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DISNEY'S HAUNTED MANSION
Who: Stephen Strange ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rehandle & EVERYONE
What: A cursed mansion starts pulling people into a House of Leaves style sub-dimension and trapping them. Others come to provide rescue.
When: March 9-12
Where: Sunset Falls
Content Warnings: Altered mental state (paranoia, fear), claustrophobia, loss of autonomy, shadow monsters, potential for violence, to be updated.
DISNEY’S HAUNTED MANSION
WHO YOU GONNA CALL?
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE
GET OUT
THE EXORCIST
RECOVERY
rehandle & EVERYONEWhat: A cursed mansion starts pulling people into a House of Leaves style sub-dimension and trapping them. Others come to provide rescue.
When: March 9-12
Where: Sunset Falls
Content Warnings: Altered mental state (paranoia, fear), claustrophobia, loss of autonomy, shadow monsters, potential for violence, to be updated.
DISNEY’S HAUNTED MANSION
In Sunset Falls, up a winding residential street on the outskirts of town, sits an old Victorian manor: four stories if you count the central tower, wood-paneled with arched windows and a stone staircase leading up to the porch. The whole place looks worse for wear, roof tiles slipping and window shutters hanging on by loose hinges, rotting wood on the porch railings.
The house has long been a haunt for the local youth, used as a place to test their magic away from prying eyes, and with that comes chaotic, concentrated magical energy melded into the very bones of the building. It’s in the basement of this cursed house that a group of teenaged metas come together to cast a spell from a mysterious spellbook and unwittingly open a door to another dimension.
In early March, whether by opening a door elsewhere in town and getting trapped inside, or approaching the exterior to answer the call for help made over the Guild network, characters arrive at an old Victorian manor in Sunset Falls, supervised by Stephen Strange.
The house has long been a haunt for the local youth, used as a place to test their magic away from prying eyes, and with that comes chaotic, concentrated magical energy melded into the very bones of the building. It’s in the basement of this cursed house that a group of teenaged metas come together to cast a spell from a mysterious spellbook and unwittingly open a door to another dimension.
In early March, whether by opening a door elsewhere in town and getting trapped inside, or approaching the exterior to answer the call for help made over the Guild network, characters arrive at an old Victorian manor in Sunset Falls, supervised by Stephen Strange.
WHO YOU GONNA CALL?
People approaching the house on Will-o’-the-Wisp Walk will pass through the property’s wrought iron gate and up the winding drive to find Dr. Stephen Strange standing in the driveway, flanked by tall grasses and scraggly shrubs in the large, overgrown front yard. His feet are planted and hands raised, burning orange mandalas of shifting runes and geometric patterns wrapped around his wrists as he maintains a spell that coats the building ahead of him in a shifting amber glow.
He’ll call you over for a debrief as you arrive – there’s a group of teenagers trapped in a parasite dimension that he’s currently containing as best he can to the manor: it’s made of powerful magic, it’s leaking through his spell, and you need to get everyone out before he can lock it down for good. Before letting you go, he covers the basics of everything you’ll need to know ahead of the operation to rescue those who’ve become trapped inside.
He’ll call you over for a debrief as you arrive – there’s a group of teenagers trapped in a parasite dimension that he’s currently containing as best he can to the manor: it’s made of powerful magic, it’s leaking through his spell, and you need to get everyone out before he can lock it down for good. Before letting you go, he covers the basics of everything you’ll need to know ahead of the operation to rescue those who’ve become trapped inside.
- The entrance to the spellscape is in the basement.
- Take a light.
- If you can, mark your route as you go. Check the house for supplies — there’s bound to be something in there that can help.
- When you find someone, you’ll need to tether them to this reality in order to bring them back. Grab them, talk to them, attach them to yourself somehow, do whatever you have to do. And then don’t let them go.
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE
The house is a trap, and all over town its mouths yawn open. For as long as the spell remains active, any door opened anywhere in Sunset Falls might lead here. And once someone crosses that threshold, there’s no getting out without help. This is true not just for metas: anyone opening a door in Sunset Falls has the opportunity to befall that same fate - including natives to this universe, meta or otherwise.
Once inside, you’re met with complete darkness. There are no bulbs, no candles, no torches tucked onto window ledges. There are windows, but they look out on more pitch darkness.
If you have your own light or you feel around, you’ll find the place is dilapidated, paint peeling and floorboards bare. No furniture, no possessions, no fixtures or fittings, just discolored patches on the walls and floor where they might have been. This isn’t a place abandoned in a hurry: this is a place withdrawn from completely.
The fathomless interior seems to defy natural physics as well as any impression of the house’s size or layout that you might have gleaned from looking at the outside. Closets open into grand reception rooms, hallways don’t seem to end, and staircases can take you to floor after floor after floor. Worse, it doesn’t stay still. Walking out through the same door you just entered can land you in a completely different room.
At least you’re not completely on your own. Around any corner, you might find another lost soul trapped in here — including one of a group of teenaged metas you may recognise from the Diadem. What are they doing here? Do they know what’s going on?
Characters making their way through will find this house attacks the senses. The longer you spend in here the more a sense of isolation creeps in, breeding stress and paranoia. Noises become threats, your eyes find figures in the shadows. Is it your imagination, or are they really there? Were those footsteps in the room behind you…? Did someone just say your name? Whatever’s happening, you’d better get ready to run and hide - or failing that, to defend yourself.
The house prevents rescuers from clearly contacting trapped characters, so while these mysterious figures causing paranoia may be the house playing tricks, it could just as easily be rescuers attempting to make contact. Trapped characters can see and hear other trapped characters, but their rescuers might look like a shadowy figure or sound like some cursed spirit. In the dark with shadows jumping out at you, you might just run/lash out first and ask questions later!
It doesn’t take long for it to become clear: no door in this place can be trusted, and no room offers safe harbor. Consider the prompts below for specific ways that the house might torment trapped characters.
Once inside, you’re met with complete darkness. There are no bulbs, no candles, no torches tucked onto window ledges. There are windows, but they look out on more pitch darkness.
If you have your own light or you feel around, you’ll find the place is dilapidated, paint peeling and floorboards bare. No furniture, no possessions, no fixtures or fittings, just discolored patches on the walls and floor where they might have been. This isn’t a place abandoned in a hurry: this is a place withdrawn from completely.
The fathomless interior seems to defy natural physics as well as any impression of the house’s size or layout that you might have gleaned from looking at the outside. Closets open into grand reception rooms, hallways don’t seem to end, and staircases can take you to floor after floor after floor. Worse, it doesn’t stay still. Walking out through the same door you just entered can land you in a completely different room.
At least you’re not completely on your own. Around any corner, you might find another lost soul trapped in here — including one of a group of teenaged metas you may recognise from the Diadem. What are they doing here? Do they know what’s going on?
Characters making their way through will find this house attacks the senses. The longer you spend in here the more a sense of isolation creeps in, breeding stress and paranoia. Noises become threats, your eyes find figures in the shadows. Is it your imagination, or are they really there? Were those footsteps in the room behind you…? Did someone just say your name? Whatever’s happening, you’d better get ready to run and hide - or failing that, to defend yourself.
The house prevents rescuers from clearly contacting trapped characters, so while these mysterious figures causing paranoia may be the house playing tricks, it could just as easily be rescuers attempting to make contact. Trapped characters can see and hear other trapped characters, but their rescuers might look like a shadowy figure or sound like some cursed spirit. In the dark with shadows jumping out at you, you might just run/lash out first and ask questions later!
It doesn’t take long for it to become clear: no door in this place can be trusted, and no room offers safe harbor. Consider the prompts below for specific ways that the house might torment trapped characters.
Opening one door leads to a hallway no wider than the span of your arms. It seems to get smaller as you walk down it. Was the ceiling that low before? Were your arms that close to your sides? The corridor never seems to end, just keeps getting smaller, and if you turn to leave the way you came you’ll find no door and a wall much closer than it should be. Try to go the other way and there’s an end to the corridor now, but no door. You’re trapped in a run, and with each length of it you pace it just keeps getting smaller…
If somebody else steps inside the hallway is suddenly long and tall again. You’d better get to them before the door closes, because with two of you pacing around in here it won’t be long until it’s so cramped that you’re running out of air... When the hallway is small enough that they can’t move any more, a door to another room will appear. They can also try breaking through a wall, though failed attempts could do more harm than good.
You also might find yourself in a room that’s all windows, glass panels set in frames from floor to ceiling. Introduce any light and the lock on the door will click shut. Your reflection shows in all the windows… and outside in the darkness there’s a sense that something starts to move. The horrible feeling of being watched. By who? By what? The light and your own reflection spares you from catching a glimpse of whatever’s outside looking in… but it also makes it easier for it to see you. You could turn out your light… but what if it's the only thing keeping whatever's out there at bay?
Any rescuers outside of the windows won’t be visible to the character inside, and will have to get their attention in other ways or try to find their way to the door of the window room. To get out of here, characters inside will need to turn out their light, which leaves them standing in a windowless room with an unlocked door in another part of the house altogether, or to be freed by someone else opening the door from the outside.
Turn a corner and find yourself staring into a huge mirror. It covers one wall, and it seems to exude just enough of its own strange not-quite-light that you can see the shape of yourself reflected in it. Approach and you pick up more details, though it’s shadowy in the dark. Get right up in front of your mirror image... and it smiles - you smile - as you become the reflection.
For as long as they are reflected, mirror-caught characters are being controlled by the mirror, and they will become violent if anyone tries to damage the mirror or remove them from the room. Successfully completing either of these actions or lighting up the room will break the mirror’s hold. (The mirror can also reflect rescuers. Mirror-caught characters will be able to see their rescuers in the mirror even if they can’t see them otherwise.)
If somebody else steps inside the hallway is suddenly long and tall again. You’d better get to them before the door closes, because with two of you pacing around in here it won’t be long until it’s so cramped that you’re running out of air... When the hallway is small enough that they can’t move any more, a door to another room will appear. They can also try breaking through a wall, though failed attempts could do more harm than good.
You also might find yourself in a room that’s all windows, glass panels set in frames from floor to ceiling. Introduce any light and the lock on the door will click shut. Your reflection shows in all the windows… and outside in the darkness there’s a sense that something starts to move. The horrible feeling of being watched. By who? By what? The light and your own reflection spares you from catching a glimpse of whatever’s outside looking in… but it also makes it easier for it to see you. You could turn out your light… but what if it's the only thing keeping whatever's out there at bay?
Any rescuers outside of the windows won’t be visible to the character inside, and will have to get their attention in other ways or try to find their way to the door of the window room. To get out of here, characters inside will need to turn out their light, which leaves them standing in a windowless room with an unlocked door in another part of the house altogether, or to be freed by someone else opening the door from the outside.
Turn a corner and find yourself staring into a huge mirror. It covers one wall, and it seems to exude just enough of its own strange not-quite-light that you can see the shape of yourself reflected in it. Approach and you pick up more details, though it’s shadowy in the dark. Get right up in front of your mirror image... and it smiles - you smile - as you become the reflection.
For as long as they are reflected, mirror-caught characters are being controlled by the mirror, and they will become violent if anyone tries to damage the mirror or remove them from the room. Successfully completing either of these actions or lighting up the room will break the mirror’s hold. (The mirror can also reflect rescuers. Mirror-caught characters will be able to see their rescuers in the mirror even if they can’t see them otherwise.)
GET OUT
Rescuers who head inside will find that the decor matches the exterior: old paintings in gilded frames, original light fittings, mirrors spotted with age. In some rooms furniture is covered in dust sheets, in others sheetless antique couches and armchairs are scattered with old pizza boxes and half full soda bottles. There are runes scored into the wallpaper, ominously dark corners cordoned off with tacky halloween tape and hand scrawled notes warning others to steer clear.
Characters can find various tools throughout the house: drawers full of old utensils in the kitchen, closets with brooms and ladders and buckets and mops. There’s a box of basic tools in one cabinet, flashlights and candles stowed throughout the house, garden tools and lengths of rope and twine and a child’s box of chalks stashed on the back veranda. For the most part, while far from harmless, the house is what you'd expect of an old place often overrun by magical truants: dusty and a little cursed.
It's downstairs that the real fun begins. Down the rickety stairs to the basement, through a room filled with the remnants of a few light occult rituals and pages of forgotten homework, the door to a second basement room stands ajar. This room is oppressive: maybe it's the poorly rigged single bulb and the eerie quiet, maybe the stark emptiness and bare stone walls. Or maybe it's the door cracked open on the opposite wall, the darkness behind it almost tangible.
Walking into the dark takes you through to another place. Turn and you'll see the door you passed through framed with bright amber, a landing signal: this way home. Start walking away in any direction and you’ll keep walking through pitch dark until the moment you start to think it might be time to turn back, then your foot hits the bottom step of an ascending staircase, and the door at the top welcomes you out into fresh darkness.
This is where rescuers must search for the missing teens and anyone lost through a doorway. Rescuers will find that trapped people don’t register them: they don’t answer when spoken to, they don’t seem to see you. However, they may start to get agitated in the presence of rescuers, which doesn’t always end well.
The house doesn’t want its inhabitants rescued and it wants you out, and as you start to move through the rooms it finds ways to make that very clear:
Rescuers can leave at any time through the amber-framed door. The house may make it difficult to progress inside, but it’s always surprisingly easy to find your way back — unless you have a trapped character in tow.
Characters can find various tools throughout the house: drawers full of old utensils in the kitchen, closets with brooms and ladders and buckets and mops. There’s a box of basic tools in one cabinet, flashlights and candles stowed throughout the house, garden tools and lengths of rope and twine and a child’s box of chalks stashed on the back veranda. For the most part, while far from harmless, the house is what you'd expect of an old place often overrun by magical truants: dusty and a little cursed.
It's downstairs that the real fun begins. Down the rickety stairs to the basement, through a room filled with the remnants of a few light occult rituals and pages of forgotten homework, the door to a second basement room stands ajar. This room is oppressive: maybe it's the poorly rigged single bulb and the eerie quiet, maybe the stark emptiness and bare stone walls. Or maybe it's the door cracked open on the opposite wall, the darkness behind it almost tangible.
Walking into the dark takes you through to another place. Turn and you'll see the door you passed through framed with bright amber, a landing signal: this way home. Start walking away in any direction and you’ll keep walking through pitch dark until the moment you start to think it might be time to turn back, then your foot hits the bottom step of an ascending staircase, and the door at the top welcomes you out into fresh darkness.
This is where rescuers must search for the missing teens and anyone lost through a doorway. Rescuers will find that trapped people don’t register them: they don’t answer when spoken to, they don’t seem to see you. However, they may start to get agitated in the presence of rescuers, which doesn’t always end well.
The house doesn’t want its inhabitants rescued and it wants you out, and as you start to move through the rooms it finds ways to make that very clear:
Shadows are everywhere in this place. The light you carry casts them wherever you walk and your mind starts to play tricks. This is fine while you can still swipe those images away with your light… not so fine when your light source, whatever it is, starts to struggle. Each time it blinks out the tall, thin shadow in the corner of your eye grows more solid. Just before your light finally dies, it drops to all fours.
Your character is being chased by a shadow creature! It’s made of solid shadow so can be harmed, but is difficult to kill. It will try to kill any rescuer characters it comes into contact with using talons and teeth and brute strength, but will stop short of hurting a trapped character. It can be warded off with light (though the original failed light source will not be available again until the creature is defeated or escaped) and will completely vanish if the room is filled with light.
The floor is… gone? Instead of floorboards there’s a massive empty void from wall to wall, so dark you can’t see the bottom. Throw something in and there’s no sign it ever lands. Here’s hoping you didn’t leave anyone on the other side, or that if you did the hole in the floor isn’t so wide that they can’t find a way across. If either of you leave, there’s no telling if you’ll find each other again.
Sometimes, the house creaks. This is to be expected, old houses creak, but there comes a point where it stops being ambient noise and starts being loud, the room filling with the sounds of cracking wood and screaming metal, like the whole thing’s caving in. It’s deafening. It’s time to run as the ceiling begins to give, destruction tearing after you until you’re either buried by it or escape: both outcomes leaving you unharmed in a room with no trace of fallen ceilings or buckled walls, no damage at all in any part of the house you track back through.
Your character is being chased by a shadow creature! It’s made of solid shadow so can be harmed, but is difficult to kill. It will try to kill any rescuer characters it comes into contact with using talons and teeth and brute strength, but will stop short of hurting a trapped character. It can be warded off with light (though the original failed light source will not be available again until the creature is defeated or escaped) and will completely vanish if the room is filled with light.
The floor is… gone? Instead of floorboards there’s a massive empty void from wall to wall, so dark you can’t see the bottom. Throw something in and there’s no sign it ever lands. Here’s hoping you didn’t leave anyone on the other side, or that if you did the hole in the floor isn’t so wide that they can’t find a way across. If either of you leave, there’s no telling if you’ll find each other again.
Sometimes, the house creaks. This is to be expected, old houses creak, but there comes a point where it stops being ambient noise and starts being loud, the room filling with the sounds of cracking wood and screaming metal, like the whole thing’s caving in. It’s deafening. It’s time to run as the ceiling begins to give, destruction tearing after you until you’re either buried by it or escape: both outcomes leaving you unharmed in a room with no trace of fallen ceilings or buckled walls, no damage at all in any part of the house you track back through.
Rescuers can leave at any time through the amber-framed door. The house may make it difficult to progress inside, but it’s always surprisingly easy to find your way back — unless you have a trapped character in tow.
THE EXORCIST
Strange mentioned establishing a tether between the trapped and the world outside in order to bring them back, but it takes a lot of trial and error to figure out what works. Maybe your characters work this out for themselves, maybe they learn some methods from Strange as he’s given more information from rescuers leaving the house, but tethers that work include:
Established tethers will make it progressively easier for trapped characters to perceive rescuers, though each time a tether is severed this easing of the spell’s power over them must start from scratch.
A trapped person can leave the spellscape through the amber-lit door when successfully tethered, but without a tether, walking through that door will just take them to a random room in the house, and they’ll have to be found all over again.
- An established sense connection with a rescuer (touch/sight/smell/sound, though given the house’s ability to warp all of these things they’re the riskiest)
- A magical/powers-based tether to a rescuer (ie: telepathy)
- A physical connection to a rescuer (ie: rope)
- A physical connection to the outside world (ie. an object brought in from the outside held by a trapped person)
Established tethers will make it progressively easier for trapped characters to perceive rescuers, though each time a tether is severed this easing of the spell’s power over them must start from scratch.
A trapped person can leave the spellscape through the amber-lit door when successfully tethered, but without a tether, walking through that door will just take them to a random room in the house, and they’ll have to be found all over again.
RECOVERY
After no more than three days, all characters trapped within the house will have been successfully rescued.
Both rescued characters emerging from the spell and their rescuers will need help recovering from the ordeal: food and water, somewhere to rest, medical assistance, emotional support. The local authorities and townsfolk do their best to set up stations with supplies and places to regroup in the yard of the old manor.
However, NPC townsfolk stray into the area only to leave their offerings and go. These people are familiar with magic, and nobody’s looking to be this close to a spell that nasty. This means it’s down to the metas to support one another in the aftermath of their experiences. Do what you can to look out for one another: it’s been a rough few days.
As a note, it might be useful to add TRAPPED or RESCUER to your subject line for ease of identification!
Both rescued characters emerging from the spell and their rescuers will need help recovering from the ordeal: food and water, somewhere to rest, medical assistance, emotional support. The local authorities and townsfolk do their best to set up stations with supplies and places to regroup in the yard of the old manor.
However, NPC townsfolk stray into the area only to leave their offerings and go. These people are familiar with magic, and nobody’s looking to be this close to a spell that nasty. This means it’s down to the metas to support one another in the aftermath of their experiences. Do what you can to look out for one another: it’s been a rough few days.
As a note, it might be useful to add TRAPPED or RESCUER to your subject line for ease of identification!
no subject
But the mirror can see Otto and other Spidey.
Without warning, or even something setting off that tingle thing (and to be fair, he's already been on red alert because this whole house is a dangerous nightmare), the reflection moves. But it doesn't move independently. It makes Peter move.
He doesn't have nanotech to work against Otto this time around. All he has are the basics. So the reflection makes Peter shoot a glob of webbing at Otto. Maybe he can gum up the works a little, or maybe it's really just a warning.
"What the hell!" Peter says. "I didn't mean…"
He looks back at the mirrors. Oh. He can't see Otto and Peter near him, but he can see them reflected.
"Okay, chill out," he says to himself, "This is obviously part of the freaky magic. Imagining Otto, or…Dr. Octavius? Uh…right, think about that later. Imagining him and…me. But not me. But not the other mes either."
He takes a breath.
"You're gonna have to try harder than that, illusion spell. That's not a Spider-Man I know."
He can talk, but when he tries to move, to keep walking, he can't. The reflection keeps him trapped there.
no subject
Two of the actuators snap around, stepping in to serve as his sight. Ah. That Spider-Man. Otto sets his jaw and takes a breath; this is neither the time nor the place to snap. "No," he replies with a careful evenness. "I haven't become a wizard in my spare time. I came to find him."
He gestures towards the younger Peter - who is concerningly silent. He didn't answer Otto. He hasn't reacted at all to the appearance of yet another Spider-Man. Otto squints down at the boy, unease prickling down his spine. "He's not - "
Then, all of a sudden, he's definitely responding!
The actuators leap into reflexive action: it's an attack! They've done this before! One darts forward to take the webbing harmlessly along its arm, and the others coil and open their claws like snakes about to strike. This time, though, Otto pulls them up short, forces the claws back to a half-closed resting state down at his sides.
It's an effort. There's warnings flashing at the edge of his mind. But he'll be damned if he fights this kid again.
"It's affecting his perception," he says aloud, following young Peter's focus to the mirror. The boy's looking at their reflections, not at them. Otto waves hesitantly at it, his eyes still on young Peter. He'd said he hadn't meant to do that, but he still did. Maybe it's like what happened with the Goblin in the apartment. Maybe Peter still subconsciously views Otto as a threat.
It's coldly sobering. Otto could, of course, cut right to the heart of the matter. He's overpowered and captured this Peter before. He could do it again, drag him outside by force. But it's something he'd like to avoid.
He glances sidelong at the other Spider-Man as best as he can with the light. Maybe it's for the best Otto's not here alone. It doesn't matter what this other version thinks of him; all that matters is that they're here for the same reason. "We need to get him out of here."
no subject
But — okay. For all that his world's Octavius was a grade-A jerkwad, this one he can agree with. He redirects his flashlight to a less aggressive spot away from the other guy's face and nods. A fraction of the tension bunching up in his shoulders lessens, transfers over to the bigger priority at hand and what horrible, terrible things might await if they waste any more time.
Did he mention how much he hates these creepy haunted mansions?
"Yeah, that's definitely something we can agree on."
Spidey crouches down by the unmoving, physical figure of a much younger Peter Parker before lifting his head and watching Octavius wave at the mirror. "I'm guessing this isn't as simple as smashing every mirror in this place, is it?"
no subject
Okay, nothing here is right, but still.
He doesn't really think of either of these reflections as a threat. If they're real people…well, okay, that's weird since that's definitely not a Spider-Man he recognises and that means there's yet another? What? but they're still not a threat.
The reflection, on the other hand, an extension of the twisted spell, views anyone who can take the captives outside as a threat. Peter himself has no idea that's what's going on. He just knows that he was minding his own damn business and now he's caught by some mirrorverse villain version of himself. Or something. No thanks!
Before he can devise a plan to get himself away from these mirrors, though, the reflection has a better idea. Can't fight Otto without higher tech or something to throw at him? Okay. Fine. That leaves the other would-be rescuer.
It's dumb logic, really, since who would already be hip to something Spider-Man is about to do than Spider-Man? But the reflection isn't really Peter and doesn't think like him. It's some dark magic spell nonsense.
This time, it does two things at once to start: it crouches, forcing real Peter to crouch along with it, and it shoots webbing upwards at the ceiling. This gives Peter momentum to jump and swing out and around, somewhat away from Otto's tentacle grasp, back towards his 616 universe self, feet out. Whether the reflection expects a counterattack doesn't really matter.
"Whoa, hey! Not cool! Let me go!"
no subject
He opens his mouth to say so, but instead barks out a sharp "Hey!" as Peter suddenly leaps back into motion. His words...suddenly the situation's more clear. This thing isn't just limiting his perceptions, it's controlling his body. Moving him about like a puppet, throwing him at people against his will.
The realization cuts deep. Otto was never so plainly blameless, but he knows all about foreign things in your head. He understands losing control.
An actuator snaps out, claw aimed to try and catch Peter around the torso. Another follows at a different angle of attack, already anticipating a dodge. "Leave him alone," Otto growls, at nothing he can see, suddenly pissed. Of course he still doesn't want to harm Peter. He'll try to be careful. But he's not just gonna stand back and watch this happen.
no subject
It's hard to tell at first what Ock's got up his many sleeves, and the sudden movement of his actuators has him tensed to react — or at least there's a part of Spider-Man that can't quite let old grudges lie. It gets doubly complicated when he's got an alternate version of himself to watch out for.
It's the 'Leave him alone' that pulls him out of his own personal struggle, forces him to see that while his own Ock was messed-the-hell-up, this guy ... really does seem to want to help his younger alt.
This is messing with his own head, but he's forcing himself to put all of that aside. Really, he is.
"We're going to need a plan here, Otto. Strange mentioned uh — a tether, right? What do you think?"
no subject
Also, he can't do anything the reflection doesn't immediately let him, and although it looks like him, it doesn't have the same tingle. The reflection can't rely on that extra sense to let Peter move out of the way.
He glances in the mirror in time to see the tentacle coming, but he can't get out of its way and Otto snags him. It doesn't really hurt; maybe a little thanks to the stopped momentum of his swing, but he's got a pretty high pain tolerance. But…what the hell? When he looks down at himself, there's no tentacle that he can see. He can see it in the mirror. But he's definitely stuck here.
"Wait, you guys are real?" he exclaims, though he can't hear their response. So the spell really is messing with him, but not by conjuring up images. It's hiding people from him, like the other people trapped in the house are hidden from him. He hasn't run into a single other person until now…or if he has, he couldn't see them.
"Man, I hate magic," he says.
The reflection struggles, which means Peter himself does, trying to free himself from Otto's grasp and getting more or less nowhere.
"Hey, other Spider-Man," he says, "I hope you're better at getting out of magic spells than I am. I also hope you can hear me or I'm going to sound really stupid just talking to myself in the funhouse mirror here."
no subject
The boy's struggles are nothing. Otto carefully winds the actuator around him a little. He doesn't like to see him dangling from the claw alone like that; seems like it'll bruise or something. He keeps the movements slow and careful, watching Peter's reflection in the mirror as if to try and communicate his concern. It's far too much like what he did on the bridge.
"He said we would have to anchor them to reality," he replies, repeating what Strange had told him. "Make physical contact, give them light, speak to them. That's why it's blocking his perception of us and making him attack - to keep us from forming these tethers." There's a clear edge to his tone as he speaks of it. It's too familiar. The actuators never quite blocked his perception of reality, but his emotions, his thoughts....the blinding rage, when someone had tried to reach out and free him. They'd wanted to maintain control, same as this spell.
"But he also said we should just drag them out if we had to," he concludes. "I've got him. Let's go. We'll keep the path lit, and speak to him if it starts to fade." He's already taking the flashlight from the actuator that was holding it. He doesn't know if the magic might try anything else, but if something attacks and he's holding the kid...he wants the other three actuators free.