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.

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I
This is not what he expected. This was not the plan. (And, for a split second, he is especially glad to have left Milady back at Skyhold.) The demon, the Nightmare, is a beast the likes of which he's never even imagined before. And if this thing is influencing the Wardens, then it must be stopped. If it is aiding Corypheus, it must be stopped.

It will be stopped. He goes for his bow first, to aim at its many, many eyes rather than the legs, but will have little trouble switching between his bow and his sword depending on the needs of the battle. But those eyes look like a mighty fine weak spot for any sharpshooters. His heart hammers, but he grits his teeth and perseveres. "We need an area in the back!" Malcolm calls out. "For the noncombatants and the injured!" Oh, sure, most people here were probably gearing for a fight, but circumstances have drastically changed. The healers are going to be overtaxed as it is, unless they can get this thing down quickly, and it doesn't look like 'quick' is the name of the game here.

He initially leaves demons and fearlings to the others, but they do swarm so much that sometimes he has to barrel in with his warrior skills. The demons are not more of a problem than normal, save that they seem endless. It's when he raises his weapon on a form that ends up being a Rivaini hedge witch does his anxiety show. He can't--he can't blindly slaughter--but then she attacks, and he is left no choice. After a few moments to gather himself back up, he realizes it must be a trick of the mind, of the Fade. But it pulls at his heart every time, even knowing what he strikes down isn't really what it appears to be.

"Poor Seeker of False Truths," coos the Nightmare. "You can never make the right people proud, can you?" His jaw sets, his frame tenses. "Your Orders are malicious and misguided, and you pretend you're above them all. How naive."

II
The paths are twisting with no clear direction which to go. With no clear directions. At one point, he finds himself standing at a right angle to the rest of the group. "What are you doing down--what am I doing up here?" Each time he strays from the main group, he tries to calmly navigate himself and any stragglers back. Having a keen sense of direction is only helpful if there's direction at all.

He tries to stick to dry ground, protruding rocks, worn-looking paths when they start to pass by the marshes. A fearling blindsides him out of a crack in the cliff alongside, knocking him into the murky muck of water. The fight is short, but the ground beneath his feet drops off suddenly, deeply, and he and his foe disappear under the surface.

Thankfully, water in the Fade doesn't work quite the same as water outside the Fade, and what might normally weigh him down does not. He bobs back up to the surface, gasping and flailing, pulled under again and back up. He splashes his way toward where the ground was still there, each exhale a sound of terror, each inhale a desperate and hoarse gasp. The Seeker could...use a hand. Please.

III
Apparently when not allowing people to simply wander off in any old direction, or surprising people into water, the collapsing Fade decides to simply cut off the path before him from the people he was just following. There's no plausible way up and over. "I suppose we're to go this way now," Malcolm grumbles with a shudder. "Hopefully we can navigate our way back through here." Perhaps the groups will even come across one another later, going in opposite directions in differing heights of paths. He wouldn't put it past the Fade, as this whole section feels as though it's destabilizing.

And it's damned demoralizing, but he doesn't want to lose his cool again even though this could lead farther away or could mean not getting out at all. "I don't have time for this," he grits.

"Just like you didn't have time for me?" Malcolm freezes in his tracks, and out into his path stands a Templar, arms crossed and taking bold strides to the Seeker, who stares dumbly and his pose ramrod straight.

"...That isn't a fair assessment of the situation," he says quietly, licking his lips nervously, a color rising to his cheeks (shame, anger, who knows what else).

The Templar scoffs a laugh and looks down at Malcolm with a sardonic smirk. "I'd say it's fair enough given the way things turned out. Maybe if you made time, you'd have pulled my ass out of the fire you put it in."

"One you agreed to," he argues, calmly, still in somewhat of a shock. First the Dairsmuid mages, then the drowning, being separated, and now him. He should recognize his good friend Despair when he wears such an obvious face, but this is getting to be much.

It's so easy to get turned around, especially when one is trying to avoid everything that could conceivably be harmful. Cade has no idea what's real and what isn't anymore, and in his desperation to seek anything familiar, he finally rounds a corner and notices the Seeker. ...speaking to an unfamiliar Templar. But a Templar, nonetheless.

"...sir?" he queries timidly from a ways back behind Reed, feeling the Offness of the situation without knowing quite why. But the Seeker looks to be in some manner of distress, and that surely isn't a good sign.

The Templar glances over Malcolm's shoulder. "Are you collecting them, now? Going to pretend he's nothing and leave him to die?"

"That is not what happened." The Seeker's voice is louder now, but with a twinge of something more like pain. He's never spoken to anyone about his adventures (for truly in a sense that's what they were) with Hayes, and this is not the time. "And I am sorry, but you are dead, and this is some form of...trickery." He looks over his shoulder at Cade. Cade, of all people. "I do not know what manner of spirit or demon this is, but it is a lie."

A very convincing lie.

If nothing else, Cade, of all people, has few delusions about what Seeker Reed thinks of him. Being sent to die is different from being left to die, but Cade is too polite and also far too anxious to make the distinction.
He looks uncertainly between Malcolm and the Templar. He wouldn't know a demon if it came up and bit him, which is fairly clear in that they are everywhere and he doesn't know which ones they are. "...who is this, ser?" he asks weakly, hoping that one of them will tell something resembling the truth.

"A long dead man walking. This is a thing in the guise of Knight-Lieutenant Hayes. And it is best if we keep moving." Malcolm doesn't check to see if Cade follows, but he doesn't get more than a few long strides away before the Templar calls out to him again.

"That's always how you treated me, treated everything that was uncomfortable to you, isn't it. Ignore it and hope it'll go away. Pretend it doesn't exist."

The Seeker whirls, every part of him wound up tight, and storms right back up to Hayes and rests a single, threatening finger on the chest of his armor. "You do not get to tell me how I feel. Don't you dare presume."

They stare at each other for a long moment. What was that about not having time for this? Hayes looks back at Cade. "Word of advice: don't get involved in this man's life. He'll only disappoint you in the end." Malcolm's hand falls from the Templar's chest, face awash with hurt for a brief moment before trying to school it back, but the emotion is clear nonetheless.

Cade nods and steps forward, beginning to follow the Seeker, but then Malcolm's departure is interrupted. Cade stops a few paces away, not wanting to get between the Seeker and his... friend, and deeply unnerved that the Lieutenant has begun to address him personally.

"...I don't think he's real," he helpfully points out, hoping beyond hopes that he isn't wrong. But if the man is dead.... Cade can't presume to imagine how the Fade works, but he is at least fairly certain that the dead don't return to harass the living. ...he hopes.

"Real enough to hurt," counters the demon.

And he knows it, knows that that's the point, and perhaps if everything that happened before hadn't, then he wouldn't be so susceptible to this trickery, but it hurts all the same to a distracting degree.

"Maybe I should walk with you. Have a chat like old times. It could be the last time to get some unfinished business done."

Malcolm draws his sword, a few steps away, and brandishes it. "Stop this or I will strike you down."

Hayes raises his eyebrows. "And kill me with your own two hands this time?"

The sword doesn't so much as waiver, but Malcolm doesn't look too sure otherwise at the idea. "I give you this chance to leave and live your peace in the Fade. If you leave us alone." Yes, he's including Cade in this, since now he's been inadvertently drawn into this, gives the fallen Templar an apologetic look. He should be better than this and walk. away. But, well, he always has been terrible at facing down his metaphorical demons.

Cade takes a step back when Malcolm glances his way-- not because he's afraid of the demon (which he admittedly very much is), but because being a burden to the Seeker is the last thing he wants to do. Us. They're only an us because he's here, and is currently a liability.
He continues to back up slowly, but keeps the Seeker in his sight. If need be, he may be able to find help.

"Ser Harimann." Malcolm's voice only has the slightest waiver to it. "You should go find your way back to the rest of the group. I'll be along in but a moment."

Hayes don't smirk, but the sound of his voice implies it. "It's a wonder you don't attract more demons of pride around you. You never change."

"That's up for debate."

Never one to disobey an order, no matter how indirect, Cade worriedly steps back until he has left the Seeker's proximity. He would linger nearby, but as it turns out, the Fade is a terrible distracting place and he is quickly swept up in another situation almost as soon as he steps away.

Maybe it was the sound of a fight that drew his attention or the splash. Either way, Kirk headed towards it, hoping that it was not a trick of the Fade to get him lost. Even in his state, the sounds of someone in trouble could not be ignored. He wasn't that sort of man, and he refused to let this place break him.

He breaks over the rocks, spotting Malcolm in the water. He gave a curse, hurrying down to the water's edge and into it, out to meet Malcolm. "Hey, whoa there!" he called. "It's okay. You're okay. Come on, let's get you back on dry land, huh?"

This is it. This is the worst thing. Well, it's one of the worst things, but it feels like the worst, and when Kirk is there to offer help, he latches onto it, shaking and sputtering all the way to dry land. Where he promptly collapses against the nearest solid object that isn't the man with him. His pulse is pounding in his ears, his breathing (once he's coughed out all the water) comes rapidly, that terror of death in such a horrible way not leaving him despite leaving the water.

Kirk doesn't let go of the other until they are well out of the water, reaching over to pat Malcolm's back to help him cough the water up. The thumping stills to a gentle patting, reassurance that everything would be okay as he got his breath back. He wished he had some dry clothes for the man to change into it, something for him to drink to get the taste of that water out of his mouth.

"You're okay, now," he said to him, straightening to watch the area around them - just in case. Now would be a good time for an attack. "Just catch your breath, then you can tell me about what happened as we get away from here." He didn't want to be near something like water to long if he could help it. It felt like something could be lurking beneath, a sort of tension that made him uncomfortable.

It tastes of water and yet of something different at the same time, something different and shifting, slippery and slimy. A thousand memories of a thousand waters. Even once his lungs are clear, the feeling of choking and of dying still lingers in his chest. He hasn't felt this, had the opportunity to feel this, in so many years, he'd almost forgotten what it's like to feel like a room full of air has not enough, to feel his entire body tremble like a frightened child, the tingle of too much adrenaline. He sucks in a breath, holds it a moment, two moments, and blows it out, once he has even that much control of himself.

No. They're going to fall behind. They're going to get lost and left because of his idiocy. He reaches out a hand to--the Rifter that helped. "Have to go," Malcolm starts through clenched teeth. "Can't stay here." It's starting to subside, the clinging fear of a drowning death, though not entirely.

Kirk is patient with him, continuing to rub his back or squeeze his arm or shoulder, just letting him know he was there, he was real, that this was no dream and death had not yet taken him. He knew the feeling of it, understood that brush, and there was no getting over it except in your own time. Though he might have to try and hurry him. This wasn't a place to linger long, he thought.

"My thoughts exactly," he nodded, gripping Malcolm's hand and pushing up, bracing himself to help Malcolm to his feet. "I think if we head that way we can get away from here and make it back to the others. You good to walk on your own or do you want help?"

"I can--" And even though his knees feel weak and he stumbles half a step, pauses to squeeze his eyes shut and breathe before continuing, he has to keep going. And he has his pride. For whatever that's worth in the Fade, with all of this nonsense going on. "I can walk." He has to, for his own sake. That he would be laid low by something so base...it makes him burn with shame. He could swear there's the ugly laughter of young boys ringing far off in the distance.

"Should have been paying more attention."

'For his own sake'. Kirk didn't argue it, though he watched Malcolm carefully, not wanting the other to fall or injure himself. Whatever was happening, it seemed to be far more psychological now than it was physical, but that wasn't a reason not to be careful. He kept close, but tried not to hover as they prepared to move out from the area.

"There's time for reflecting later. We need to move now," Kirk said with a gentle firmness. "The sooner we find everyone else the better. I was headed this way before, and I'm sure I saw signs of people having gone that way too. So it's probably out best bet."

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OPEN: The Nightmare's Domain

Malcolm Reed | open

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