_magichands (_magichands) wrote in newalliance, @ 2016-09-08 21:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | doctor strange |
Who: Strange and NPC Wong
When: 8/24 (Backdated to be just after this
Where: Sanctum Sanctorum
What: Things have gone wrong, and Dr Strange wants answers.
"Wong!" Stephen yelled, his voice resonate and magically expanding to fill the entire brownstone until the flagstones in the basement shuddered right along with the rafters above his workroom. He waited with ill-patience for his manservant, eyeing the glyphs of the Seal of the Vishanti; the damned thing was dull, as if it had absorbed all the smoke from the failed working. Cleaning it would be a delicate working, even more than the one that had just leeched brimstone all over his floorboards, and in his current temper, he was hardly fit to do it.
Besides, he was nearly positive that maintaining the state of his workroom and seeing to the overspilling magical taint was Wong's job, not his.
Wong appeared at the base of the stairs, looking as unruffled as ever. "Doctor Strange?" he asked mildly. "Did the working go well?"
His hands were knotted into fists, and with an effort, Stephen smoothed them, took a moment of pleasure in being able to flex his fingers and touch each digit to his thumb. It worked out some of the physical effects of the temper, if not the actual emotion. "No, Wong," Stephen said with as much dignity as he could muster, "the working did not go well. The essense of the plane leaked through and tainted the working circle, but the Dread Dormammu did not answer the summons."
And that was unusual; a being of magic was bound to answer calls that hooked into its true self and nature. Dormammu should have appeared before him, though whether he would be controlled upon his appearance was a matter that was settled by the skill in crafting the summoning circle. But nor had he felt his call falter, as if some greater power had destroyed Dormammu. The call had gone out, hovered and cast about, and then almost physically drooped; it had been as if he had reached the demon's voice mail.
"Clearly, the book was incomplete in its description of the summoning ritual," he decided. Because he had not smudged so much as a glyph, that he knew. "I shall have to research in more depth, and try again - after the working room has been properly cleaned," he added almost over his shoulder as he swept off towards the library and all the books he shouldn't even consider opening.
He was not, then, witness to Wong's smile, even through the pain of the curtly implied order. "Well done, mageling," he muttered, and climbed the stairs to cleanse and sabotage the working room with the incense that would calm the doctor's mind, a natural sort of lulling to make him think he was only tired and that it would be an excellent idea to sleep.
One way or another, he would keep his master out of trouble, even trouble he was trying his best to run straight into.