World Tree MUSH

    The chase begins with three huge shaggy monstrous hulks on the roof of the Vince Guaraldi Music Hall confronting Benedicta. Another slams open the back door of the theater, setting off the fire alarm as is limps away with a single arm, a trail of blood giving away its path. Burlingame at night is not really impressive; lots of strip malls, hotels, and mid-tier restaraunts open, seeing as how the city is not too far from San Francisco International Airport. The scene around the music hall can be summed up as panicked, as the people who were in the music hall are fleeing the monster sighting.

Benedicta's still waiting for her bird wings to finish growing as she backs to the edge of the roof. She can't let the monsters get away, but there's no way she can take on three of them at once either. She kneels trying to blind the creatures with the yellow light from her horn as she stalls for more time.

Serrah just suddenly appears behind the Grendel as she timestop-hops over to it, fist in mid-swing! But before it has any chance of connecting, she jerks back in surprise, looking around. "Whoa, what ... huh." She's just discovered that she can't attack in melee while time is stopped.

And then she frowns, looking up at the rooftop at the sight of that glow. "This had better not be something else to worry about," she mutters, and runs up the wall of the building at the speed of a bicycle before landing next to Benedicta. "-- Three of these assholes!?" she blurts out.

Dolce, in full monster form with flowing clothing and her conductor's wand, is sitting on the edge of a building facing the chaos in the distance. As she spots people fleeing from the danger that has shown its ugly self, she slurps on an iced coffee she bought not too long before.

"Neat." Slurrrrrp. "Let's have some fun, then."

She lifts her wand, and closes one eye, making a face of concentration. Then she flicks the wand and a ripple of distorted air, a nearly imperceptible pinpoint, flies through the air toward one of the three monsters harassing Benedicta and Serrah. On impact, it'll emit a shotgun blast of sound, a thunderous HONK like the creature being struck comically with a saxophone, with corresponding explosive force. Non-lethal, but probably not fun.

    Alucard hadn't been at the site of the main trouble, but he's learned that when a Vine randomly dumps him in a place, there's probably trouble afoot. And the sound of screams is more than enough of a compass to lead him to the site of the trouble.

Thus, there's an unusually large black bat that's been flying over the area. It's unlikely that there will be anyone looking close enough -- either due to panic, lack of experience with bats, or said bat just being too high up to see. The burst of light startles him, and he flails and dips in the air, not able to see for the moment. He's forced to land, and when he does, it's also near where those three monsters are harassing Benedicta. He also drops out of bat form abruptly, landing on one knee with a grunt.

    Alucard might be recognized from before -- the tour -- but he is most certainly not dressed the way he used to be. Then he was dressed in a suit. Now he's dressed in full vampire attire -- overly-fancy, ornate suit, and a black cloak. The odd pulsing glow from the blood-red inside of his cloak might be a little unsettling. He's also armed with a sword and carrying a shield.

    Once he gets his vision back, he notes, "...Hm. That would explain it." But he makes no move to attack. Maybe the comical HONK! from down below has distracted him?

    The wounded grendel gives out a loud howl that's cut off by the dissonant *HONK*, startling the crowd and causing them to look around nervously. It then lopes along with surprising speed down the back alleys, quickly vanishing.
    At the appearance of two others, the Grendel trio hesitate. With the impact of the sonic noise against the roof, one of them hit squarely by the blast and knocked off its feet across the surface of the roof's gritty surface. The AC unit they'd ripped off to make an entryway is also hit by the blast, sending up a cloud of freon and ice crystals into the night.
    A grendel wrenches its fallen companion to its feet while the other leaps off the building, the shadows that cling to it like a cloak making it hard to see against the dark of the roofs.

The loud honking noise makes Benedicta cringe as well as she takes to the sky. She instantly notice as one of the creatures leaps out off the roof and does her best to follow it. There was only one way to find where it came from and if there were others like the three that shown up. Of course Dolce and her wand also grab the almir-aj's girl attention. Was she like herself?

Dolce finishes off her coffee and leaps off the building she had perched on to pursue the grendels. She merrily hops and bounds, her colored feathers and billowing mage clothing making her quite obvious against the night sky. She even seems to glow a bit. When she lands, it's with a musical THUMP like a drum getting hammered by someone's face, sending up dust and debris in all directions. She merrily begins skipping after the monsters as they flee into the night, holding up the edge of her skirt like a dainty princess.

"La la la~"

She seems to ignore the others for now, more interested in bothering these mythological beasts instead.

Serrah jumps back with a squawk at the sound of that HONK. "What the f ..." She looks around, sees Dolce, and then immediately whirls around at the sudden arrival of Alucard. She stares at him for just a split second with a puzzled frown, like she's getting contradictory signals; they don't have dhampirs on Hartford, since vampires can't reproduce that way. Serrah, on the other hand, would clearly read as 100% vampire.

But she quickly turns back to the other Grendels. "Okay, uh, I have no idea what's going on here, but ..." She watches Benedicta and Dolce start pursuing the runners. "... yeah." She turns to the two Grendels remaining on the roof.

And then she's suddenly standing a few feet to the left, and there's half a dozen baseballs flying at the Grendels' heads at a hundred miles per hour, as abruptly as if a proverbial video had skipped ahead.

    Alucard doesn't ask any questions. He pauses only long enough to see Benedicta leap off after the fleeing creature before he gets the idea. He's going to waylay the two creatures left behind on the roof, and make sure they're not going to attack while the chasers' backs are turned.

    He draws his sword and takes a swing at the grendels still on the roof, pushing his body for all the speed he can muster. To mortal eyes, he might appear to teleport across the space between himself and the grendels.

    Caught off-guard, the pair of Grendel on the roof are pummeled by fastballs. One goes down as it tries to shield its packmate, falling away from the grendel that was knocked down by the blast. Thinking quickly, it lopes along, using both claws to roughly grabbing the downed grendel as it jumps off the building, fleeing the assault. They do not seem to be aggressive at all, despite looking like somebody mixed up the traits of a human, wolverine, and grizzly bear.
    Benedicta and Dolce can see the grendel as an inky blot against the street lights below, though the lack of lights on the rooftops means the chase is herky-jerky.

"Okay, she's kind of weird but as long she's helping..." This coming from the winged bunny girl as she does her best to keep up with the grendel that's fleeing. Of course the lack of light made it kind of difficult to see. Maybe she was better have luck following Dolce, she's not quite sure what the monster girl is capable of after alll.

    As the grendel flee off the roof, Alucard quickly follows. His cloak billows out as he falls, and his fall slows. The cloak seems to form a pair of wings -- feathered wings, oddly -- as he glides down from the roof. But a moment before he would have landed, his body changes again. There are four feet that hit the ground, the four paws of a wolf.

    He follows the grendel -- and by extension the others also following the grendel -- as a wolf. This is his 'speedy' form; if any form has any hope of keeping up with the creatures, it's this one. And with any luck his excellent night vision will alow him to see at least the movement of the creature.

    By coincidence, his wolf form's fur is a pale color, so it might be easier to see in the darkness, so that might help any others who might be having trouble seeing the fleeing creatures.

Serrah frowns. "... They weren't fighting back," she observes. And then suddenly she's across the roof, stuffing baseballs back into the bag at her hip. "--ould probably follow the others, huh." She suddenly sounds ... well, even less enthusiastic about all this than she did already.

Still, though, she sighs softly, and simply leaps off the rooftop and glides after Alucard (and Benedicta, and Dolce). She has good night-vision as a creature of the night herself, and it's not too hard for her to keep track of their quarry.

Dolce uses the sound of the grendel's footsteps and breathing as a form of echolocation, keeping a tight pursuit of about 100 feet or so. She doesn't try to close the distance, she just merrily skips along, like a predator chasing a particularly slow snack. She notices Benedicta is continuing her pursuit, and the others are closing in close behind.

"Wow, all of you are weirdos! It's a weirdo party!" she says, realizing the others are very likely inhuman creatures and not just dark-themed magicians. Well... the jury is out on Benedicta for now.

Dolce seems quite capable of moving quickly, being some kind of raptor(?) person.

    The only person who does not seem to have a way to easily track the grendel is the al-mir'aj girl, though one imagines she could magic something up if she so wished. Dolce's sound perception allows her to track the fleeing grendel, while both Serrah and Alucard can sense the blood trail of the wounded grendel through the night.
    The blood trail ends with a storm drain cover, and coincidentally the other grendel seem to be heading towards the same, though via different routes (possibly to throw off pursuit?). These grendel seem awfully intelligent despite their monstrous appearance.

Serrah grits her teeth at Dolce's judgment of weirdness, but doesn't comment. She fights the sudden urge to lob a baseball her way --

Her eyes go wide. Oh crap, she's randomly getting urges to lob a baseball at people just for being annoying, shit ...

She grumbles. Oh well, might as well just use what she's got. She sniffs the air, and points. "The ... the wounded one went that way," she calls out to the others. "I think we're ..." Her voice trails off. "... shit, I just realized, that blood smells human. What the hell ..." She frowns.

"Says the talking raptor girl..." Benedicta's wings vanish as she figures it would be faster for her to continue this on foot. She's reminding of Lizzie a bit when she gets a better look at Dolce and then the black onyx gets her attention and she pauses a moment. Was she one of them? This wasn't the best time to ask questions especially with others around.

 Plus, the whole scenario was a bit confusing with Dolce helping them fight off the monsters. Was she trying to mislead them? The scent of blood makes it easier for Benedicta to pick up on where the creature is heading but then again it could have attacked someone on the way. She makes sure that Alcuard and Serrah are still close she doesn't want to be left alone with Dolce. "Human? So they've been transformed somehow? Great, this makes things a lot more complicated."

    Alucard has absolutely no reaction to being called a 'weirdo'. He's been called worse, and certainly it's not untrue; he certainly is a weirdo. He does send a look her way, but not for the comment. Whatever it is that prompted the '...really?' look, Alucard isn't saying. He's concentrating on finding the creatures. Also he's a wolf right now, it's hard to talk.

    Hopefully once the storm drain is located, questions can be asked. Alucard doesn't enter the storm drain immediately, though. He changes to his human form first. "What are those creatures? They smell almost human." Seems he's come to the same conclusion as Serrah, yes. He doesn't like the idea that he might be tracking a transformed human.

    ...On the other hand... they might be better off dead if it's a curse of some kind... Despite what the Wallachian villagers might think, any night is a bad night to have a curse!

    Benedicta's response gets a nod. "Hm. If they've been transformed, killing them might be a mercy," he observes. Though it does deserve noting that he doesn't sound eager to do that, if that's the case.

Dolce comes to a halt at the storm drain cover and brings a hand up to her face. "Oh, ew... I'm not going down there." She puffs and flicks her wand and stamps her foot, and the drain cover pops off and flips several times in the air with a ringing noise. Then it softly lands with a 'thump' as if on a bed of pillows nearby.

But Alucard's comment about killing them makes the smile and good nature fade from her. She doesn't look angry, but instead cold. Her eyes turn to him and the air seems to grow quieter, as if her presence was dampening sound. "If they smell human, they're simply humans with monstrous blood. Or mages. Don't be so quick to assume death is the answer." And then she jumps down to pursue the grendels, not in the mood to have foreign agents killing people on her watch, not without fully investigating the situation.

    The city's storm drains are designed to funnel water into the bay, and that's precisely what this would do. Normally one might see lost items such as smart phones or car keys, but this one is strangely devoid of any manmade items, even trash. Implying somebody is keeping it clean. The kinds of things that are down here, even in the dark, are leaves and branches collecting at the corners. It has been awhile since it has rained enough to wash all this debris out to the bay, being California and all.
    The trail leads upwards, as indicated by the way the drain slopes. It's a fairly simple matter to follow the claw marks and scent of blood on concrete at this point, in spite of the deep dark within the drainage system.

Serrah nods to Benedicta and Alucard; the latter's talk about killing people has her mildly rattled. "Is your name by any chance 'Belmont'?" she says flatly.

She frowns at Dolce. She's hopeful about her comment about just being mages, but ... "There's a difference between 'smells like human' and 'their blood smells like human," she mutters, before melting into a liquid shadow and following her. "What in the world," her voice mutters from the shadow, as she takes notice of the relative cleanliness of the sewer ...

Dolce's comment confuses Benedicta a bit before she comes to a sudden realization. Could this all be Black Onyx plot and Dolce was sent here to observe? So many questions. She follows the other girl down, if they were behind this then she certainly doesn't want them to return the creatures. Still she's not quite sure how to undo their conditions and trying to take them back to Beacon would certainly be a pain. If Dolce wasn't already here she might left and came back with reinforcments.

 "Let's try to avoid killing them if possible. She nods in agreement with the raptor girl, even if they're on different sides they could agree on one thing.

    "I said 'if'," Alucard qualifies, with a frown. Though he leaves it at that, and just follows down the tube. If it's a particularly small space he may need to change forms again to get down there -- mist this time, to make it easier to get down there and not fall in something dangerous (or just disgusting). He'll reform at the ground level down below the now-open drain.

    Alucard raises a brow at Serrah. "It is not." A pause, realizing he hasn't... actually given his name, at least here. "...Call me 'Alucard'," he offers. "Where have you heard the name 'Belmont'?" he asks. Not revealing much about what he knows about a 'Belmont', but still giving a pretty big clue as to who he actually is...

    Once everyone's set off, Alucard pulls out an ornately-decorated card. There's a small surge of magic, for those able to sense it, as he activates it. The card disappears, and a small fairy with a green dress floats down from above. She glows softly; it's only a little bit of light, but it should help. Besides that, Fairy is his second set of eyes -- if there's something funny about any of these walls, she's apt to see it.

Dolce was here entirely of her own volition, but that's beside the point. She follows with the others, moving with some urgency to pursue the monsters. "Your name is Dracula spelled backwards," she points out to the half-vampire that's part of the party, as if this were a relevant source of information.

"Where are these guys going?" she wonders aloud.

    The storm drain path leads upwards, the leafy debris becoming more common. Eventually there's a dead end. Or what should have been one. It looks like the concrete has been carefully clawed out to form an entryway into a den of sorts. Ramshackle brickwork keeps the natural earth around the entry to the den from collapsing, indicating a fair amount of care put into it. There's battered coolers stacked a bit haphazardly as well, visible from the entryway. There's also the smell of... sandalwood incense wafting out from it, mixing with the dusty earth smells of the storm drain tunnel. There was a storm drain near this place, which the incense smell was clearly being vented up and out of the concrete maze by. The blood trail of the wounded grendel ends here, and the four non-grendel people present can hear a bit of movement within, just around the corner of the entryway, in what is presumably the interior.

Serrah's voice says, "Seconded!" in response to Benedicta's comment. At Alucard's question, her head pokes out of the shadow. "Serrah Delany," she says. "And it was a friend of mine, Sonia Belmont. When I got forcibly turned into a vampire, she offered a 'permanent solution to my troubles'." Her expression and sarcastic tone suggest that she doesn't think of this as a solution at all.

And then her head jerks around to Dolce. "Waaaaait, what?" she says, sounding almost amused; in Hartford, Dracula is just a politician, rather than a more monstrous menace. (Insofar as all vampires in a position of political power are a monstrous menace.)

She rematerializes completely when they reach their destination, and she puts her hands on her hips. "... Huh. Ohhhh boy. -- Wait, is that a playbill for the place we were just at!?"

"I'm Benedicta Cornell." She figures she should introduce herself to the others as well. "Wait, you got turned into a vampire against your will? It doesn't seem like the best idea to force that upon someone." It sounds like the kind of thing that would likely end rather badly. "Well, a lot of politicians are blood-sucking monsters, so that doesn't come as too much of a reach." Was she trying to lighten the mood?

 "Is something try to hide a drug lab or something down here?" She smells the incense. "It's kind of hard to see anything down here? Wait, wasn't that a grand opening? How did they get their hands on a playbill already? Unless they're on staff or something..." This didn't add up.

    "...Yes," Alucard replies to Dolce's observation. "That's rather the idea." He turns to look at Serrah when she explains. "I see." Pause. "...Perhaps it sounds strange to you. And perhaps vampires are different in your world. But in the world Sonia and I come from, being forced to become a vampire means becoming monster's slave, and then a monster oneself. We have no cure for it. And we have often released people so cursed, at their own requests, in such a way. Perhaps that will not be your fate. If Sonia trusted you enough to give you the choice, then I have no reason not to."

    So that's... something, anyway, right? Right?

    Alucard pauses at the sight of the stacked coolers -- he's been in this mishmash of worlds long enough to know basically what they're for. "...Hmm." And then the mention of the playbill draws his gaze in that direction. He raises an eyebrow at Benedicta's joke. "I have heard this," he confirms.

    But as for the scene itself? He wasn't really there in the beginning and doesn't quite have all the info, sohe can't make too many judgment calls. But he does suggest, in a tone that he finds the idea laughable, "Perhaps they merely wanted to go and listen to the music?"