The most obvious way down was through the now significantly less secret area that the wall had been blocking. It was where the bound creature had come from, after all.
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Putting his hand on her back he just rubs it in circles, "Hey, hey. Have you seen who we hang out with? Have you seen the dragon man? Monster is what you make it. There are plenty of them in any form." He takes his glasses off and shakes his head a little, "Humans, fae, vampires, good and bad exists in all of us you know." The hunter wasn't sure whether or not to try adding a subtle joke but chose against it, "So you can solidify to yourself that you are what you claim you are or you can try to remember that you are something more."
Standing up he moves in the direction of Captain Rose, "But while you make up your mind, we have a real monster to kill. One that wants to actually destroy everything it touches and refuses to listen to reason." Picking up the shotgun that he laid down, Carlos continues before turning back to her and extending a hand through the barrier, "When this is done you tell me all about your dad; and I'll tell you about mine and how I ended up here. I'll even make dinner for you."
As Carlos talks to her, Charly peeks out from under her blanket fo shadow, then sits up. Her cheeks are smeared with blood and tears, and her eyes glow blood-red. She looks from Carlos to Kavax and then down at her hands. The shadow blanket slips away, too insubstantial to hold its form without her molding the magic.
"Wait," she says as Carlos turns to leave. She grabs her sword from where it had fallen and focuses on it for a moment. The rolling rumble of distant thunder surrounds the theatre.
The thunder stops as suddenly as it began. The sword that Charly had summoned sparks and crackles with arcs of lightning dancing along the blade.
"I don't think I can leave here, but maybe this will help," she says, a ghost of a smile curling her lip up. "After all, doesn't every knight need a sword?"
She holds the sword out, the blade pointed down and the hilt where Carlos can easily reach it.
Captain headed to the now accessible area the now faded threat had been, hoping this could dealt with quickly before they had another threat on their hands.
The area beyond is a dust-filled hole. The far end is dirt, but two of the walls and the floor are stone. A wooden hatch is open in the middle, some kind of metal plate now shattered around it. The edges still glow cherry red.
Oh I'm not worried. I just wanted to know how I could help the others.
Taking hold of the blade he looks to Charly, "I'll be back to return it soon. You just take whatever time you need." The weight was awkward, it wasn't something he was familiar with but he had seen enough movies and dragon-men fight recently... how hard could it be?
He quickly moved up toward where Captain Rose and the others were positioned before glancing back to the trapped vampire and giving a nod.
The glowing hatch made him uncomfortable and he wasn't entirely sure what is was. Taking a closer look he eyed the area before moving in to inspect.
It seems safe enough, although as Carlos peers down the hatch the wooden frame seems a little elderly and worn.
Charly chuckles at Carlos words and wishes him luck before he heads off. She watches them depart before settling down and trying to heal her own wounds.
Seeing that Carlos and Charly had worked things out, and that nobody was going to answer his question, Kavax shrugged and followed after. He eyed the glowing hatch suspiciously.
*sigh* "You're going to want me to go in first because I'm less likely to die when something horrible happens, right?"
It seems most likely that the seal was hit by one of the recent lightning strikes, hence it's mildly shattered state. It doesn't seem likely to harm anyone unless they touched the glowy bits.
Captain pulled out her pen torch and considered what she could see through the hatch. At Kavax's question, she said placidly, "I can go first, but your strength will probably be essential in getting this done quickly enough."
Carlos looks at his beaten body, "It can't be me unless you want me to come out of this theater in a bodybag or worse." He waits for Kavax but doesn't push him.
Charly focuses on the aches and pains she feels, easing them with careful, gentle tugs on the strands connecting them. She feels better now that something wasn't actively trying to sap her life away. Closing her eyes, she can almost forget she's in a dank, condemned theatre. She images herself in a grove by a brook that makes its tinkling way downhill. The cool scents pine and cedar fill her nose as she plays a harp. She doesn't remember having a harp or ever being taught to play, but she is lost in the music and listening to the wrens sing their song in tune with melody she plucks out. She almost forgets who she is in that moment.
Monster!
The voice's sudden intrusion causes her to wince and a discordant note echoes through the grove as a string snaps. The color and substance of everything bleeds out around her as she remembers what she had done.
"Fair enough, you've done a lot already. I'll shout down when it's clear..." Captain remarked as she gave what laid below another glance as moved to start heading down.
With a look to Kavax, "Shall we head down together?"
"Alright. Best to stay together."
Kavax waited for Rose to pass through the hole, while being ready to follow closely behind. Where had that cat gotten to? He would have been a useful point-creature for this kind of endeavor.
"EEP!"
Charly nearly leaps out of her skin as she's pulled back to reality by the vampire's voice. Her face is flushed with the embarrassment she feels as she turns to look at the vampire sitting in the front row.
"Oh, it's you," she says, obviously not thrilled to see she has an audience. "You know the last time I ran into a vampire, I turned him into a cloud of vapor to protect myself, right?"
She turns to face the vampire more fully, pulling her knees to her chest, not happy to have an audience to her introspective moment, but strangely glad to have someone to talk to besides herself.
"What kind of help would you be offering, and what would it cost," she asks, getting straight to the point.
Captain braced herself to avoid breathing into much of the dust and whatever else might be in the air. Moving aside to make space for Kavax, she raised her phone to try to get information of the urgent looking writing around them...
...but the tech did not seem to cooperate yet down here. Not surprising, all things considered.
Kavax dropped down, carefully avoiding the dangerous-looking edges of the hole. He still thudded heavily on the ground... and looked at all the writing.
"Well, this doesn't look good"
Looking at the circle, she said, "The simplest way would be to replace you, the same you replaced the spirit that was in there. One of those with you would be easy enough, although I'm sure I can find someone else if you still have a use for them."
Charly's eyes narrow a little more before widening as she realizes what must have been happening when they first saw the stage.
"W-wait! D-d-did you kill Simon," she asks, adding "Th-the man that was sitting here on the stage while you were dancing around him," when it appears that the vampire doesn't know who she is talking about.
Not hearing the screams that he expected, Carlos delved down with the two of them, only to find more horrors awaiting... Arcane Scripture.
"Give me a moment, shouldn't be too long to read this and get you a gist of it." He puts his hands along the walls feeling it, "Make sure nothing else comes here. I have a bad feeling about this insane writing."
Captain nodded, gun raised as she took a natural-for-her guarding position as she tried to keep an eye out for any threats.
Carlos's quick scan of the scrawls here reveals that the ritual he'd given had been modified. Usually, it had one function - bind a creature to a place and stop its escape. This one had been changed to do three things. First was to bind the physical form. The second was to bind a spiritual form. And the third was...power? Making it an energy source? Like turning the place into a mystical generator.
"Okay, but we should probably hurry. Can't be good to leave Charly stuck in that ring for too long."
"What?! No! I came in to save him and the others. I'm not going to put him in here to suffer. That's just cruel," Charly says, more surprised than angry. She looks at the vampire with blue eyes for a moment before burying her head in her knees and muffling her voice, "It's no different than killing them to satisfy your thirst."
Carlos looked relieved, as if a weight had been removed from him. "This spell. This one here." His hands trace over it, "It was my spell, but not anymore. Someone changed it, made it something else."
His hands falling to his side he continues, "One. It was meant to trap something but now it traps the physical form as well. Two. It bound the spiritual form." He moves up toward Captain Rose, "Here's the kicker though; it was meant to absorb or use power somehow."
Hearing Kavax talk about Charly he nodded, "I think you're right. Something is very wrong here and if it is what I think it is, she may very well be the next source of power if we don't stop it."
Charly wasn't sure how to respond. The last thing she'd expected was some advice from a vampire. She's quiet for a long, silent moment before she looks up and starts trying to figure out what's going on here.
"Back in January, there was a vampire that killed a catholic priest and two police investigators. Do you know anything about him," she asks.
Kavax eyed the door into the next room. "I don't think I trust that room at all. Should I just torch the door so none of us have to touch it?"
Captain considered what Carlos said carefully. It was hard for Captain to tell whether the magic going on here was going as intended and had become this volatile intentionally or was simply the unpredictable nature of magic which had created the need for protocols and procedure to have a chance of dealing with it without it blowing up in someone's face.
At Kavax's remark, a flicker of a smile came to Captain. "A long hefty object to push it open would probably be safer than adding more fire to this..." as she gesture to the runes, who knows how it would react to fire, or just heat and smoke, "but I can't stop you.
Captain looked around for a few moments for a suitable barge pole/battering ram type object.
Carlos doesn't spot the sigils he seeks in this room, but this clearly isn't the ritual site. This is research on how to make this all work correctly.
He returns to the others, "Yeah not much I can do about this here. The runes seem to just be research; no magic involved down here at all." Seeing the door he wonders what Kavax and the Captain are discussing, "We going in there?"
"I'm afraid he wasn't interested in saying much about himself while killing my coworkers and toying with me," she answers, wondering again why the vampire had been so brazen in his attack.
"If vampires can decide who to turn, why did they turn you," she asks, not quite able to keep her curiosity from running amuck.
Captain nodded as she carefully picked up a long piece of wood, and used it with a hard double tap to push open the door. She paused briefly at the door to have a look around before she started to enter slowly...
"Was it you that wanted the revenge," Charly asks quietly and without judgement in her voice. A very human part of her wanted to judge her, to lash out at her for being a monster, but she won't, she can't and still be true to what she believes.
[spoiler=Broken Bird Above]The vampire turned away. "No." Looking back after a moment, and waving away a spectral hand offering an equally insubstantial hanky, she added, "So I suppose you would prefer I help you out in a way that doesn't involve a mortal sacrafice?"
Charly levels a flat glare at the vampire, she isn't asking what she thought she is asking, is she?
"Don't go using the fey either. I'm sure they're riled up enough since blew a hole in the roof," Charly says before rolling onto her back and spreading her arms and legs out. "If you really want to help, you could go help Carlos dismantle the enchantment. I think he's the one that put it together originally. I could guide you and make sure the others don't kill you. Helping them would go a long way to proving you're not a monster."
Captain warily continued through, carefully taking each step. She'd seen some of the things sigils could do and would prefer to weigh up any risks of messing with them as carefully as possible within the time constraints.
Here it is. The end. Carlos moved in slowly and stayed further back. He didn't want to risk magic backfiring near the ring nor did he want to use it recklessly like the young Charly did.
He gave a silent signal to Captain Rose and looked around for anything that might be ready to ambush him.
Though the glowing sigil seemed to keep drawing his eye in.
In the ring are dozens of children toys and a small bed. Too small for the thing the hunters fought.
She stopped and stared to the back of the stage. "Did your people disturb the one in the stairwell?"
Charly sits back up and looks from the circle to vampire.
"Uh, maybe," she says with an expression that is somewhere between a nervous smile and a cringe.
Captain acknowledged Carlos' signal with her penlight as she considered the sight, whether the...items were specifically placed or looked to be affected or affecting the magical forces going on...
Kavax looked at the collection. "Well that's decidedly creepy. Should I pick up that ring to drag it to the others, or is it not safe to touch?"
He shivered, it wasn't the kind of shiver that the clown gave him but it was one nonetheless. The hunter hoped that it wasn't caused by some illness from the spirit ripping or worse.
"I don't know Kavax, this place just seems sad." He moved slowly up to the ring and touched it softly, "Did I contribute to a young girl being trapped here? Twisted into what we saw?"
Carlos breathes slowly, stifling the emotion that needed to come out. "Perdóname por favor..."
He is unsettled by the room and can't focus. The deeper he got the worse things became. However he decided now wasn't the time and became more resolute.