Headache and all.

She's not actually tried to figure out why she can understand the girl. In fact, in some small way she's almost disappointed that she's not treated to the jingles and chimes everyone else seems to be hearing - her likely one and only chance to meet and greet with a real live fairy! (tm) and it comes complete with her friend's voice. At least she thinks she and Dawn were friends. The details are fuzzy.

Dawn Summers has posed:
It's an easy matter to convince Joyce that Willow should be here. She can make it up to the room, which has been "cleaned up". Not by Joyce, either...reality is editing things to conform to "Dawn = Pixie". The bottle is still thankfully under the bed, but none of the clothes it was wrapped in are there. In fact, there's NOTHING of Dawn's in the room.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow thanks Buffy's mom, Joyce for letting her in, and brushes off any offer to be shown to the room. "I've been here so often I should have my own drawer," Willow jokes. but it isn't funny when she gets to the room and all traces of Dawn are gone. "Oh, this is bad. I wonder why someone would want to erase.. uh.. what's her name?"

She gives a blank stare as Willow tries to draw Dawn's name up to memory and finds it something like trying to hold cups of water in her hands. But she does remember the bottle, and carries it back to the waiting John. "It's all gone. All of her. Just this was under the bed. And I'm having trouble remembering who she was. Is? Either or."

Constantine has posed:
John waits outside the house, lighting up a smoke by the tree out front. He's just a quarter way done when Willow's back bottle in hand. "Who's this now?" he asks before he frowns and pinches the bridge of his nose trying to push the kid's name back into his brain while it struggled to slip right out again. "Bloody hell, that's strong, and not good, the spell is taking hold, changing things, if we're not quick about this there's not a bloody thing we'll be able to do about it." He rubs his hands together, "Good news is, spell that strong's got to be easy to track, there a place we can cast this spell an' quick? Time is not our friend right now."

Dawn Summers has posed:
Dawn looks worried. She flutters up in front of Willow. "Dawn! Her name is Dawn!" She music-chimes. She waves her hands a little frantically. "Come on, you can do this!!" She looks to John, worried as well. "Dammit, he can't understand me..."

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
It's like it's a whole other language. Pixie Dawn says 'Dawn' and what Willow hears is 'her name is....' and chimes. Very beautiful chimes. Entrancing chimes even. They make her think of porches, and gentle breezes, and how the ciccadas give off that high pitched drone all day, and how when she was little she thought the sound was the eletrical wires.

In fact, if it weren't for the bottle in her hand, and John's question about a place to cast a spell, Willow might have forgotten totally what she was doing here. As it was, the bottle came dangerously close to falling from her hand and shattering on the ground.

"Uh.. a place? Oh! Yes. I have the perfect place!" And she does. After all, a witch needs somewhere where her bestie's mom isn't going to just walk in on them while she does her thing. "Follow me!" And she leads off to a small, tucked away copse of trees (could you be any more cliche, Willow?) that she's used more than once in the past.

....Well, at least for the stuff that doesn't require a laptop. Her onlne wizardry usually requires the internet. D'uh.

Constantine has posed:
The name was slipping through his fingers so he fixed his attention on the task in front of him. The spell, he had to cast the bloody spell. He follows Willow to the little copse, smirking faintly at the surroundings. "Perfect," he says in a tone that says he knows just how 'on the nose' it is.

Time wasn't on their side as he said, so he could crack wise about their surroundings another time, he starts fishing things out of his pocket, a box of purified salt, some sacred oils, and a little knife. He passes Willow the box of salt, and says, "Think you can call us the corners and put this in a circle around us? Going to get this knife to be our pointer," he says. "An' how's your Latin?"

Dawn Summers has posed:
Dawn flies over, landing on Willow's shoulder. She's worried about the whole effects, but this is time to let the mages sit back and do their thing. She'll be quiet and watch this one.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
The setting was perfect, if cliche, but Willow kept finding herself wanting to misplace the bottle. At first she went to tuck it into her backpack - just for safekeeping, she told herself, but when she went to do it, she stared at the thing, wondering why she had that piece of garbage in her hands, and was about to toss it when it occurred to her that really, that wasn't nice of her, was it? tossing garbage. She'd just put it in her backpack and toss it the first chance she got, only she set it down to tug open her backpack and couldn't remember why she'd even done thhat. Bottle forgotten.

If it hadn't been for an empty plastic water bottle scrunched up right where her backpack was, Willow wouldn't have even seen the potion bottle...

"This is weird," she mutters. "Who just leaves potion bottles lying about. Mr. Constanti--uh, John? Is this yours?" Only to face him blythely asking her to call the corners, a thing that had her remembering in the vaguest of senses why they were here. "We really don't have time. It doesn't want us to know. At all."

Fingers wrapped tight about the bottle, Willow turns to the east and gives a small bow of head, "Guardians of the East hear us and answer our call, protect and guard us..."

Constantine has posed:
What the bloody hell was he doing in a copse. Didn't he have better things to do, and what was with this Think John, think he blinks brow furrowing. "Right the spell, no bloody idea why we're doing it but I think it's important. Finish the corners an' forget the salt, not going to have time," he says as he puts the last of the oils on the knife and holding it between his hands he begins to chant, "Ecce qui hanc deducere ferro manibus ducere quaesitis," the words tumble easily from his mouth and he pauses in the chant to say, "When you're done come here with that bottle," he says before repeating the chant, this time louder with the sensation of building power cracking around them "Ecce qui hanc deducere ferro manibus ducere quaesitis."

Dawn Summers has posed:
The dagger spins, as the magic is invoked. There's a pulse of chaos magic, as the spell laying over Sunnydale tries to fight it. But in the end, it's enough. It narrows, locking in on a course that will head to the caves down by the river. There's also a sense of something coming this way, something demonic. The enemy noticed their attempt. They know where to go...but they're gonna need the fighting team to get them there.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Even the protective warding of the four quarters can't hide the malevolence of the feeling that settles over the scrying blade. "I have a bad feeling about this..."

Constantine has posed:
John can feel that little tickle down his spine that happens when something wicked this way comes. "About par for the course," he says before putting his hands around the floating knife and saying "Conserva!" to keep the spell in place.

"Right, does that make me Han?" he asks about that bad feeling. "Always liked him, but since we don't have the fire power to shoot first, how's about we get us gone?" John asks even as he attends to exactly that.

Reaching inside of himself to that delicate tether on his soul that connected him to the House of Mystery, he gives it a sharp yank and a door appears out of nowhere, standing on its own like the one in the opening of the Twilight Zone, just more like someone knicked it off the front of the house in the Addams Family, it opens with a creak of its own accord showing the entryway of a gothic old mansion beyond. "Get in, I'm right behind you."

Dawn Summers has posed:
Dawn sees the door open, and makes a bee-line for it. The others are forgetting her more and more; she wants to get clear WITH them, so the little twinkling lightball darts for it.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow cocks her head to one side, "Han is who says it," she offers. At least she thinks that's who it was. But she has to agree with the get us gone, even if it is /her/ copse of trees..

"We need some backup. And I have to prepare before we do anything.."

Taken totally off guard by his opening a door, but not about to argue with him.

Exit, one Willow. Stage left.