[OOC: We have Marion as the leader, with Arch, Catori and Ben there, so we'll need one more.]

Daphne nodded and stepped forward, planting her spear before her. Spot would continue to watch, but she was needed. Of all of the people here, Daphne was the most relaxed; this was normal for her, in a way that actually comfortable. The odd was ordinary and she stood in the last gap, ready to do her part.

Marion nods at Daphne gratefully as she takes the last position, and the ritual concludes.

As the spirit manifests, Marion draws back the shroud from her features and speaks in a firm voice to it.

"In the moments before you died, you gave this man a heavily protected box," she says, and points at Ben. "What is inside that box?"

The shade looks at Ben and shakes its head, "The box was stolen from me ..." the shade's voice is like cold whispers and moaning wind. The shade shudders as the circle flares with crimson light compelling is spirit to answer the question, "A shard ... a fragment of something greater ..." The light abates and the shade recoils as though pained.

The sound of the shade's voice sent a cold shiver down Arch's spine. It was one thing to study this kinda of thing, but to actually see it. Remarkable!

Arch's voice is crisp in the night as he speaks. "Something greater, this thing speaks in riddles! To the shade "What do you mean by something greater?"

Marion looks sharply at Archie and says, "Remember, this binding only allows a limited number of questions before it releases him back to the underworld. Make sure the questions count."

She adds, "How did you come into possession of the box?"

The spirit swirls as it turns to face Archibald, "Something more ... an object broken ... weaker yet still potent..." The moaning whisper of it's voice is like icy fingers down the back of all present even Daphne, accustomed as she is to the presence of spirits, finds it uncomfortable. Spot whines but holds firm behind Daphne.



The shade turns back to Marion it's dead eyes boring into her own finally the circle begins to flare up crimson once more and the spirit speaks. "Entrusted to me ... by the servants of ... Grigori ..."

"Ask how open?" Daphne tried, shivering a little. She suddenly wanted this done. This was not like at home, and she tightened her grip on the spear.

Marion nods and quickly says to the spirit, "Her question was directed to me. For you I ask, how may we open the box as safely as possible? Also, what did you plan to do with the box and its contents?"

The shade breathes out a sigh like dry leaves in the fall, "Unknown how ... or if it is possible ... open it ... seize the power within ... " The shade's hollow dead eyes narrow, growing darker until they are nearly black, "Would you deny the power? "

Daphne looked more freaked than before. "It ask!" she squawked, pointing at the shade, as if they couldn't guess who she meant. "They not ask! We ask!" The shade's question had rattled her. She'd never heard of a shade questioning those who had summoned it. Something felt wrong to her, and Spot, picking up on her fear, snarled loudly.

Marion pokes at the inside of her cheek with her tongue for a moment, then decides to ignore the spirit's question for the nonce.

"Who is Grigori?" she asks. "And the whole that the shard in the box is part of...what is it called?"

"I agree with Daphne.", said Catori in a low voice. "Our security measures may have been breached. Something is wrong."

Catori concentrated even harder trying to push the Shade back to his boundaries. It was not his place to ask questions!

"Stop panicking, both of you," Marion snaps. "Stay focused. IF something is wrong, we will deal with it. Until then, lets stay on task here."

The shade sets itself, clearly unwilling to answer. Quickly the circle flares once more it's light growing brighter, the shade twists, it's form distorting as it screams in agony. Finally it answers, "Grigori Rasputin ... " The circle once more goes dark and the shade laughs, "You really wish to know? It will do you no good ..." The circle begins to glow again, "The Heart of Darkness ... a relic of untold power ... do you have the will to take it for yourself?"

"Enough of that. Speak only to answer our questions," Marion demands.

"Who else seeks this shard of the heart of darkness?"

The shade laughs again, it's black eyes seem to stare into Marion's very soul, "You can no more command me than I can escape this circle ... Many parties seek the Heart ... I do not know them by name ... it was not my place to know ... only to seek out the key... Thus the bargain is met!" The shade reaches out to Daphne suddenly, caressing her cheek with its hand. The phantasm seems to size her up, "You seek to reclaim what was yours ... the Heart can do this for you ... and more ..." Laughing the specter swirls upward and then twists down and into the crystal orb. The glass become black as darkest night and the explodes in a shower of icy shards.

[OOC: all of you in the circle take 2 lethal damage, Those outside take 2 bashing. Soak is bypassed.]

Arch grunts in pain as the icy shards pierce his body. Inside his head he briefly tihnks "That wasn't supposed to happen." before falling to the ground in agnoy. He manages to look around at the others in the circle as see's that they are just as hurt. Moving slowly to Marion "Wha... happen?" he gasps.

Janos rushes toward the place were the shard was, sword at the ready. He ginds his teeth as obviously the moment has passed - for now.

He moves to Archibald and helps him rise. He does so to each of the members of the circle that are obviously injured and having trouble recovering form the shard-bomb. Finally, he looks to Marion.
"I take it that didn't go as smoothly as hoped. What went wrong and isn't Rasuptin <spits on the ground> dead?"

Looking around, he adds,
"We should get back to the house and get some decent medical care there. Out here, we are exposed."

Catori whinced painfully and stumbled backwards looking angry at Marion. "I said something was wrong..."

As she realized that she was not the only one who got hurt Catori walked over to Marion and inspected her injuries.

(ooc: roll medicine pls and if necessary spent inspiration to heal her)

"Hell's bells."

Mia looks at the camera she had in hand, its lens punctured by a shard of glass, her clothing torn in a couple of places.

"This was my favorite camera. Everyone all right?"

Marion groaned and sat up woozily. Blood ran freely down her leg, and when she hiked up her skirt a little, it was clear why. A long, sharp fragment of glass had plunged into her thigh a few inches above her kneecap.

As Catori came towards her, she gripped the protrouding edge and stifled a yelp as she yanked the glass fang out of her.

"I know you did," Marion replies to Catori as she presses the heel of her hand down over the bleeding hole in her leg. "But we were just getting to the real answers. If I'd stopped it then, we'd have been no better off than we were when we started."

She looks up at the Indian woman. "Magic is risk. You can't get anywhere without taking a few chances."

"What good are your chances if you end up dead?", Catori knelt down to inspect the wound and concentrated for a moment. She hummed a soothing melody and reached for her small leather bag that was attached to her belt at her skirt and took out some herbs. As she layed her hands on the wound a greenish light spread from her fingers through the herbs and on the injured flesh. Almost instantly the wound closed and the pain along with it subsided.
(ooc: using Touch of life - 1 Inspiration spent)

Then Catori stood up again and looked at Marion, "You should be more careful in future. You seem rather fragile to me."

Marion laughs as she gets carefully to her feet, a surprisingly good-natured sound from someone who'd just been punctured.

"Thanks, Catori. That's a handy trick. But don't worry too much about me. I'm tougher than I look."

She looks around and asks more loudly, "Is everyone else all right? Sorry about that little...wrinkle there at the end. That really should not happened...I was very careful in the preparations."

Daphne rolled into a sitting position, her fingers already probing her wounds. Grimacing, she drew out a piece of the chilled glass out of her chest, holding it carefully between two fingers. As Spot, who had been knocked over when his mistress had been knocked into him and had nothing worse than bruising, circled her and nervously whined. He could smell that Daphne had been hurt and it aggitated the hellhound. Anyone who gets too close gets an angry snarl from the canine.

"That bad," she said softly as her fingers tested a cut on her forehead, glad that she didn't find any glass there. "Shade wrong."

Hearing Daphne and how Spot whined Catori walked over to her reaching for her bag again and taking out some herbs.

"Let me take care of this.", she said waiting for Daphne to accept her help.
(ooc: Assuming Daphne lets her, another use of Touch of life to heal her wounds)

Then she placed her hands gently on Daphne's chest and hummed the same soothing melody just as she did with Marion. Within seconds a greenish light spread through her fingers and sealed Daphne's wound easing the pain.

"There you go.", she smiled at her and retreated carefully to let Spot check that everything was alright.

Arch grateful thanks Janos for the helping hand. "Thanks big man."


After reaching his feet Arch turns towards Marion. "Christ women, that almost got us killed what the hell went wrong!" he anger is only tempered by the pain he is in.

Daphne bounced to her feet and put herself between Arch and Marion. "Not her fault!" the small woman snarled. "She did right! Shade wrong!"

She was now eying Arch like he was a threat, though Spot, who had moved to her side, wasn't growling. He was showing his teeth, his black lips curling back in a silent warning.

"Magic isn't science," Marion replies evenly to Archie. "It's not circumscribed by mathematics or nice, predictable laws. These are the forces that create and destroy and remake the cosmos, and if a little shattering glass is too much for you, I suggest you avoid it."

She inhales deeply, rather impressively, and reaches back over her head to smooth her hair.

"That said...Daphne is right. That spirit was no ordinary shade. There are wards and protections. It shouldn't have been free-willed. And it most -definitely- should not have been able to cause any of us harm, by action or inaction. This 'Russian' was not an ordinary man, I'll wager. But I won't know more until I've had time to consult my sources and see if anything like this has happened before."

Her voice softens. "Are we well enough to move? It's probably best if we don't linger."

"Yeah well just make sure you don't let it happen again is all I'm saying." Arch sighs. "Sorry about that, I'm just a bit shocked about what just happened. I know it's not your fault, it's just from what I've studied things like this don't aren't supposed to happen to the best of my knowledge. So, let's get out of here so that we can get our wounds taken care of."

Looking at Daphne he also adds "Calm down, nothing is going to happen, just blowing off a little steam. No need to for any more trouble okay lady?"

Three things had become obvious. Those outside the ritual had been knicked and bludgeoned, but were going to be okay. Those inside the ritual had been much more critically hit. Lastly, Catori had a magic touch.

Janos addressed his most immediate concern.
"Daphne, we need to get Marion and Ben out of here. Archibald isn't threatening anyone, by our customs. We need to leave."

To Catori, he notes,
"Lady, you aren't taking care of your own wounds. Noble, yet dangerous, with the way this night has progressed."

"Now let us please to move to the cars. I know nothing of the occult, but I know we just got some bad news and we are the ones with the prize that those with lethal intent are after."

Ben brushed himself off, attempting to downplay the shards of glass in his person. This was not a successful endeavour - for one thing, a glass shard had hit his forehead, and he was bleeding more than a little. Subsequently, he was a little dazed. "You know, death has not become Mr. Strakovski at all! He was a much nicer person when he was alive! Must be the company he's in. Rasputin... never a popular man..."

Ben heard Janos's comments and replied "Yes, that's a good idea, I could use a rest, but we'd probably better clean our mess up first..." Ben started to walk back into the circle, not quite in a straight line.

Janos' words were soothing to the young refuge from Hell. Daphne calmed herself with effort, hating a world where she couldn't just kill this man for angering her. The fact that her attitude weren't helping the troubles that Nikoli had alluded to were missed by her. "Not lady!" she insisted. "Ladies dumb, boring, closet-whores. Not dumb. Not boring. Not whore."

Her attitude changed in a second when she saw Ben. Daphne caught Ben, her eyes worried. "You to oh-to-mabile. We clean mess," she ordered. "Catori fix me and Marion - you rest." She felt for rents in his clothing, trying to see if he had shards in him as well. Any she finds will be gently removed - Ben was a member of her pack, after all.

What is it with this woman. Something is not right with her at all. I'll have to ask Ben about her later Arch just looks and shakes his head at Daphne's words. "Ben are you okay to drive? Looks like you took a good blow to the head" he asks.

"I'm going to be fine, Count. I wear my scars with pride.", Catori treated her wounds to stop the bleeding but didn't use her innate powers of healing. She felt she had to save those for later, she was going to be alright, she was an Apache.

"I agree with Marion, we should make haste and leave, but not before cleaning up this mess.", she looked at the summoning circle and started to remove what could be cleaned up or thrown away.

Ben tried to focus briefly in reply to Arch. Okay, successful focus. Oh wait, okay, not so successful focus. "...I may need a few minutes to rest a little before I attempt to drive. Oh! Thankyou Daphne! Much better."

The second Ben said he was better, Daphne stepped back from him. She was maintaining that distance that he'd said he liked, touching him only when necessary. To Arch, it must have looked like she was violently pulling away from him. "Ok," she said, patting him on the head and limping back over to the mess on the pier. With Catori and Marion, she began to clean up.

As you go to clean away the circle you all notice that the materials have scattered about the area. The breeze, returning after the bizarre magic effects of the ritual, has caught the silver filings and strewn them about blowing some off into the water and others swirl about in little eddies. The candles have burned down to waxy stumps and the dove has already grown cold and stiff in the brutal winter evening. Quickly cleaning up what remains the group then piles into the cars and heads for the ferry back to Abel Island. With six hours to midnight there is much to discuss and prepare if they wish to harness the Solstice to force the box open.

Marion is quiet during the cleanup. She runs over the ritual over and over in her mind; reviews every step, every rune, every word. She's both relieved and disquieted to conclude that there hadn't been any error in the rite that would explain what happened.

The more she thought about it, the more she reinforced her earlier notion. There was something about that shade itself that allowed it to overcome, to a limited extent, the restrictions placed on it by the spell. But a shade was a shade, wasn't it? Regardless of who it was in its mortal life.

When the task is done and they have regrouped, Marion puts forth, "It may be wise not to open this until we've looked into it further...as much as it pains me to say."

Even as she says it though, she's not sure it's an option. Could she really doom herself to six months of looking at that box without opening it?

Janos seems to weigh his words before speaking.

"You may not have the luxury of time, Fraulein Abel. They have already killed to get at the box once. Undoubtably they have been looking into who has it now."

"Also, could they use the knife that killed the man to get similar information from his shade?"

"One rarely has the circumstances return to thier control by waiting on events to come around, but rather by taking direct action."

"I recommend you open the box because the opportunity may not come again. Err on the side of finding knowledge and learning, not the fear of the unknown."

By the time they'd finished cleaning, Daphne noticed her cheek hurt. She must have taken another shard to the face; if it was only starting to hurt now, it must be very bad or very minor. As the others regrouped nearby, she hung back to use the mirror on the car to assess the injury.

To her surprise, the cheek where the spirit had touched her had gone bone-white. Whimpering a bit, she touched the white skin and found it numb. Sighing, she pulled her knife and made a quick cut on her cheek. If the shade-touched area would heal, the cut would bleed. If it didn't bleed, she was probably facing death as the skin died and dropped from her face.

For a tense moment she waited, then the small cut welled with red and Daphne sagged with relief. She put her knife away and followed the others into the study, catching the end of the conversation. "Should open box. Need answers." She looked very serious as she stood a little aside from the others, clutching her spear with Spot sitting nervously beside her. "What happen... not right. Need answers."