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

ii.
There are a great many gravestones. Each one personalized, each one likely for one of the others with him -- all having fallen in without meaning to, all now lost in a world that is not for them. Even he is somewhat unnerved by it; this is not the Void, far too green and sickly to be like the realm he has called 'home'.

He walks, fingers idly tracing over the stone as he walks among the headstones. Unless there is someone looking at one, or someone stops him, he doesn't stop until he reaches one that is sitting in a pool of water. There is no name, only a symbol, and the words the ordinary.

iii.
There is a whale.

It is not actually a whale, of course. It's a sloth demon having taken the form of a whale as opposed to a bear, and it swims through the murky 'air' of the Fade while singing deep and low. The song is unearthly but oddly soothing, something that could easily lull the unsuspecting into sleep. It follows the Outsider, tail lazily swishing.

The Outsider looks rather incredibly annoyed and keeps moving, doing his best to ignore it.

Bethany is actually more frightened that a sloth demon can actually be that size - she had heard rumors of the sloth demon at Kinloch Keep but this was ridiculous.

So she is also trying to ignore it, while side-eying the person it is following. Just how lazy is this fellow, anyways?

Not lazy enough not to raise his sword to the fearlings that scatter toward them, at least. Their shapes are almost formless, abstract; some have hands covered in blood, chanting as they attack, humanoid but faceless. Those ones are dispatched with perhaps more force than necessary, bodies crumbling into ash.

There are only a few, though; the Outsider doesn't truly have many fears that can be shown in a physical form. It hardly keeps him from scowling toward the whale-demon at the end, an irritated flash of magic in the form of a gust of wind blasting into one of the odd landmarks.

"If you are quite done staring?" he says after a moment, not looking at Bethany.

Now Bethany was really just going to gape for a moment, because instead of how lazy, she was now wondering how powerful can one person be?

He caught her out, and she flushed red, before she said sheepishly. "Sorry. If you stop doing incredible things I promise I'll stop looking at you with my mouth hanging open."

And it's hard, but she does put her face forward so she can sweep fearling away from her with a wave of fire.

'Incredible'. Well, that descriptor hasn't been applied to him since he's arrived in Thedas, and the Outsider blinks. Then he turns his head, looking at her -- watching as the fearlings meet flame.

"I imagine I'll be worn out soon," he offers, as though that's somehow comforting. "My magic is much more difficult, more tiring, in this world."

Bethany doesn't look over at him, because well, she doesn't want to stare. She does smile a little before she asks curiously. "In the Fade, or just in Thedas? Most mages are stronger here - it's a more direct connection to our gifts."

"In Thedas." Luckily (or something) for the Outsider, he absolutely does not care if he's being rude or not. He'll stare all he likes.

The tune of the not-whale's song changes slightly, almost mocking, and the Outsider huffs.

"Well, if this is you tiring -- your gifts must be considerable. I'm impressed." And she truly is. A wave of ice shimmers across a few more fearings, clearing their path.

She glances up at the not-whale, glowering at it, before turning her gaze back to the path. "Were you a mage, or some other kind of magic user?"

Church had warned him, upon arrival, not to reveal too much. The Outsider chooses to ignore that advice.

"There is a realm, an entity, in my world called the Void. It is similar to the Fade -- it is where dreams come from, where magic comes from. It is what the world came from and it is where the world will return. I am its... current representative, chosen by it. Once human, now something else entirely." In case the black eyes didn't give it away.

"I understand that tends to concern people, here." He'll get it if you decide to run away screaming, Bethany.

"Ah."

Well, that certainly made it sound like he was some sort of - entity of chaos. A chaos demon? Was there such a thing? But if it was once human, then it could not be a demon, in the traditional sense. That was also it's body so -- wait. Wait.

"How are you alive, if you are so far from your Void?"

"I could always leave it."

But other than that? He doesn't have the faintest idea.

"Perhaps I am no longer alive, in my world. There have been others before me; it is not unheard of for us to die. It would perhaps surprise the mortals of my world, but knowledge is easily lost to them. My predecessors are still worshiped in the far-off places."

He was more blatantly worshiped in days past as well, until the Abbey rose. Things change, and mortal memories are short. They forget that they walk on the bones of those that came before them.

[ for all that it is not a whale, it certainly looks like a whale- from the pictures he has seen, and the stories men tell when they bring oil and dried blubber to dale, and from dale to his kingdom.

though thranduil has fought today, killed fearlings and struck blows on the nightmare itself, he is brimming with vitality, with a song- the only song- his fëa vibrant and whole once more.

naturally, this brightness makes his tongue sharp, his mood jovial enough despite the situation. ]

You have made a friend, I see.

[ The Outsider, meanwhile, sighs. He can hear Thranduil's own song more clearly here, where magic and mortality blend; he can see past his glamour more easily as well, though once more he does not point it out. ]

It will not stop following me, [ he nearly huffs, gesturing with one hand back toward it. ]

I am an observer, and rarely meddle, and it seems to think that means I would like to take a nap.

Do you [ he's not laughing he promises but oh, that is a smirk ] want to take a nap?

[ it is a very nice whale, now that he considers it. there is also something just in the corner of his eye, something white and furred and hooved, something that will doubtlessly be just as embarrassing as a whale, but at least it is not

a whale. ]

You spoke with it?

No.

[ :| he is not amused why is this happening

but he also doesn't see the fancy deer yet, either ]

It spoke with me, [ he corrects, brow furrowing further. Clearly he doesn't like whatever was said, but he also doesn't seem to want to share.

The not-whale practically trills. ]

[ it's a very fancy deer. there is the very faint sound of hooves on cobblestones, echoing-- ]

And what did it tell you?

[ he'll get it out of you. it's- a whale of a problem. ]

[ Well.

Fine, but only because you asked, Thranduil. ]

The Nightmare, [ and his voice drips with disgust ] informed me that I am as predictable as those I disdain for the same reason. And this one [ not really a whale, it doesn't deserve the name ] insists that even watching is beneath me, that it is undeserved.

[ blythely: ] It told me nothing I had done to help my people aided them in the least. That they would all die in the same manner, screaming. I informed it that the Deceiver had already had enough of giant spiders, and that were it to set foot in my world with intent to deliver-- I was not what it need fear.

[ sharper, that smile turning angry. ] It stole the voice of my wife. That angered me most.

[ which had, in turn, brought out rage demons- the whole thing was complicated. he waves it away with an elegant gesture. ]

So it offers the solution of... napping?

Are giant spiders common, in your world?

[ yeah that's. what he finds most interesting out of all of that. ]

I am rather well-versed in waiting, but it would rather I waste away.

[ by napping, yes ]

How would you define 'giant'? [ ungoliant was in a class of her own. then there was her spawn, massing in his forest, and a rumored daughter who was nearly as clever as her mother, if smaller.

all of them were wretched, ruinous things, and if they were here he was only too happy to cut through them in a fight.

politely: ] How old are you?

[ among elves, it is: 'in what age were you begotten?' but that will be useless here. ]

Larger than- [ hm. ] -common cattle. That is not how many in my world would define it, but.

[ They are different. He has seen the creatures that stalk Pandyssia, has seen visions and remains of those that have died off but stalked even the now-Empire before its rise. There is 'larger than what I am used to' and there is truly giant.

Likewise, there is older than average and there is old. In the context of his universe, he is the latter. Here? In Thranduil's world? Who can say? ]

I became what I am now at the human age of fifteen. It has been over four thousand years since then.

Common in my kingdom. Less-- elsewhere. [ only in mordor, otherwise, as far as he knows. that he now knows why his own forest was plagued by them. his thoughts darken, and again, he shuts away that path of thoughts. not here. not when the landscape so gladly reflects dark thoughts.

he smiles, nearly-- fond? ]

A little over half my age. I am your senior, Duinenor. [ teasing now, even as he beckons. the whale can follow, if it likes, but it is lazy, and perhaps the effort will be too much. ] Perhaps that will make you more inclined to listen to my advice?

[ not likely, but he has to try. ]

I always listen, [ the Outsider retorts, but it is just as much a tease, if perhaps harder to distinguish as one. ] Whether I follow it depends on the advice.

[ But he follows, still; there is wisdom in older things, sometimes, and certainly there are many stories. ]

You are a king, then? [ He has handled the loss of power rather gracefully, as far as the Outsider can tell. ]

[ he was searching for reasons to be fond of the outsider, he has found them. ]

Yes. [ all his silvans, his sindar. he knows them all by name, who has elflings due, who struggles with love, who needs reassurance that they are welcome and important in the kingdom. who ought to sail. they are his to protect.

there is nothing more to be said about it, really. they pick their way over the stones in the path. he can hear hooves, but he knows if he looks back, he will see nothing but the whale. ]

[ Let's hope this doesn't end horribly.

Even that short answer, the 'yes' and nothing more, is uncharacteristic of human kings. It makes the Outsider hum slightly in thought as he follows, the whale giving up on following them over the rough terrain -- at least for the moment. The song still lingers. ]

I wonder what sort you are, [ he all but breathes, quiet and curious and not quite willing to risk the interesting conversations he has with the elf in barbed questions just yet. Maybe he's learning. ]

OPEN: The Nightmare's Domain

the outsider | ota

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