faderift | OPEN: The Nightmare's Domain

OPEN: The Nightmare's Domain

WHO: Everybody present for the effort to draw out the Nightmare.
WHAT: Oh no.
WHEN: 28-30 Bloomingtide
WHERE: THE FADE as it exists, approximately, in an incomprehensible nongeographical way, alongside the Western Approach.
NOTES: You can only participate in this plot if you signed up in advance. (Not really, this is a joke.) For driveby GM taunting or to have the debris of personal nightmares appear in the Fade sign up here. Check here for notes on crystal functionality, which will not be normal. (GIF source.)

The plan is simple enough, on paper.

Lord Livius Erimond, locked in Skyhold's dungeon since his capture, finally cracks when he learns that the Grey Wardens have moved on and no one is coming to negotiate for his release. There's no mind-control driving the sacrifices, he says, only fear. Corypheus has an arrangement with a demon to amplify it and extend the reach of the song that's driving the Wardens to desperation. Handle it, and maybe they'll see that they're being manipulated.

In practice, it's a little fuzzier. Some guesswork. Some optimism. Approximating the demon's location takes time and effort from the Fade-fluent. There's a rift nearby, but it's small, nondescript. Making it bigger, drawing attention and drawing the demon out onto solid ground where it can be fought, calls for every anchor shard on hand, mages and Templars to assist, archers and swordsmen at the ready. The Herald did it before, at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. It's feasible. Just wiggle your fingers, and--

--and the sky opens up wide, then wider, too wide, green light flooding out like water finally cresting over a bank, and the ground beneath your feet turns from sand to stone. In some places it becomes vertical. In others it stops existing at all. The rift sprawls and spiders out with almost sentient aim, encompassing everyone it can reach. It takes two seconds, maybe three.

Then it closes.

I. THE NIGHTMARE

The good news is: the Inquisition pinpointed the Nightmare's location correctly. The bad news is: the Inquisition pinpointed the Nightmare's location correctly.

So if you find a second to to wonder where you are, there are two possible answers. The first is the raw Fade, where few have trod since the ancient magisters entered the Golden City and began the Blight. The City is Black now and it hangs in the distance, always on the horizon, always visible, but never within reach. The light is sickly green and seems to come from everywhere and nowhere, creating shadows from any and all directions. What direction is up and what direction is sideways is open for debate anyway. The ground--if it can be called that when it is only sometimes below you--is dark and rough, all crags and cliffs and spires. It's wet, too, with puddles and stagnant streams wound through the rock.

The second possible answer to the question of where, and the one that might warrant even more attention than the first, is right on top of a damn demon.

The Nightmare is massive, as large as a small fort. It has a dozen legs and at least twice as many eyes; a warm, civilly sinister voice that knows your deepest and darkest fears; and a seemingly endless supply of minions. Terror demons spring out of the ground around you with creaking screams. Fearlings take the shape of your simpler phobias: here a spider, there a snake, or roaring flames, a lyrium-encrusted Templar. Fighting through the flood of demons and bringing down the Nightmare will take every sword, every staff, and several hours. Pick a leg.

And when it's over--when the Nightmare is dead and only straggling Fearlings and occasional Terrors present an immediate threat--try to figure out what's next.

II. SEARCHING

Attempts to tear a new hole in the Veil from the inside will produce no results. But those sensitive to the Fade may be able to feel something--not quite like a draft guiding you out of a cave, but there's no closer analogy in the common tongue. A faint whiff of reality, somewhere in the distance, straight away from the distant Black City. There's no sunrise or sunset, and an hour can feel like a day or feel like a minute, but time is passing, and the walk is long by any measure.

While it's in your best interest to stay with the rest of the Inquisition's forces, this region of the Fade is a twisty, treacherous thing that seems to actively conspire to separate and mislead its visitors. More Fearlings slither out of crevices to menace anyone who lingers alone or tries to sleep. There's a marshy expanse that does its best to trap feet, and a field of memorial stones with the names of visitors etched into their surfaces, each with a cause of death marked below. Everywhere you step the ground is littered with evidence of terrible dreams, worked into the landscape like they were there first and it has grown up around them. There are skeletons in the stone, rock formations that twist into the shape of gallows, lost toys underfoot, an entire home tucked down a winding path, achingly empty.

III. ESCAPE

The Nightmare is dead, but its absence creates new reasons to fear. It begins slowly, things crumbling: the edge of a stair giving way unexpectedly, a towering hunk of rock a ways off collapsing upward into the open air and reforming there. The path rearranges as it's walked and takes wanderers in different directions, leaving them to fight their ways back to the main group. It was the concentration of fear and willpower embodied in the Nightmare that held this domain of the Fade intact, and without it, there's a power vacuum to fill. The spirits drawn here are drawn by lingering fear, and warped by it.

The forms they take may not be those you're familiar with from outside the Fade--less deformed, more malleable, more insidious, the things you most or least want to see. Those who long for safety may find a gentle Desire demon willing to offer it. Those whose fears stem from insecurities may hear the whispers of lurking Envy, mimicking their voices from its hiding place, cautiously testing for a foothold. If fear only pisses you off, be prepared to face your Rage. And if you refuse to be afraid--if you have this under control, if you know you'll be all right--a smiling embodiment of Pride may appear to praise your prowess and ask you to put those skills to other uses.

Whatever form your demons take, they are distractions from the larger issue: this part of the Fade is collapsing, unstable, and not meant for creatures like you to survive in. As important as it is to face your fears, it may in the end be more important to run from them. Regroup, keep moving, take head counts. There's a rift ahead, small enough to slip through one at a time, out into the desert, with its bright sun and relatively solid ground--and however long it feels like you've been walking, days or weeks, Adamant Fortress is visible across the sand.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Rending the veil, forcing the rift wider had been harder than she'd thought possible. She had grown accustomed to reaching through, catching the raw edges of the veil on her shard, and drawing it in around the rifts--the veil had done the majority of the work, every time, but this, this was different. It had pooled in Skyhold, when she pressed against it, but now it rushed through, flooded around them like water breaking apart a dam. The barrier, or perhaps the Fade itself, crushed with weight and force she could not identify--truly, there were no comparisons in the tongues of men or elves that held up against it.

When it had finally opened, it was jarring, because the veil had not given. The rift had yawned, engulfed them, and closed in their wake, swallowing the gathered forces whole. It had been disorienting and there had been a bitter tang of fear on the air. Her vision swam but, as it cleared, she felt more herself than she had in months.

1.

The creature that stretched before them was sizable, but not truly terrible, only startling. It was neither the greatest nor the most dreadful beast she had ever beheld, but to suddenly be faced with it, to be torn from the desert and thrust into this place and sudden battle, was jarring. Galadriel moved back as warriors dove past her toward the Nightmare and regained her breath; she had only a moment and, oddly, that was all that she required.

How she had recovered so quickly was a distinct curiosity; she had been hobbled in Thedas and now...now she felt whole again. She spared another moment to glance at her hands and, to her shock, found that they were alight. Gone was the dim glow she exuded in Thedas, this was brighter, stronger, and entirely her own. She marveled, briefly, but had already wasted far too much time simply standing about.

One of the Nightmare's legs, a great segmented thing, wide as any tree and heavily armored, swung toward her, toward the mages and archers at her back, and she was forced to attention. The limb arced down and Galadriel up her hands. Her power embraced her and, before the Nightmare's leg fell, she raised a raised a wide barrier above them. The dome came into being as the Nightmare struck it, shining white and solid as stone, and its blow was deflected. The beast staggered and Galadriel wasted no more time.

"Fire through while it holds, it shall not hinder your attacks!"

2.

To be in Thedas was to be apart from herself; it was a numbing experience and she felt as though her limbs were distant, hollow things. Moving her power, drawing at the rest of herself, allowed her to sense the veil with uncanny accuracy...but she had no particular connection to the Fade. This place was strange and, had she not regained her fëa, it might've proved nauseating. As it was, Galadriel could only stare into the hazy distance, at the absent horizon, and try to understand the space around her.

In Thedas, as in Arda, the world moved with currents, life and power were swept forward inexorably by the flow of time. Here? It was different. The Fade was not a river that rushed through her, nor an ocean with slow and shifting tides; it was a pond, still and bottomless, unmoving and dark beneath the glassy surface. Time did not flow here, it trickled, starting and stopping at random. There was nothing that drew her forward or back, nothing to guide her, and Galadriel was...utterly lost.

When she began walking, following the vague directions of a more attuned mage, she was easily parted from the group. Had a cadre of fearlings not descended, there was no telling how far or how long she might've wandered before she noticed. Fortunately, as she took stock of the battlefield, she found that she was not entirely alone in this place.

3.
(Pick a demon/spirit and get a custom terrible starter. Pride? Desire? Despair? Rage? Other???)

Although Galadriel follows for the most part, he's taken a silent note to himself that she's ... well, it seems she's distracted. It didn't occur to him immediately to inquire what being in the Fade would be like for her. What is it like for any rifter, especially someone like her? He wonders, truly.

But for now, Galadriel almost becomes departed from the group.

Almost.

Fate approaches and inclines with his head. "Perhaps it's not best we stray too far from one another here, madame." He pauses, then asks, "How are you doing here? I mean, truly. You don't appear to be quite yourself as I've known you." Which is not deeply, but he considers himself incredibly observant.

Galadriel doesn't start as Twisted Fate steps into her path and catches her attention; indeed, it seems that her grace has not only endured their crossing into the Fade, but magnified beyond what it had ever been in Thedas. She regarded him blankly, but only for the briefest moment, before she realized that she is not surrounded by the others.

"I had not realized I had strayed," Galadriel told him as she cast a look at the rocks around them. She hadn't expected his question but, given her distraction, she could hardly claim that it was without merit. The smile that broke across her face was earnest and bright, and it echoed in the light that wreathed her.

"I am whole...but somewhat...untethered. It is a strange feeling, but not unwelcome." Her expression fell to a distracted sort of calm, but her eyes remained on him. "It is...as though I've regained feeling in one limb and then lost it in another. These lands are...exceptionally strange."

"This seems familiar." The barrier, the battle. The massive demon and location- less so, but Adelaide falls in line with Galadriel as her power swells and surges like an orchestral wave, more soothing and centering than the jarring, rattling wails of the fearlings around them. This power is something she will marvel at later- for now she brings her staff to bear and sends forth a volley of precisely tipped spears of ice- crackling through the barrier, aimed at every segmented joint. One of them would hold. One of them would stick and grow in a crystallizing line of ice along it's shelled armor.

"It does, though this creature is much too large for a staff made of ice," Galadriel replies and drops her marked hand away, holding the barrier entirely in the other. One of Adelaide's spears strikes true, catching the creature's leg at the softest parts, and Galadriel doesn't hesitate to use the conjured ice.

Nenya had existed, undimmed, in Thedas for some time but she had never before had the strength to wield the ring, not without some reservation. Here, in this place, she has strength to spare and Adelaide's ice is more than enough for Nenya to manipulate. She throws her marked hand up again and the spear burst across the demon's skin. The ice spreads as Adelaide had intended, but with a vicious speed and accuracy, fueled by the power contained in the ring.

Spikes erupt through the creature's skin and lines of ice web its armor. With a glacial crack, the Nightmare's carapace split and was forced open. The leg reeled back but, ailed as it was, it could not draw entirely away.

"Perhaps I was wrong--another should see this limb torn free."

It is as she intended- but more. More focused, more thorough, more cutting in the sprawling scope that wound like frozen brambles about the limb, digging in deep with thorns she had not quite willed to be so, even if she had, perhaps, thought of them. Had she a moment to be stunned at Galadriel's addition- for that is all that it could have possibly been- she would marvel. As there isn't? She coils strands of spun ice in her hands once more.

Two blows. She had thought it would take five, or ten, or twenty. This massive creature would not be felled easily and it'd been with a grim stubbornness that she'd started her first spells. Now? Hope overtakes resignation.

"I can do that-" A breath, a ripple of air and will and once more a lance of ice, needle sharp and glittering, flies true to that cracked carapace. It pierces, it takes root- and Adelaide watches Galadriel in rapt attention for what it was she did before to twist her spell to make it more.

There was little need for the barrier, not as the leg nearest them struggled to rise. Galadriel lets it fall away as Adelaide's blow lands, as the human drives a spike of ice into the open wound and the limb of the beast. She draws a deep breath and, once again, feels her own power rise up within her. It crests like a wave and, as she takes hold of the ice with Nenya, her own light shifts--the soft glow of her turns hard and liquid, as though seen from a great depth. It casts strange shadows, throws darkness over Galadriel's form and face, and once there is a hardened edge to her light, she throws her bare hand forward as well.

The ice doesn't climb or splinter this time. Now there is a sense of expansion and, with a brittle snap, the lower segments of the creature's leg judder to a halt. It is distracted, fighting so many at once, and as the Nightmare tries to shift the limb it abruptly splinters and is sheared free.

Everything she'd noticed before- the way Galadriel pulled at the Veil to thin it in the dungeon, her odd sense of being here and elsewhere, the resonance to her when she used her will in the world- the dim light to her skin that was no longer half so dim. It was not yet blinding but it was-

Disconcerting.

The living did not glow in such a way.

No.

Mortals. Mortals did not glow like this.

Then the age, then the warp and weft, then the bright, familiar hum of Nenya's song cut through the chaos of battle, a bright cry over the sudden crack of the demon's leg. One down. Maker only knew how many yet to go. They had a moment, not long, but a moment while it adjusted, while the fearlings regrouped before they surged. A moment where Adelaide stared in quiet awe as it clicked. "You are whole, here."

The hold she had over the light faded as the combat around them waned, recoiled and was drawn back into the surf. Galadriel was unbalanced, for a moment, but regained herself as she drew a long breath. Her hands lowered but did not fall back to her sides, not as she watched the small demons gather their wits and collect around them.

She looked sidelong at Adelaide as her light gathered to strength around her once more, an aura more distinct than she'd ever had in as they walked the waking lands of Thedas.

"Yes. I am restored, but how or to what end, I am uncertain." She looked back at the encroaching creatures and, with a wave, cast the lot of them back. Several burst apart into streams of ash and shadow, but not hardly all of them. Even whole, Galadriel did not have an endless supply of power, it would take her a moment to recoup.

"I had not realized how dearly I had been severed until we were pulled here."

The remainder of the details might settle in. How Galadriel spoke of magic and will in her world, what this meant, what it could mean for when they escaped for they must-

But realization would come later. For now there was light, there was a song of power, there were demons that crackled and scrabbled to reach them. Galadriel cast them back- Adelaide rose a wall of ice. What reservations she had on the other side of the Veil were not present. She was here. A demon would have to kill her and climb into her skin to have her- and so long as she had Compassion, so long as she had breath in her to fight?

She need not fear that.

or so she hoped.

"We should consider ourselves fortunate and worry about the details after we've killed this thing. Maker, but I have never seen a demon so large."

How Galadriel can hear a clear, metallic clink in the fury of battle is of no consequence. Perhaps the spark of gold she can glimpse by her foot was simply kicked her way--or perhaps it found her of its own volition. Round, plain gold, yet unmistakable in its simplicity. It could not possibly be any Ring but the One.

If she moves quickly and quietly, she can snatch it up before anyone sees. Nobody would have to know.

"It is not so grand," Galadriel begins, her tone caught between the nostalgic high of power and the bluster of a warrior in combat, but the that tiny sound--the ring of metal striking stone--sweeps through her, resounds against her very soul, and the din of the battle falls away. The slow slide of time grinds to a terrible, silent halt, and her gaze is drawn downward.

At once, the Nightmare, the Fade, even Adelaide is forgotten.

It is a fleeting thing--snatch it up, quickly, or it shall vanish--

The thought is sharp and piercing and, by shades, both is and is not her own.

--surely it cannot be The One? But she is here; is it so outlandish that it might have found its way to Thedas?

Galadriel stands frozen, still as death, her face caught in an unreadable rictus. Her shock and horror are far too sudden, too consuming to have found find purchase in her expression. For a long, terrible moment, it is all she can do to stare downward at the glinting gold by her boot. Her hand moves but she lacks the presence of mind to bend and the motion, at best, is distracted and distant.

Ellana would be having a hard enough time in the Fade even if she was well, but she isn't. The long claws of a Terror demon sliced through her weak armor and straight into her side, cutting deep and nearly taking her life. Were it not for the Spirit Healers nearby, she would be dead. She still feels like she might die, as they healed what they could in the time they had, and the pain is returning in waves. Her vision is practically swimming, but she keeps pushing forward one step at a time.

"Galadriel," she calls weakly, unsure if her mind is playing tricks on her. "Look out!" She wants to help. She wants to fire spells at these creatures and protect her friend, but she's so weak, and she hurts so much. Her staff is no longer a weapon, but a walking stick, and her left arm is pressed against her bloodied side because Ellana is afraid of what might happen if she moves it away. Will her side open back up? Will she die? She needs to escape the Fade so she can be healed again. But these Fearlings stand in their way.

[ thranduil’s glamour works very specifically. it targets the perceptions and sight of those around him, alters their reality to hide burned skin and ruined flesh. he wonders if the nightmare worked in the same way—for he is certain that what he sees is not what others see. what fear would others have of mirkwood spiders, of dead and twisted elves scattered about the landscape, of a voice calling for him by name, making promises?

dreamers shape the fade. and here and now, with his fëa strong and no longer separated by the veil, he is curious as to what he could do. first, though, he wants to speak with his cousin.

he picks his way through the group, past the injured and those healing them, past the ones that stink of fear and sometimes urine—eru, how has he been existing with his fëa sundered as it must have been?- to galadriel, to the call of her sameness where there has only been the barest whisper of song.

she is not with the group, but he finds her anyway, picking her way along a path that perhaps she sees better than the others. born in the blessed realm, she has always seen—more. been more. even here, she glows with the light of the trees. ]

Cousin, [ he says, amiable, about to chide her for getting lost, and then something skitters towards her—if only he was an archer. as it is, he’s forced to run the last few meters to make it to her and begin another skirmish to fight off what the nightmare left in its wake. ]

Cassandra, acting as rearguard to the warriors and lingering a few yards behind, does not make it to the battle. Instead she is caught behind Galadriel's barrier - a bright, solid thing, so unlike the barriers cast by mages in Thedas. Even if she were to move past it - and she is not so sure that such a thing is safe, even if it is possible - she would be running straight into the Nightmare's clutches, unshielded.

She has no arrows to fire, no staff to cast spells through the barrier; she has only herself and her sword, and so she waits, for the moment, watching the battle and the way the Nightmare moves, calculating her strategy once the barrier comes down and she can act.

But she does not only watch the Nightmare. She had appointed herself as something of an escort to Galadriel when they had both found themselves in the Fade, still uncertain of the mage's motives. Galadriel seems...different here. Glowing with light, and exhibiting an easy power she had never displayed in Thedas.

She is terrifying.

But she fights the Nightmare as staunchly as any among them, and had, to all appearances, been as distrusting of the demons as any of them. Cassandra frowns, studying the mage. For all that she tries, she still cannot understand her - and still, she cannot find it in herself to entirely trust her.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OPEN: The Nightmare's Domain

Galadriel | OTA

2, shortly before fearlings fear shit up

no subject

1

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

2ish?

two

1