2013.08.21 - Wizard Cops Episode 0: Origin Story

At some point before the ghost-summoning began in earnest, Stephen slipped out to continue his own line of investigation.

Presumably, he found some back stairway to get back up to the ground floor, what with Amaya having posted up near the entrance to the crime scene to do her thing; he certainly didn't walk by her.

And so, while the rest of his morbid tour group wakes the dead to further their investigation, Strange briefly considers the empty lot around himself, then touches two fingers to the broach pinned to his breast; the golden spark that leaps from it lands on his shirt, then rapidly expands into bands of light that sweep up and down his body, replacing his suit with a billowing blue tunic and fitted black leggings. His overcoat is draped over his shoulders just in time for one of those transformative bands to pass over and reshape the garment into a flowing, red and gold cape; the brooch ends up pinned to the center of his chest, a couple times larger than it was during the tour.

And then, once the facade of normalcy is shed, he lifts off into the sky... and assumes the lotus position a ways above the museum. Whenever Amaya - or anyone else, for that matter - leaves the museum, they'll almost certainly still find him up there if they look, deep in meditation and sending waves of eldritch light pulsing from the amulet on his chest.

The reward for putting on a spooky light show at the museum is a free tour.

Amethyst accepted, of course. It was partly reflex. It's difficult to turn down something free when you've grown up having nothing. The past year with the magic castles and the servants and throne rooms has only jarred her sensibilities, not erased them.

The tour gave her time to think. Summoning things wasn't something she enjoyed and she's received enough cautions about tampering with the dead to have some instinctive distrust. It was the best way to sort this out. It also scared the hell out of that one dude that was giving her a hard time.

The princess isn't watching where she's going as she exits. Stephen Strange might as well be on the astral plane for how much she's paying attention. Her slow, distracted pace eventually brings her to her unicorn, who is waiting with the infinite patience of a pet that has been recently fed. Some nearby bushes have been damaged.

"What do you know about creepy cults?" Amethyst asks. The unicorn shakes its head and stomps a hoof. The princess looks over her shoulder, brow furrowed. After the unicorn whinnies, she looks up. "Oh. Is that a cape?"

Amethyst approaches Strange as confidently as she can manage. Being astride a flying unicorn definitely helps. As with all magical creatures, the unicorn's wings make nearly no sound as it hovers near the sorcerer. They're both floating. Strange just doesn't have to flap anything.

"So what kind of wizard are you?" Amethyst calls out once she's close.

The bottoms of Strange's cloak do flutter with each fresh pulse of light from his amulet, but he is, indeed, being held aloft primarily through magic and force of will. The amulet splits along a hidden central seam, then snaps open to reveal a shining, golden eye, the pupil of which rapidly scans skies before fixing on the princess and her unicorn. The energy pouring from the eerie bauble is warm and soothing, like a blanket for the soul.

"On days like today," he murmurs without looking at her, "I am a tired one; what was done to those guards for the sake of knowledge is deplorable." With that, his eyes crack open so that he can study Amethyst before turning her question back on her:

"And what sort of princess are you, now that we aren't quite so steeped in the grim business below?"

Amethyst draws back as Strange's amulet splits apart. Her right arm tenses, hand slightly raised and fingers splayed apart. Even though the ambient energy feels nonthreatening and the eye itself has failed to shoot lasers, the princess remains en garde.

"A magical one. I thought the unicorn made it obvious," Amethyst says with a tight smile. She tries to meet Strange's gaze, but keeps glancing at his hands. "What's your interest in what happened here? Did you find anything out?"

"Mmm."

The Doctor doesn't return the smile; in fact, his expression doesn't shift much at all. Amethyst's answer is pretty nakedly unsatisfactory given the contradiction that he can sense between her mortal body and divine essence, but he doesn't press any further. People died below them; the mystery of Princess Amethyst's existence will have to wait until their killers are found.

"I will need to consult my library to be certain, but those symbols--"

The Eye on his chest flashes, and then the sigils that were painted in blood on the museum floor blaze into existence in the air between Strange and Amethyst, and then he lifts a gloved hand from his lap to point towards one of the symbols.

"--I believe I've come across this one before--or something like it; it's Asgardian in origin, signifying a contract between one of its denizens and the caster." Opening his eyes more fully to focus on the girl, the Doctor's tone grows grave when he concludes, "Whomever was responsible for killing those guards used the power of a god or goddess to do so."

Amethyst quickly loses the smile as the wizard fails to react. She turns her head and briefly looks off into the distance. Okay, so this guy's more of a Gandalf the White type and not Gandalf the Guy With Fireworks.

The princess grips the reins with both hands, finally relaxing her mystical trigger finger. She commits the runes to memory: these are Asgardian in origin. These are what some Asgardian runes look like. Remember how they're formed. Asgard is a real place.

"They didn't just kill those guards," Amethyst says. "They intentionally bound their spirits to that location. They didn't do anything else," the princess continues, frowning. "I don't know why they'd do that, unless they didn't finish whatever ritual they were performing, or they were planning on doing something later."

"Probably a goddess, too," she says, though the certainty has gone out of her voice. "At least, it felt like it. Um, the magic, I mean. Women did this. Does that seem like a strange thing to know?"

"No stranger than the origins of Asgardian runes, or the plight of caged ghosts," the Doctor replies. Now he smiles, although it's a pretty small one, given the circumstances. Now that he's focusing more fully on conversing with Amethyst, the amulet stops pulsing with energy; the symbols linger on, though.

"It's possible that the spirits themselves were their intended sacrifice, and that they were just being held until their goddess could claim them," he continues as his hand settles back into his lap. "It's also entirely possible that these women chose to misuse whatever gifts their goddess gave them; the contract between she and they was almost certainly forged well before tonight--likely before any of them were born, in fact. Perhaps they were acting in her interest, or perhaps they only believed that they were; perhaps they just decided to use her gifts for their own gain. Either way: there are few goddesses of Asgard who have both the power and temperament to cultivate followers this way; if a deeper study of the symbols turns out not to be enough to reveal her name, we may be best served by confronting them ourselves."

After a thoughtful look down at the museum, he looks back up at Amethyst with a slight frown.

"Whether or not any of our fellow museum-goers are--suited to that task is another question, though."

Amethyst follows Strange's look to the museum. Unlike him, she smiles faintly as she considers the ideas. "One of them ran out of the room when I started with the ghosts. He said it was how horror movies start. Maybe he had a point."

As she further considers the implications of Strange's words, the princess's expression hardens. "What's your name, anyway? If we're going to confront viking goddesses, I'd like to know--"

Amethyst exhales and lowers her head. "Sorry. Bad experience with a massive creeper who happened to be a wizard. Totally not your problem."

She clucks her tongue. The unicorn lowers its head, allowing the princess to lean forward and extend her hand. "I'm, um, Amaya. Amaya Amethyst. I'm the princess of House Amethyst and I'm pretty sure I'm the rightful ruler of Gemworld. It's kind of complicated, Game of Thrones kinda thing."

"My name is Doctor Strange," he says, firmly shaking the offered hand after waving off her apology. There are an awful lot of shady sorcerers out there; just ask those three security guards. "Earth's Sorcerer Supreme; it's an honor to make your acquaintance."

There isn't a lick of ego or pomp(ignoring the floating, and the glowing glyphs, anyway) accompanying the introduction, despite the ostentatiousness of his title.

"Ruling over Gemworld is hardly a game, from what I've seen in my few forays there," he continues, brow slightly furrowed thanks to the comparison, "but I'm sure that you know that. Your people must miss you; I haven't seen many accounts of its rulers spending much time away from their subjects--certainly not to investigate murder."

Amethyst is no princess in waiting. Her handshake implies that she is very comfortable swinging the sword she wears.

The unicorn raises its head and tosses its mane, its hair catching the sun in an obnoxiously picturesque way. Amethyst is too busy staring at Strange to notice. "Sorcerer Supreme? That means--"

She stifles an awkward laugh with her hand. "Wow, okay. I, um--yeah. I'm on, uh, important royal business that concerns the safety of Gemworld." The princess grimaces. "I don't know. I'm not actually from there. I mean, I guess I am, but I grew up here. On Earth."

Amethyst's silence is brief. She quickly follows up to change the subject: "I'll go with you to Asgard. How should I contact you? I can ask my mother if there's any way to make an introduction for us."

She purses her lips. "Or you could just be the Sorcerer Supreme and get us in. That seems easier."

The Doctor can't quite disguise his surprise when she tells him of her origins; a Lord(Lady?) of Order in the flesh is unprecedented all on its own. An enfleshed Lord of Order who is also the Earth-born ruler of mystical society of Earth refugees borders on the absurd, even for a man who confronts impossibility on a daily basis.

"Fortunately for us," he murmurs once his eyes are no longer wide-open and he's straightened up from the mild recoil of shock, "I have acquaintances there." He squeezes the hand he just used to greet Amethyst shut for a moment, and when it opens, there's a small, glowing coin from Gemworld(circa five or ten years ago) resting in his palm. "Take this; when you're ready, throw it into a pool of water, and I'll be along soon."

Raised on Earth as she may be, Amethyst takes the coin in stride. Living in Gemworld for a year changes a girl.

"Just give me a heads up if I should wear something fancy," Amethyst says with a grin. "I'm going to go wash my hair. See you then, doc!"

The princess clucks her tongue again. Her unicorn rears up mid-air, completely unnecessarily, and then tucks into a dive. After building up some speed and coming perilously close to the ground, her wings shoot open, propelling the princess and her steed back upward toward the setting sun and into the distance.