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arts / rec.arts.comics.creative / [ASH] ASH #125 - City of Night Part 6: Doorway Into Night

SubjectAuthor
* [ASH] ASH #125 - City of Night Part 6: Doorway Into NightDave Van Domelen
+- Re: [ASH] ASH #125 - City of Night Part 6: Doorway Into NightScott Eiler
`* Re: [ASH] ASH #125 - City of Night Part 6: Doorway Into NightDrew Nilium
 `- Re: [ASH] ASH #125 - City of Night Part 6: Doorway Into NightDave Van Domelen

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[ASH] ASH #125 - City of Night Part 6: Doorway Into Night

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From: dvan...@eyrie.org (Dave Van Domelen)
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Subject: [ASH] ASH #125 - City of Night Part 6: Doorway Into Night
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2021 18:18:53 -0000 (UTC)
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 by: Dave Van Domelen - Mon, 11 Oct 2021 18:18 UTC

[cover is dominated by a polished black wood mask that is carved
in the image of a man's face, but there is only darkness behind
the eye and mouth holes. Fainly reflected in the wood is the
helmet of Solar Max's armor.]

.|. COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED presents ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES #125
--X------------------------------------------------------------------------
'|` /|(`| | City of Night Part 6 of 6 - Doorway Into Night
/-|.)|-| copyright 2021 by Dave Van Domelen
___________________________________________________________________________

ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES ROLL CALL

CODENAME REAL NAME POWERS ASSIGNMENT
-------- --------- ------ ----------
Solar Max Jonathan Zachary Spacetime Control AMERICA
"JakZak" Taylor
Meteor Sarah Grant-Taylor Superspeed AMERICA
Poniente Esmeralda Colina Wind Mage AMERICA
Scorch Scott Handleman Pyrokinetic CANADA
Centurion Salvatore Napier Strength, Regeneration MEXICO
Fury Arin Kelsey Concussion Blasts MEXICO
Contact Aaron Zander Psi, Mind-over-Body DIPLOMATIC
Breaker Christina Li Telekinesis DIPLOMATIC
Essay Sara Ana Henderson Gadgeteer VENUS
Peregryn Howard Henderson Jr. Elemental Mage VENUS
Beacon George Sylvester Living Light VENUS
Geode Unknown Living Crystal VENUS
Lightfoot Tom Dodson Velocity Control TRANSIT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[January 22, 2027 - Eurasian Union General Assembly, Prague]

The time for small planning meetings was over, and the main assembly
hall of the Eurasian Union had been borrowed for this occasion. Rather than
representatives of the EU member nations and their staffs, though, the seats
were filled with members of the EU's "hero team" EUROPA, the North American
Combine's Academy of Super-Heroes, trans-national response team STRAFE, and
even represenatives of powers like Khadam, Q'Nos, and the Venusian colonies.
The EUROPAn contingent included superhumans Ymir, Oni, Justice,
Tytanika, and Hotspur, plus several non-powered agents. Their leader, Arc,
was at the front, at a table next to the main podium.
ASH's leader Solar Max sat next to Arc, with another block of seats
taken by Essay, Lightfoot, Beacon, Scorch, Poniente, Contact, Breaker,
Fury, Centurion, and Meteor. Of their active membership, only Peregryn and
Geode remained on Venus...the former because he could not leave, the latter
because she had reasons to avoid scrutiny. While not a member of ASH, the
divination sage Daniel Tang sat with them, next to Poniente.
Peregryn was represented at the front table, however, with an enchanted
tablet computer propped up next to Solar Max.
Gerhard Hesse rounded out the front table, representing STRAFE, and his
agents mostly clustered around either the ASH group or the EUROPA group
depending on their personal preferences and relationships. Mostly-reformed
paraganger Roger "Boom" Langridge sat next to STRAFE demolitions expert Greg
Sellack, both in a cluster that included Essay and some other techie STRAFE
agents. Significantly absent from the STRAFE delegation was agent Noire, who
had been sent back to Venus after it had been determined her shadowmeld power
was more hazard to herself than asset to the mission.
With one notable exception, the remaining people in attendance tended to
sit alone, well away from the two main groups. TerraStar and Sadi Pasteur
might technically both have connections to Khadam, but had no reason to trust
or like each other, and sat quite distant from each other. Delta Rose, who
had been invited to this meeting for purely informational purposes, likewise
sat alone. The exception was Simon Smith, who was between Poniente and
Essay. He was as much on parole as Langridge, although everyone knew he
could leave without difficulty if he chose to.
Arc stepped to the podium. As the "home field captain," the other
groups had agreed to defer to her in matters of protocol.
"It would be nice to say that you're all gathered here for a mission
briefing, but unfortunately we aren't quite that far yet. We have some ideas
that seem more likely to work than our previous attempts, but it's time to
see if anyone is inspired by hearing our plan to come up with something
better. Or at least find any holes we're missing."
If you'd told Claire Auger in 2022 that one day she'd be representing
the EU on the world stage like this, she'd probably have had a mild nervous
meltdown. She was the muscle. But when the nominal brains of EUROPA had
been killed or otherwise taken out of action, she'd stepped up. Now she
barely gave it a moment's thought. Arc was the leader, so she led.
"Thanks to a semi-anonymous tip, we re-examined our assumptions.
Looking at the timeline, Lady Sable was clearly laying groundwork for action
in Berlin months before the arrival of the extradimensional deathgod whose
power she seems to be using. Whatever her real plan is, the deathgod's
arrival was a very helpful coincidence, but she was already in motion on
something. And that something is almost definitely apotheosis, given her
past activity and known obsession with Lord Ebon. Why Berlin? During the
brief period the CSV's 'Worldnet' was active using the remnants of the Berlin
Wall as a focus, that certainly would have been a good reason, but it was
utterly destroyed in the wake of the World Serpent crisis. Another
possibility that leapt to mind was the Nazi mystic treasure hunt of the
1900s, but...well, Peregryn, if you will?" she stepped over and moved the
tablet to the top of the podium.
"Thank you. While the phrase 'common knowledge' may not really be
appropriate in a field of study containing only a few score serious scholars,
nonetheless it was common knowledge that none of the powerful magical
artifacts looted by the Nazis during the 1930s and 1940s remained in Berlin.
Those which hadn't been destroyed during the waning days of the war were
themselves looted by the allied powers, ending up in vaults in a number of
different countries. Nonetheless, when I was traveling the world seeking
forgotten artifacts and lore several years ago, I did visit Berlin just in
case something had been missed. Nothing tripped my alarms. And yes, I did
pay special attention to possible Nyx artifacts hidden away in dark corners,
due to her historical involvement with the Thule Society. To the extent any
of her tokens remained in the world, they had been in America, in the hands
of fifth columnists fought by the original Beacon. I believe Monsieur
Pasteur has the honor of picking up the next portion of this briefing?"
Arc nodded, then motioned for the Khadamite mage's microphone to be
turned on.
"Thank you. This ties in to the research I had been doing on primal
gods earlier," Pasteur said with not a small hint of pride. "Once the word
came down to concentrate on Berlin, I realized I'd seen a reference to an
exhibit of 'safe' artifacts on display, those related to gods that had
neither been involved in the Twentieth Century nor who had significant
cultural weight. Obscure gods, mostly victims of syncretism, whose
portfolios had been taken over by more powerful gods and largely lost their
independent existence. But I suppose from Ms. Auger's impatient glare that I
should get to the point. Hemera. Very obscure goddess of the dawn, and as
far as merely linear and causal archaeology can tell, what worshippers she
had were absorbed by Eos. In some tellings, she is the daughter of Nyx, in
others the sister..."
"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown," Simon Smith interjected quietly, yet
somehow everyone heard.
"...um, yes," Pasteur was momentarily flustered. "Divine family trees
tend to be rather tangled, as befits their nonlinear nature and some of the
damage done to history by their struggles. But getting back to the point,
some of Hemera's ritual items are located in the Altes Museum on the
Museumsinsel. Ah, the Old Museum on Museum Island for the Americans," he
sneered. "It might have attracted Sable's attention, if she could set the
sisters' powers against each other and then leverage it into stealing part of
each's aspect to carve out her own space as a new primal god. My theory is
that she might seek to embody the idea of 'darkest before the dawn' in some
fashion, and the power of a deathgod could certainly feed into that."
"Based on that," Justice interrupted, "we looked into some active
artifact smuggling cases and found several suspected shipments into Berlin
over the past several months that could have also been Hemeran items."
"They INCLUDED," Pasteur took back the spotlight, "a rather interesting
item from our perspective. A large bronze doorway, said to be modeled after
the one through which Nyx and Hemera passed each other each morning. So,
there's our way in. Lady Sable brought a door inside and we just need to
find a way to go through it," he finished smugly.
"Thank you," Arc managed to keep her tone level. "Since you're well
versed in going places magically, Mr. Smith, do you have any ideas on how we
can exploit this information?"
"I do," he stood, although he made no motion to walk to the front. As
before, he needed no microphone in order to be heard. "Since Sadi made his
findings known to me, I've been considering a few other little bits of trivia
that came to me over the years, particularly in my past life. A little
research since then has confirmed it. Hemera has a brother and/or consort
named Aether...yes, as in luminiferous. I think he might have had some small
hand in helping Beacon face down Nyx's worshippers, so this whole convoluted
little family of primals seems to be part of current events in some fashion.
I believe we can fashion our own bronze doorway and then the current Beacon
can power it so that we can pass through to the other side. Unfortunately,
the door can only be held open during the brief period of time that is dawn,
that's the price of using this mystic resonance."
"Something tells me that this will be an all or nothing strike anyway,"
Arc replied. "That solves getting in, and we'll work out the details how who
goes in what order as the breach team and followup later. Terrastar, you
think you can do something about Sable once we get in?"
An uncomfortable hush fell over the room. Absolutely no one was pleased
at the idea of Polla Hectrix having the fate of the world in her hands, given
her avowed goal of conquering it.
She smiled in a way that was meant to be reassuring but really really
wasn't. "Oh, I've been teaching Poniente as well. I know you don't trust
me, and frankly I don't trust any plan with too many single points of failure
to it. Backup, backup, backup. My time connected to Heraclius gave me quite
a lot of opportunity to examine the shackles that could bind a mortal soul to
a semi-divine one, and I thought of several ways to sever that bond.
Unfortunately, all of those planned rather required being on the outside of
the bond, so thank you for getting me out. But if Poniente or I can get
close enough to Lady Sable, we should be able to free the deathgod. We each
have our own way of doing so, in case one fails the other might succeed."
"And we're fairly confident the deathgod wants to be free, based on
information from M'emba," Poniente added, anticipating the objection. "Yes,
we have no idea what to do with the freed deathgod, but worst case scenario
it runs away and is a problem for later. Best case, it decides to wreak
horrible vengeance on Lady Sable and saves us some trouble. Most likely,
she's drained it too much for it to be a real factor one way or another right
away. It will probably absorb the dome into itself, if it can, to recoup
some of its losses. Assuming it operates under anything resembling human
logic, which admittedly is by no means guaranteed."
"So, that's our outline," Arc's eyes swept the room. "Magic door to get
into Berlin. Find Sable if she's not already next to the door. Free the
deathgod, overwhelm Sable with as much force as we can bring to bear, not
necessarily in that order. Gonna need some work on the breach team, in case
she's right on top of the door with all of her most trusted minions, but this
seems to be the best shot we'll get. Any thoughts?"
"I have one," Lightfoot raised his hand, then put it down somewhat
abashedly. "Well, two, but since one of them is to say I got the Chinatown
reference, only one good one. And it's more of a question, of Mr. Smith. Is
there a range limit on the gate you're thinking of?"
Smith pondered for a moment. "Not really. It uses magical resonance,
it could have the other end on Santarus Prime and work just as well."
"Then why not put the gate on Venus?" Lightfoot asked. "Dawn there
takes a really long time. And I could take everyone there while the gate is
built onboard the ship."
"That...Howard?" Essay frowned in concentration. "Would that work? No
problems with Inanna objecting?"
Howard Henderson Jr., aka Peregryn, shook his head. "Inanna wouldn't
object, but remember where dawn is right now. Almost no land mass at all on
the terminator, meaning it's Leviathan's territory. And what little bit of
the northern continent isn't inside the Venusian 'arctic circle' is currently
never seeing the Sun rise all the way above the horizon. It *might* still
work, but I would rather not risk failure on a technicality that it's never
dawn if the Sun is never fully up."
"Ah, I have an idea," came a voice from the EUROPA cluster.
"Yes, Agent...Rivera?" Arc squinted to make out his ID tag.
"I trained at the Vikna facility, I remember this time of year the Sun
does make it all the way up, but it takes quite a while that close to the
Arctic Circle," Agent Rivera offered. "Plus, we already have facilities
there, and if the battle spills back out the gate the wrong way it's easier
to contain than doing it just outside Berlin."
"Sounds like our next stop is Norway," Solar Max raised an eyebrow.
"Dress warm."


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Re: [ASH] ASH #125 - City of Night Part 6: Doorway Into Night

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From: sei...@eilertech.com (Scott Eiler)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.creative
Subject: Re: [ASH] ASH #125 - City of Night Part 6: Doorway Into Night
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2021 22:12:24 -0000 (UTC)
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 by: Scott Eiler - Sun, 24 Oct 2021 22:12 UTC

On 2021-10-11 11:18, Dave Van Domelen wrote:

> A normal breeze was blowing now, as fresh air mixed into the stagnant
> air of Berlin for the first time in days. He noticed that his onboard comm
> feed was no longer just what was being piped in through Hemera's door, but
> instead the full array of signals that were part of modern life.
> Lady Sable collapsed in a heap, her scream reduced to a wheeze.

It seemed like a traditional ending to me, but suspenseful and very well
done.

--
-- (signed) Scott Eiler 8{D> ------ http://www.eilertech.com/ -------

"Your Royal Highness, instead of devoting yourself exclusively
to Minerva, should, instead, rather offer sacrifice at the altars
of Bacchus, Orpheus, Venus, and Morpheus."

- Advice to Prince Duarte of Portugal. From "The golden age of
Prince Henry the Navigator", by Joaquim Pedro Oliveira Martins.
Coming soon to Project Gutenberg.

Re: [ASH] ASH #125 - City of Night Part 6: Doorway Into Night

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From: pwer...@gmail.com (Drew Nilium)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.creative
Subject: Re: [ASH] ASH #125 - City of Night Part 6: Doorway Into Night
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 by: Drew Nilium - Sun, 14 Nov 2021 17:31 UTC

On 10/11/21 2:18 PM, Dave Van Domelen wrote:
> [cover is dominated by a polished black wood mask that is carved
> in the image of a man's face, but there is only darkness behind
> the eye and mouth holes. Fainly reflected in the wood is the
> helmet of Solar Max's armor.]

ooooooh shiny

> TerraStar and Sadi Pasteur
> might technically both have connections to Khadam, but had no reason to trust
> or like each other, and sat quite distant from each other.

Heeheehee

> Delta Rose, who
> had been invited to this meeting for purely informational purposes, likewise
> sat alone.

Yaaaaaay it's her~

> If you'd told Claire Auger in 2022 that one day she'd be representing
> the EU on the world stage like this, she'd probably have had a mild nervous
> meltdown.

Oh mood.

> She was the muscle. But when the nominal brains of EUROPA had
> been killed or otherwise taken out of action, she'd stepped up. Now she
> barely gave it a moment's thought. Arc was the leader, so she led.

Fuck yeah. <3 <3 <3

> Looking at the timeline, Lady Sable was clearly laying groundwork for action
> in Berlin months before the arrival of the extradimensional deathgod whose
> power she seems to be using. Whatever her real plan is, the deathgod's
> arrival was a very helpful coincidence, but she was already in motion on
> something.

Hmmmmm, yes.

> "Thank you. While the phrase 'common knowledge' may not really be
> appropriate in a field of study containing only a few score serious scholars,
> nonetheless it was common knowledge that none of the powerful magical
> artifacts looted by the Nazis during the 1930s and 1940s remained in Berlin.
> Those which hadn't been destroyed during the waning days of the war were
> themselves looted by the allied powers, ending up in vaults in a number of
> different countries.

Yeah that sounds right.

> Hemera. Very obscure goddess of the dawn, and as
> far as merely linear and causal archaeology can tell, what worshippers she
> had were absorbed by Eos. In some tellings, she is the daughter of Nyx, in
> others the sister..."
> "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown," Simon Smith interjected quietly, yet
> somehow everyone heard.

*snerk*

> if she could set the
> sisters' powers against each other and then leverage it into stealing part of
> each's aspect to carve out her own space as a new primal god. My theory is
> that she might seek to embody the idea of 'darkest before the dawn' in some
> fashion, and the power of a deathgod could certainly feed into that."

hmmmmm interesting

> "They INCLUDED," Pasteur took back the spotlight,

heeheehee

> A large bronze doorway, said to be modeled after
> the one through which Nyx and Hemera passed each other each morning. So,
> there's our way in. Lady Sable brought a door inside and we just need to
> find a way to go through it," he finished smugly.

Niiiiiice. <3

> Unfortunately,
> the door can only be held open during the brief period of time that is dawn,
> that's the price of using this mystic resonance."
> "Something tells me that this will be an all or nothing strike anyway,"
> Arc replied.

That certainly sounds dramatically correct.

> She smiled in a way that was meant to be reassuring but really really
> wasn't.

heeheeheehee X3

> I know you don't trust
> me, and frankly I don't trust any plan with too many single points of failure
> to it. Backup, backup, backup.

I mean, legit

> My time connected to Heraclius gave me quite
> a lot of opportunity to examine the shackles that could bind a mortal soul to
> a semi-divine one, and I thought of several ways to sever that bond.
> Unfortunately, all of those planned rather required being on the outside of
> the bond, so thank you for getting me out.

Heeheehee.

> "And we're fairly confident the deathgod wants to be free, based on
> information from M'emba," Poniente added, anticipating the objection. "Yes,
> we have no idea what to do with the freed deathgod, but worst case scenario
> it runs away and is a problem for later.

This sort of thing is true for a lot of ASH plans, huh. X3

> "I have one," Lightfoot raised his hand, then put it down somewhat
> abashedly. "Well, two, but since one of them is to say I got the Chinatown
> reference, only one good one.

Heeheehee

> "Then why not put the gate on Venus?" Lightfoot asked. "Dawn there
> takes a really long time. And I could take everyone there while the gate is
> built onboard the ship."

Niiiiiiice.

> It *might* still
> work, but I would rather not risk failure on a technicality that it's never
> dawn if the Sun is never fully up."

Well fair.

> "I trained at the Vikna facility, I remember this time of year the Sun
> does make it all the way up, but it takes quite a while that close to the
> Arctic Circle," Agent Rivera offered. "Plus, we already have facilities
> there, and if the battle spills back out the gate the wrong way it's easier
> to contain than doing it just outside Berlin."

Nice nice nice. <3

> Default, though,
> is the speedsters plus Terrastar in as our first mystic asset, since she's
> tough enough to handle anything that might arrive in the way of
> reinforcements, and Poniente is a bit less tank-like."
> "And here I thought I was a graceful flower of femininity," Terrastar
> smiled sweetly, holding her ultradense mace as if it were a bouquet.

I love her. X3 <3

> No one wanted Pasteur or Smith to go through the portal. In particular,
> Pasteur himself had no desire to go through it. It wasn't that he mistrusted
> his own work on the gate, he just was very squishy by comparison to even
> Poniente.

Heeheehee

> "You have no idea how hard I'm biting my tongue right now, trying to not
> invoke Murphy's Law," Scorch muttered.

heeheehee

> "I'm still getting signal from outside," Solar Max ignored the comment.
> Ignoring Scorch was something he'd gotten used to before the pyrokinetic had
> finally gotten around to growing up.

X3

> There was a pause in which he guessed Solar Max was nodding, then
> realizing that the oversized powersuit didn't convey that in the way his
> normal armor did.

heeheehee

> "Yes. The comm link is secure, so set the deadman's
> switch. All they have to do is pull the cable out, and the artifact gets
> introduced to the wonders of modern high explosives."

X3

> "Hold off a moment," Contact suggested. "We're doing a scan for minds
> nearby first...okay, not getting any pings, no one around to notice the
> cameras turning on." No one was bothered by Contact's use of the plural,
> even though he'd integrated more fully with Paul Mahler's memories lately, he
> still tended to think of Paul as a passenger in his head rather than as a set
> of memories and what amounted to elaborate inner dialogue.

Plural feelings, there.

> "Relax, heroes," Terrastar had said as she crushed the skull of one of
> the attacking Vogue Ghouls with her mace, sending a shower of red and gray
> against a piece of outdoor sculpture. "No souls in these, Sable has already
> turned them into...zombies, I suppose you'd call them. She must be running
> low on power if she's starting to eat the souls of her followers, that's good
> for us."

Holy well then. o.o;;;

> Obviously, the masks were important, so Tom had tried removing one in
> the hopes that it would free the victim, or at least let them die in a single
> piece. That...had been a mistake. The masks were bonded to the skulls of
> the wearers, but the bodies themselves were already decomposing, and a head
> had come off in his hands. And kept snarling after being removed.

omg X3;;;;

> He'd
> tried other non-lethal methods in case the masks could be taken off safely
> later, but the bodies kept getting back up and the only solution was zombie
> movie rules. It was a lot cooler when you were watching it on TV or in a
> theater, and not getting pieces of what used to be people on your boots and
> in your hair.

Ewwwwwww. X3

> They wore masks similar to those of the cannon fodder, but it might be
> more accurate to say that they WERE the masks now. A collection of carved
> wooden pieces floated in a rough approximation of a body, connected by
> twisting tendrils of shadow. Whoever these had been, whatever abilities made
> them useful to Sable at one time, they were now shadow golems of some sort.
> In fact...Terrastar paused to concentrate...yes, they actually had more than
> one soul each. Sable had torn the souls from the bodies of the "zombies" and
> infused them into new shells, more powerful shells.


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Re: [ASH] ASH #125 - City of Night Part 6: Doorway Into Night

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From: dvan...@eyrie.org (Dave Van Domelen)
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Subject: Re: [ASH] ASH #125 - City of Night Part 6: Doorway Into Night
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2021 18:28:15 -0000 (UTC)
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 by: Dave Van Domelen - Sun, 14 Nov 2021 18:28 UTC

I'd also like to note that similarities notwithstanding, I wrote all of
this before reading Gideon the Ninth.

Dave Van Domelen, and Lady Sable as a necromancer with bad skin hidden
by a glamour goes back to the 90s....

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