| Opening Log

[shadowqueen]

Everyone's waking up at once, covered in bits of rubble, temporarily without abilities and with a lurking headache. The castle looms around them, irrepressibly gray, huge and silent. The only noises are the people, rustling as they extract themselves from their sarcophagi and look for exits along the arching walkways.

Better take a look around, and see if anyone else knows what's going on.

[ooc: Welcome welcome, we are open!! Make threads, tag each other, be free! Prose and action spam are both fine, as you prefer. You can make your own posts to the community, now, too. Just don't forget the handy entry tags. ♥]

Comments

[guiltapalooza]

[Willow can't help how she reacts when she wakes up in total blackness, stone surrounding her: she screams, if briefly. Her fear makes her kick out against the stone, and before long she's broken out, breathing heavy as she looks around swiftly.

She reaches out to her magic, and-- nothing.] Okay, [she says to herself in the tone of someone desperately trying to stave off panic,] this suddenly got a lot more worrisome. What is going on?!

[Her eyes are wide. Nothing freaks her out more than not having access to her magic, and whoever's nearest is getting latched onto for desperate solidarity.]

[thekidsare0kay]

[All the racket attracted a skinny troll, who is standing by the coffin and reaches towards her to steady her as she stands, still freaking out.]

Hey, woah, calm the fuck down. You're okay.

[guiltapalooza]

[And now she's being touched and-- she squeaks. Definitely not human. Come on, she tells herself, man up, Willow. You can do this; you've done freakier.

She takes a deep breath.] I'm okay, [she repeats, and then fails at this keeping her cool thing entirely.] No, wait, I'm not okay! So I got kidnapped, freaky stone room, alright, whatever. But my magic isn't working. I can't-- it's not working!

[thekidsare0kay]

[He draws his hand away from her at her frightened squeak. At her words - magic? Seriously? - he frowned. His voices were silent, as always since his fight with Eridan, but it takes only a moment to double check]

Fuck. My powerth aren't working, either. What the fuck?

[guiltapalooza]

I don't know! This is... this is just crazy. [She exhales loudly, trying again to get a grip on her mounting panic and settle down. It partially works. At least she's over her instinctual it's a demon! reaction at seeing him.]

And unless you're a lot stronger than you look, I'm a little scared to go look around totally defenseless.

[thekidsare0kay]

[He scowls at her crack at his skinny frame] Look, I'm sure it'th jutht a curthe. We'll probably get brought back to the Thity and everything turned back to normal in a few dayth at motht. Jutht becauthe thith plathe lookth weird, doethn't mean it'th really dangerouth.

[guiltapalooza]

[She hadn't actually meant to poke fun, and droops at his scowl.]

Back to the where? What city? I was in California before I woke up here, and I hate to tell you, but I don't ever get kidnapped and wake up somewhere not life threatening. It's just not something that happens.

[angsts]

[... Not helping with the headache.]

Did you have to scream?

[guiltapalooza]

Excuse me for wigging, [she snaps, too distressed still to be apologetic.] I'll keep my life-threatening peril to myself in the future!

[angsts]

[Likewise. While Dynos isn't exactly the most polite of people even on good days, his confusion on how he's still alive is making him even snappier than usual.]

Your life hardly seems to be in peril right now.

[guiltapalooza]

And that was so obvious when I was trapped in the big stone coffin.

[Okay, calming down a little now, it isn't really this random guy's fault. Well, it probably isn't.] So you woke up in one of those, too, huh? [It seems a safe bet.]

[angsts]

[... Dynos is responsible for a lot of things, but this isn't one of them, no.]

Unfortunately, yes. Though I can say that I at least remained calmer than you did.

[... Namely because he was/is too shocked to be anything but.]

[guiltapalooza]

[Listen, you just never know when you're from Jossverse.]

Well I'm sorry, bucko, but some of us woke up without our magic, and it's a tiny bit distressing!

[slay]

[ Wait. That voice. She knows that voice. She hasn't heard that voice in quite some serious time, but --

Buffy goes hunting towards it and as she approaches, her expression lights up considerably. ] Will --! [ She stubs her toe on rubble in her earnestness to get to Willow. Okay, note to Slayer, steel-toed boots: not what they used to be. ] -- owww. [ She manages to get her arms around Willow in a hug though. ]

Could your timing get any better. 'Splainy?

[guiltapalooza]

Oh my god, Buffy-- [And if she hadn't gone in for that hug, Willow would've done it herself. She latches on and squeezes her tight for several moments, before pulling back to get to the rest of the conversation.

There's an edge to her still that is her frantic distress over her magic being gone, but for the moment it's overshadowed by having Scooby meetup.] I don't have any 'splainy, I just woke up myself. I have no idea what's going on. [But first things first, and with obvious worry:] Are you okay?

[slay]

Alive, kickin', and -- Oh. This just in. Slayerness-free. [ It's a look of concern as she pulls out of the hug. Because seriously. ] Which, gonna be honest, is question number one with woke up where coming in close second. [ She looks up and around at the sarcophagi. ] 'Cause this is so not Castle Summers, unless somebody's been hiding some serious skeletons in the dungeon without my know-how.

[guiltapalooza]

You don't have your Slayer powers?! I woke up without my magic and I am so beyond freaked now.

What are we going to do, Buffy? This is crazy, this is-- usually there's at least Giles going, and I believe danger will soon be in our midst, before we get landed with this stuff. [To be fair, her Giles impression is pretty decent.]

[slay]

Which I'm sure he would be doing yesterday while telling Andrew to make him scones if I had gotten more than a phone call from him in the past year. He's off ... doing Giles-y stuff. This is us. The sooner we get to a phone, the sooner we can ask him about it.

[ She dusts herself off some more now. The truth is it comes out a little grumpier than expected because, well, for one: woke up in a sarcophagus and, for two: she seriously missed him. Maybe if this were three years ago he'd be handy guy, but his levels of helpfulness had been touch and go for a few years now. ]

He's probably got whole shelves dedicated to "ways to put a kink in the magic."

[guiltapalooza]

I know he does, I've read them. [And now she's hesitating, staying latched in Buffy's vicinity like a lost puppy. But okay, something seems a bit off here. Is Buffy still upset about Giles going back to England? She thought they'd made up.]

And I know that it was hurtful when he just up and left like that, but he came back when you needed him. When we needed him. He might not be Mr. Self-Confident about it, but he did plenty more than a phone call in the past year.

[seventeenth]

[That screaming draws Desmond's attention, and while he hangs back at first, watching several others speak to Willow first, it doesn't take long for him to approach her. He looks a little cautious and equally concerned.] Hey, you alright?

[guiltapalooza]

Oh-- [She hadn't noticed him approach, but now that she does, she turns to face him fully and gives him her best effort at a friendly smile. It's a bit sad, and fraught, to be honest.]

Yeah, I'm okay. Waking up like that was just, well, I wouldn't want to repeat it.

[seventeenth]

I didn't want to wake up like that just once, but I get what you mean. [He offer his hand to Willow.] I'm Desmond.

[guiltapalooza]

Willow. [She shakes his hand, the rote motion calming her down some. It's funny how reassuring normalcy is.]

Do you remember anything before you woke up? Cause I thought I'd just gone to sleep. In a school bus, granted, but it was normal sleep.

[seventeenth]

I was in Rome, running around the Colosseum. [He folds his arm.] So I probably wasn't anywhere near you when it happened.

[guiltapalooza]

Uh... no. I was in California.

Not that nabbing us from different parts of the world is impossible, but this is getting weirder by the minute. And since we don't remember anything, they're either using drugs... or magic. [Speculative frown.]