Sing Me A Prayer

PHASE 1

Sing Me A Prayer
Dates run:	August 14-18, 2011
Run By:	Doqz
Read the logs:	Sing Me A Prayer

Pain. Pain was real. Pain could not be doubted.

His own, wracking his body until his bones seemed on the verge of cracking.

The Shadow King's, whose hoarse screams have long ago faded into uncomprehending, hopeless whimpers of a terrified animal, somewhere at the back of Farouk's mind.

And his. The other's.

Blue eyes under the blond hair, fixed upon Farouk, drinking him in, inviting him to share in the joke that was their pain.

The other, strapped across from him, into the same hell.

His pain sounded like laughter.

It's a round of Where's Waldo? with Farouk, but when he's found things have already hit the point of no return.

Cast

Amahl Farouk, Garrison Kane, Wanda Maximoff, Amanda Sefton

Father Andrew Connelly, Jane Hampshire, Stick

En-Sabeh-Nur, Deathbird

Timing

August 14-18, 2011

Plot Summary

The story began with the capture of Farouk by persons unknown, despite his increasing paranoia and vigilance. However, due to the various other matters going on with X-Force and Farouk's own instability, his disappearance went largely unnoticed.

Sent a package for Farouk's attention from Jane Hampshire of the London Hellfire Club, Garrison sought out Amanda and Wanda as being the most likely people to know where the erstwhile Professor would be. What they realised, however, was that Farouk had been off the radar for some time. Opening the package, they found a photograph of a church in Milan and without any other kind of clue, that was their starting point.

In Milan, they found Father Andrew Connelly, the Irish Jesuit priest hiding out among the Dominican monks. Unimpressed that he had been tracked down, he did at least give them information on what Farouk had possibly been working on; the theft of an Antikythera Mechanismfrom the London Hellfire Club. Connelly also revealed a prophecy - or instructions - associated with the device: A man with two souls and the beast with none will sing the prayer for the first.

Contacted by Jane Hampshire, the group made their way to Istanbul, where they were met by a middle man, a Colonel in the Turkish military who introduced himself as Abdul, although that was not his name. While Wanda checked out local contacts, Not-Abdul took Garrison and Amanda to an archeological dig site on the Kurdish border, where Hampshire awaited. She revealed Farouk had given her information that had led to the site and the discovery of a piece of an ancient Archytas automatos, a clockwork golem that had once been powered by magic. The discovery of two ancient machines - the automatos and the Antikythera Mechanism - aroused suspicion in Amanda, but before they could ask any further questions, they were whisked off to Jerusalem, where they met up again with Wanda.

Waiting for Hampshire to introduce them to a contact who apparently had knowledge of what Farouk had been doing, the three wound up being drawn into an attack on a house nearby. The rescue did not go entirely as planned, with the Deathbird - the former Calyseee Neramani - appearing with a warning that the end of the world was coming, that the old gods were returning.

Once the dust settled, Wanda, Garrison and Amanda rescued the hostage who had been at the centre of the original attack - the blind Vatican witchfinder, Stick. He proved to be the missing link, explaining that the automata had been used by En-Sabeh-Nur to capture the "creature without a soul". Known as Bloodscream, it had formally been a man called Alexander Jamison, born in 1543 and a complete sociopath, until his transformation into some kind of undying monster. Tracked by Stick and the Chosen to Jerusalem, they had been about to capture him when Deathbird and the golems had appeared, slaughtering Stick's men and disappearing with Bloodscream.

It appeared Nur had all the pieces he needed to make contact with "the old gods"; the Antikythera Mechanism, the man with two souls and the beast with none. Using a magical coin which could locate the golems, the group pinpointed Nur's base to Akkabar and flew there as fast as they could following a haggling session with Colonel Cecil Walkerton-Smythe, last seen in Africa. They arrived too late, however: the mechanism had been activated and their foes had finished their work and gone, leaving only questions about what kind of creature Farouk had become.

Related Links

Song of Isaac, Key of Solomon

Lakshmibai Raj

External Links

Sing Me A Prayer

x_snowvalley posts

Trivia and Meta

Trivia

Farouk's fate is unknown, but it can be assumed he's not doing well.

Meta

Plotrunner: Doqz

This plot was developed to cover the need for Doqz to go on an extended hiatus.

En-Sabeh-Nur became Ozymandias, as Apocalypse had already been used in-game.