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Entry tags:
- ! open,
- { adelaide leblanc },
- { alistair },
- { bethany hawke },
- { bruce banner },
- { cade harimann },
- { cassandra pentaghast },
- { christine delacroix },
- { cole },
- { eirlys ancarrow },
- { ellana ashara },
- { galadriel },
- { hermione granger },
- { isabela },
- { james norrington },
- { jim kirk },
- { kallian endris },
- { kas },
- { katniss everdeen },
- { maxwell trevean },
- { obi-wan kenobi },
- { ruby "red" lucas },
- { sabine },
- { samouel gareth },
- { the outsider },
- { velanna }
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.)
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.
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.
no subject
He might've said more, but she asked and he answered her query by deed rather than word. Deep breath, now-- and hold it!
no subject
Or were they? They were but it still seemed so far.
I have gone mad with power and this tag proves it
But here he was, companion looking grey, panting with fatigue.
"There's no time."
Obi-Wan did the only thing he could: he pulled her close by the hand, bent at the knees to take the weight with his legs, and picked her up, to run. As for the Rift, well, he'd have to figure out how to safely navigate it when he got there. The Force would provide, and he had always had great faith in his ability to leap into the unknown and come out on his feet.
oh no!
Not so terrible a thing, then, to have managed this much.
There was a moment of curiosity when Obi-Wan knelt- did he mean to leap to the rift- Hands on her, the world tilting as he caught her up, a moment spent in pure disorientation before she locked up entirely. Too exhausted, too spent for more than the barest coiling of mist in her breath when she swore, and swore violently. Ce que le baiser est le problème avec vous, mettez -moi!"
no subject
And then the Rift was before them. One step, two, and Adelaide got to experience something quite unique among non-Jedi: the tug of gravity and the bouyed momentum of a Force-assisted jump. They rotated gently along the fulcrum of their combined center of mass as they struck the Rift. Obi-Wan's lightsaber-hilt dug against the bend of her knees and his shard-bearing left hand sputtering green, but Obi-Wan himself ignored it, focused, perfectly controlled.
The world was chaos and fire. The world was unmade and made anew. The world of Adamant Fortress was like emerging from a cave into sunlight, surprised to find that for all that had transpired, the world had somehow gone on without a care. The normalcy of the late-afternoon sunlight was like a physical blow.
Their fall ended gracefully, light-footed as a cat, as Obi-Wan completed the over-long leap quite as if he did this every day. There was a moment of relative silence.
He put her down, hurriedly.
"Ah, my apologies, so sorry. Please, excuse me."
no subject
Heat. Silence. The sudden sickening clench at her shoulder of Compassion's grip trying to hold fast to a point and only releasing her when it was certain they did not need to be pulled back- there would be a mild bruise there later. On this side of the Veil there is no warbling, no shrieking. No demons, no spirits, no strange thrum of magic beyond that keening note of the veil split open where the rift lies behind them. She's frozen in his arms for a moment, blind, deaf, and dumb to the world around her before the crackling heat of the sun slams into her skin.
And she breathes.
Far too dry, far too real but she breathes, she staggers once set down, dropping to her knees in the sand.
Out.
They were out.
"...never do that again."
no subject
He turns, facing the rift behind them. His arm is bleeding only sluggishly now, and the air, despite its heat, is no longer choked with the bilious smell of the Fade. Well, no more than usual, this close to a rift; compared to before, it is nothing less than a perfume breeze.
But the rift is...unusually large. And no less dangerous than it looks.
"You should get clear, if you can," He sounds very calm for a man who has fought a hard battle and is looking at another right on its heels, "It's going to take a lot more than one shard to close this-- and there are others trapped on the other side, even now. It may take some time before we can secure this."
no subject
Holding the line here would be more than worthwhile.
Compassion hovers on the other side of the veil, well away from the rift, but not so far Adelaide cannot pull. That she cannot gesture to herself and cast a quick rejuvenation. There. Better.
Borrowed stamina, borrowed strength but she pushes herself to her feet and gestures at his arm. "Let me see. If you are going to stay to help you'd best not be bleeding."
no subject
He lets her work unbothered, after that, watching curiously-- and then curses.
"Ah kriff, I left my cloak! That's the second one the Fade has eaten. How does this keep happening?"
no subject
Less foolish, now.
"..." A look. Obi-Wan is graced with the most arch, exhausted look Adelaide can manage. "We just walked bodily through the fade, killed a demon the size of a small fortress, carved our way through an untold amount of demons and found a rift back. And you are going to bitch about a cloak."
no subject
His answer is made through a grin, quite fond, both of his own foolishness and of Adelaide herself. Obi-Wan knows it's such a petty thing, really, but the truth is... The truth. She has the right of it. His grin fades somewhat, but the fondness remains, somehow indelible even through the glare of her expression.
"It's the simple things," He offered, by way of explanation, shaking out his arm and letting down his sleeve, "Hard to do more than wonder at a creature large enough to swallow an army, let alone killing it, or anything else we've done today. I much prefer worrying about the cloak, at the moment."
A cloak, at least, he can do something about. The rest is a power beyond the veil, a nightmare that awaits him later, whether he will it or no. They all have their trauma-- but now isn't the time to break down.
"Beside that... well, it really is the second time."
no subject
Of course.
For the longest moment she simply lets her glare linger because for her? That is the simplest thing. Glaring at fools. Mending the injured. Letting air out of the big heads of the world. Not that Obi-Wan, at the moment, seems in danger of the last but it was imperative that she make it very clear that this almost cheerful disposition is not at all appreciated.
They nearly died.
Many a time, they nearly died.
"My soul weeps for your loss." Two cloaks. Maker's breath.
no subject
After all, if Obi-Wan let himself be upset every time he nearly died, he'd never stop being upset. Life's full of risks, never more than for a Jedi on active duty, and there's no such thing as luck. He offers her a bow, more a monk than a courtier, and turns back towards the rift, seemingly to wait.
How long?
As long as it takes.
no subject
She cannot walk away from that.