When a key is not a key ((for Harry))

[slayers_desire]

It has started a few weeks ago, with the disturbing nightmares that forced April to wake up in the middle of the night. Nightmares that while connected to her voices, were so real and visual, that it was like she had been there in the moment.

In the moment of a death. It was not like most deaths that she saw through her voices... instead, it was like the person has disappeared. And April knew each time it happened it was like a little piece of the universe had been stolen.

Clark had advised her to go to the research library hidden in Lorne's bar. And that was where she was, when a commotion was raised from the meeting area of the Scoobies. Coming out of the library, she saw her father, Spike, placing Dawn onto a couch. The young girl was flickering... disappearing and reappearing... it was so shocking, she thought she was dreaming again.

"Someone help her! I am nothing without her!" Spike called out.

April frowned. Something was seriously wrong. And her intuition was telling her that whatever was going wrong, had to do with some serious magic. Returning into the library, April used her PINpoint to call up Harry Dresden. Hopefully he could provide some insight...

Comments

[thepizzalord]

"Good question. How much have you tried to look into it?" Harry asks April. "You've got that whole... seeing the future, reading minds sort of thing."

[slayers_desire]

"The nightmares sort of jolted me from looking further into it... but I could try." She can easily use the pictures and Dawn as a focus.

[thepizzalord]

"It could give us a place to start... at least a direction to go." Harry isn't very good at this sort of thing himself - mind magic is against the Laws of Magic, at least, and fortune-telling isn't his forte. But if you need something investigated or blown up, he's your guy.

[slayers_desire]

She sits down, placing the pictures around her, an empty spot in front of her, where Dawn slumbers on the couch. And closes her eyes.

April has never heard the Trio through her voices before. Lorne hears them. Victor hears them. But it only though concentrating on the Keys before her, that she can finally hear them.

They are so loud... that she covers her ears even though it is only in her head. They are so chaotic, that she can not see anything else in her mind, not even the normal chaos of the voices. And when she hears them... the Trio becomes aware of her right back.

And she jolts... scrambling away from their presence as best as she can, until her back is up against the wall.

[thepizzalord]

"Whoa, April! It's okay, you're safe." Harry isn't sure what made her leap up and try to merge with the wall, but she looks scared to bits.

[slayers_desire]

"I see them... The Trio..." April whispers. "Discord, Disharmony, and Cacophony."

She is still trying to shut them out of her mind. But there is a flash of darkness in her mind-sight. Almost like a wing. And she feels safer. Protected.

"They are not quite erasing the Keys... but sapping their identities. Absorbing them...."

[thepizzalord]

"Draining their energy?" It would make sense... although he'd imagine it would just outright kill the Keys, not make them disappear altogether.

[slayers_desire]

"Draining their entire souls... their existence."

[thepizzalord]

"Okay, that's some freaky stuff."

[slayers_desire]

"Each one is adding to their power. Making them stronger."

[thepizzalord]

"Can you tell how they're connecting to the Keys? Can we isolate Dawn from them somehow?"

[slayers_desire]

"They tried to connect to me..." April takes a moment to see what they had attempted. "It is a mixture of a mind-bond and a magical siphoning."

"For myself, the voices were able to provide protection..."

"But I don't know how to duplicate the same for Dawn."

[thepizzalord]

"Siphoning..." Harry considers that. "I could try to build a more solid shield around her, stronger than the circle. But I'm gonna need some stuff."

[slayers_desire]

"What do you need?" Wes asked.

[thepizzalord]

"Noseplugs, earplugs, one of those sports mouthguard things, a bit of electric fence, and a brick," Harry says. It sounds like a joke, but he's very serious about it.

[slayers_desire]

"Ohh kay... we will need to find a few of those things. But we are on it." Wes heads into the back storage area.

[thepizzalord]

Harry knows it sounds like an odd assortment of items, and they would be right. But there's also a very good reason why his lab on the Normandy, and the one he used to have in Chicago, looks as though it's full of random junk.

"If you've got a chain about ten feet long, that'd be super too," Harry calls out as Wes goes to find the requested items.

[slayers_desire]

"Gotta."

April sits by the bar, taking a moment to collect herself. "What are you going to do?"

[thepizzalord]

"Magic in my world's highly personalized, very customizable," Harry explains, taking one of the other chalk colors and marking outside the circle, five marks, all evenly spaced. "I'm gonna conjure up a nice solid barrier spell to go along with the circle, to block her off from outside influence completely. Got the five senses covered, and a chain to top it off, for containment."

[slayers_desire]

"And then once she is protected? What about if they go after others?"

[thepizzalord]

"Hopefully they won't get that far. If this Trio is actually absorbing the Keys in body as well as in soul, I should be able to scry for their location. The only trick is, I need a part of Dawn to track. Preferably a lock of hair or somethin' else she can live without."

[slayers_desire]

"Won't you have to break your protection circle to do that?"

[thepizzalord]

"Unfortunately, yes. But it should only be for a couple seconds. I'll set up the barrier spell outside the other circle and wait to juice it up until I break the circle, get some hair, then bam, spell time."

[slayers_desire]

Wes returns from the storage room, having found everything that Harry had request. "Here you go."

[thepizzalord]

"Great," Harry says, looking over the items. Everything that he asked for, no matter how weird. He begins setting them up at the points he already marked out in chalk, placing the brick last.

He then lays the chain down, going clockwise around the already-existing chalk circle, and leaves the last few lengths of chain turned out, not touching. "I'm gonna have to move fast," Harry says, drawing his sword again. The silver sword looks simple, but is a very powerful magic item, attuned to Harry, sharp enough even to sever enchantments.

((Merry Christmas :D))