faderift | MOSTLY CLOSED: Weisshaupt Fortress

Entry tags:

MOSTLY CLOSED: Weisshaupt Fortress

WHO: Anders, Herc, Ingrid, Kaisa, Mal Reynolds, Merrick, Merrill, Nathaniel, Samwise, Sera, Teren, Varric
WHAT: A friendly visit to Weisshaupt Fortress that will go very smoothly and involve zero bloodshed.
WHEN: Bloomingtide 29-30 for the closed portion, with travel time on either side.
WHERE: Weisshaupt Fortress, the Anderfels.
NOTES: This plot is 90% closed to the above-named characters, but there are open comments for before and after the main quest that are open to any characters who might travel to the Anderfels to serve as back-up without going to Weisshaupt.

No one has ever claimed that 'the Anderfels' is a particularly pretty name for a place, but it is somehow still too nice for the land itself. Bone-dry and blasted by hot, dusty winds for most of the year, the steppeland of the Anderfels has been harsh and unforgiving country since long before the Blights began. It is barren in every sense of the word: all greys and browns and blood-rust reds, the monotony broken more often by black outcroppings of rock than by greenery, with settlements few and far between. Even where blight has not turned the ground dark and toxic, it feels like a place people are not meant to live. Not anymore.

↠ The Walk There (Open, Mingle)
↠ Arrival at Weisshaupt (Closed, GMed)
↠ R&R&Demons (Closed, Mingle)
↠ Everything Goes To Shit (Closed, GMed)
↠ The Sprint Back (Open)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nathaniel selects an arrow and shoots at the mage, taking care to aim for the throat or eye, if either is exposed. Best give her as quick a death as possible.

The smaller demon--snared in the grip of the glyphs, wounded by ice and by arrow and now by spear--shrieks, tearing blindly. Its panic gets it nowhere. Paralysis leaves it an easy target, and after Mal's second spearthrust, even its defense is a mere scrabble. The first of the wardens advance as two of their number fall on it, to finish what was started.

Now it's the larger demon, the mage. Caught between Nathaniel and Merril, Mal and Anders and Jeyne and the hidden away kitten, plus the wardens--the demon blazes like a brazier. Nathaniel's arrow bores into its throat; the demon staggers. Ice hisses, sizzles, melts and freezes and melts again--and the demon swells, with a bellow.

The ceiling beams crackle; the demon crackles. With a burst of savage energy, it bashes aside two of the wardens with a wide-flung clubbed arm. The blow splinters their shields, throws them into the wall--and it swings back again with that same arm, in the other direction, to do the same for that remaining first line of defense.

"That's not right." He means the swelling demon, at first. They're not supposed to get bigger like that, it's just not right. And then a moment later two Wardens are down and the others, if they're smart, will be dodging away, which means he's face-to-face with something that's inflating like the most gruesome sail ever.

The best way to deal with that? Mindblast. It's instinct when he's cornered anyway, and he casts quickly, staff slamming into the ground in front of him as if it could be some form of icy shield as well. It can't hurt, at least.

It certainly doesn't look right, but Merrill is more worried about the wardens and the fact that the ceiling beams seem Unhappy. Hopefully her barrier will keep the first of the guard alive -- in a lot of pain, probably, but alive.

Anders casts Mindblast and Merrill knows what comes next. They've done this a hundred times, back in Kirkwall. He blasts the demon back and Merrill casts a Misdirection (with the Shackling upgrade, of course) Hex, trying to make the demon less likely to actually hit any of them and less able to move quickly to do it. It's followed with another blast of ice magic; anything to keep the attention on them and not the downed wardens.

"Well."

Fuck.

"Jayne-" The hound whuffs, loping out to drag the Wardens out of the way- if they dead? He'll deal with it later. If not? They'll thank him. Win-win situation right there and that's the kind he likes.

It'd be better without the demon. Gives him the legroom to tuck his spear up against his side and get to work- he'd been darting and certain with the other one but this? This is a brute. Time to get bruty. Its a bastardization of several styles, not quite one, none too close to another, all darting jabs to herd the demon away from the wardens and the magefolk both. THey've only got the one meatshield now, and that's him. "Hey, ugly! Come on you pièce rembourrée de flammes fondu merde!"

He swats at the demon with the flat of his short sword. "Over here! At me, that's right-"

"At you? At you?" He's joined his ice to Merrill's, but Mal gets an aghast glance. "You can't think of anything better? Like 'die, die, die?' You have to yell about cheese and attacking you?"

Hero types. They all want to die, deep down, but it's got to be the most dramatic, epic death, and he has to heal them all afterward while they complain. Mal better not complain if he's yelling things like that.

"He called them melted flaming shit," Nathaniel clarifies at volume, shooting another arrow at the mage, aiming for the arm doing so much damage to the front lines. "Not cheese," he adds helpfully.

There's a pause in ice just long enough to renew barriers, mostly on Mal since he's decided to make himself a target. Light blue-white glyphs sprout up on the floor a moment later; as soon as the demon passes over them, ice will spring up and, hopefully, hold it in place for a moment.

"Is antagonizing it a good idea? I mean, it hits very hard!"

Antagonizing it is not a good idea, and, yes: it does hit very hard. Harder when it's angry, which, for a rage demon, is a constant state of being.

While anger is a good fuel, it is also a blindingly uncomplicated emotion. Narrow tunnel vision renders the demon less than able to account for all the many parts moving around it, arrows and spells and shouting, conversation that goes on at a level it cannot comprehend.

The demon answers Mal's challenge with a roar, all savagery and intent--but the jabs of the spear do drive it back, put it in easier range of Nathaniel's arrows. The sizzle of the ice confirms that strike, and as its shambling path crosses the glyphs on the floor, ice crackles up, encasing its lower form for at least a few moments. This time, its roar carries a desperate note, and it swipes wildly, at Mal, who is still closets--at whatever arrows fly at it--at the ice that binds it--at whatever it can reach. If any of those blows strike, it will be a miracle. Frozen, the demon is fading, sustained wounds draining at it. Even its furious straining only fissures the ice. No cracks show.

The wardens still standing have reformed their ranks--but they're hanging back, waiting this out. The ones knocked aside lay very still, dragged to relative safety by the brave Jeyne.

"You want it swing'n at you?" It's like they've never fought with a warrior before. Somth'n gets big and mad and start's hitt'n, you get big and mad and make it hit you first! Keep it off the magic folks. Herd'n a demon ain't at all like herd'n a bear or bait'n an ogre but the footwork's similar. Jab, swipe, duck, ohshitmotherfuck twist out of the way, rinse and repeat. Mal keeps up the barrage, hopping back out of the way before darting in again.

Thrust with the spear, slice with the shortsword. It's easier when the damn thing isn't moving.

"I got this, keep magick'n him!"

"Depends on if I have stone armor or not!" Magical stone armor, not otherwise -- she imagines that would be a bit difficult to put on and take off. Not that anyone but Anders has necessarily ever seen her do it to have any idea of what she's talking about.

More ice magic is piled on, Merrill gritting her teeth and ignoring the fact that the wardens have just decided not to help. It's irritating, but it can be dealt with when someone more shouty than her shouts about it. Until then-

"And- Detlef, I think we've got this, if you want to try the healing thing?"

Because those other wardens are either still and dead or something else, and she's not sure which.

The demon is most definitely slowing down, and while he thinks they could shatter it without much more from him, he's also fairly certain they have it contained.

"A rock fist might shatter it!" But even as he shouts back, he's turning to the nearest of the injured wardens, glad that Merrill's slip made it sound like she was just saying another word. The deception might not be that well done but he wants that flimsy shield anyway.

Anders kneels next to the first Warden and casts, seeing if he can help save the guy.

Of all the times to want to yell say the entire word at Mal, now is probably the worst. So Nathaniel bites his tongue, saving his breath and focus for shooting another sacrifical arrow that will get charred and burnt by the demon if the battle goes on longer than Merrill's ice weapon spell. He'll have to find a store room before long. At least the ones the demon flung away are salvageable.

Edited 2016-06-03 21:08 (UTC)

The ice has done the demon in. Between what fixes it to the floor and the tips of the weapons that pierce its glowing hide, the demon swipes again--blind, raging, trying to catch hold of its antagonists, to tear at them--out of range, without the strength to get free, Nathaniel's arrow drives the demon forward to, at last, meet a thrust of the spear just under its jaw.

With a groan that grates like stone on stone, the demon sags forward. Its maw drops open, its clubbed arms fall, heavy, almost human in the way the strength in them uncoils. The fire in its form blinks out.

Without the labor of battle and the roar of the demons, the sound of shouting and raised voices fades back in again. This battle might be over, but there's more to come. Of the four wardens struck by the demon, two have suffered minor injuries--badly off, but they'll survive--while a third has already succumbed. A fourth of their number is in more critical shape, her face washed in blood and one of her arms twisted cruelly. The first struck by the demon's blows, she is breathing, raggedly--but she's breathing.

The warden in the crooked cloak lays a hand on Anders' shoulder, but he speaks to them all: "We have to move her. Two of our company will stay with her, and the others injured. Once we've reached the others, we'll send back a stretcher for them, and for Victar-- For Victar, we can do no more. Please, sers. We must get to the courtyard. There will be more. I am sure of it."

One of them is dead and the other three wounded. Merrill closes her eyes, tries not to curse; her barrier wasn't strong enough, wasn't enough. They weren't fast enough, good enough, and people died. More people were dying.

Well. That was going to stop.

She draws herself up, staff in hand; she is a Keeper in that moment, a leader in her own right.

"What were your orders? You can't be blind -- you are Wardens, you followed your orders. Following or risking death is not a choice," and they are words she and Anders had said only the day before, hours ago, "but you have to see, now. There is evil behind this, behind the demons bound with blood, evil that looks like the evil you have sworn to fight. It's evil that was behind the Calling you heard, that made you desperate, that ripped holes in the sky."

And then- she is scared, green eyes fixing on the injured woman, who she cannot help. The hand that isn't on her staff twitches, reaches toward the mabari that isn't even her own, seeking out some measure of comfort.

"You see that, don't you? We want to help you, we just- we can't help Corypheus while we do it. We have to know what you know. Even if you tell us while we get to the courtyard... Please, help us help you."

If he wasn't so upset that the one is beyond his help and another needs his help right now and yet he can't stop, he might give Merrill a startled look at her revealing she knows about the Calling and its end. As it is, he's far more focused on fishing one of his healing potions out of his pouch so he can gently help the seriously injured Warden to drink it.

"Not only do we need to know what you know, we need someone to get the injured out of here, as carefully as possible. The demon army is going to spread out. I need numbers on that as precise as possible. And if it's higher than..." Fuck everything. How many is too many to fight, too many before Wardens and them are overrun and the village is at risk? Two had killed one, possibly two, injured too more, and kept several at bay. "If the number is higher than a hundred I'm going to need assistance in dealing with it."

They can't take a hundred. They can't contain a hundred. They probably can't even deal with fifty, but if he's going to contemplate a makeshift attempt at blowing a fortress up to collapse it on a demon army, raining debris down on people who are actually, completely innocent and uninvolved, it's going to be for a definite everything-is-lost scenario. It isn't something he wants to do whatsoever, but if it's the only way to deal with a demon army, what else is he supposed to do? He'll need the locations of the latrines, and for someone to get a certain mineral their armory is bound to have and add it to the latrines, and then... then he will probably seal his fate in a great many people's minds, but at least a bloody demon army won't be spreading across the continent.

Urban combat, tighter quarters than he'd like- and everything flickers for a moment between now and then as he glances down to the dead warden. Even the rush and satisfaction of having killed a foutu demon slides away as his hands tighten on the haft of his spear and hilt of his sword. They got twelve Inquisition agents, tops. Who knows how many loyal, not demoned up or paid off Wardens. They're fight'n, that dull roar from outside is achingly familiar in way that buzzes his teeth, brings to mind the smell of ash and singed flesh. There's a moment, a long one, where his eyes go to the middle distance and his jaw works silently.

Run. They fought now but with that many demons? Get their gear and run. They ain't heroes. The Wardens did this to themselves and it ain't their job to clean up their mess, just to come in, check what was go'n on with the Venatori pok'n about Warden business- and they got their answer. Wait'n to clear them out cuz that's what Venatori do. Sneak in like poison, sidle up and smile so sweet while the arsenic's already work'n through their veins. His half a mind to open his mouth and say as such is silenced, abruptly, by Merrill. This ain't her fight. These ain't her folk, ain't her Crew. And she's griev'n for 'em, he can hear it in the tight grip of her voice- she's try'n to help. Jayne lists into her hand, butting up against her palm.

Anders starts talk'n numbers and Mal the Captain has to take a half step back. All drawling insolence slips away, tucked up in a corner as he shakes himself loos and stands to his full height rather than his usual slouch. Rolls out his shoulders as he wipes his blade clear, sheathing it. Quick, militant precision in his movements, things that click through as efficiently as possible while his eyes keep on the far end of the hall. Urban Combat. Close quarters. It ain't Denerim but it ain't noth'n neither. He takes a deep breath to settle himself and offers the closest thing to a clipped air of authority as he can manage. Sargent Reynolds, reporting for duty. "You get your wounded as far back as you can and form a defensible line two, three corridors ahead. Not so far as a shout can't get back to 'em, but far 'nuf that if the line breaks they got time to haul ass. Courtyard'll be a shitshow and keep clear of anything that'll lead to a battlement, you want an easy way out, not a new way t'die."

And that is a fine way to find yourself dead in short order.

Nathaniel sees Merrill's distress, her groping for comfort, and places a warm hand on her shoulder. The Wardens are continuing to kill their own. This is as bad as it gets.

"One more thing: we need to know where Clarel's Tevinter is."

He may be the lynchpin, if there is one. And there is no doubt at all that he's the force behind all of this, and has been since Erimond's capture.

The warden in the crooked cloak, at last, hesitates. Whether it's in the face of assured knowledge, or urgent pleas, or the sight of the dead warden--to whom he looks, first--some of the conviction bleeds from him.

"I don't know," he tells Nathaniel--and all of them. "My orders were to clear this wing. Not to-- to, tell tales. Not tales I don't know the answers to. We can get someone for the wounded, but we can't entrench ourselves in here. You must see that. If we stay here much longer-- Their number aren't--"

"Trabent!"

An elf in armor and the colors of the wardens comes running up. Her sword is strapped to her back, and she's carrying a large basket slung over her shoulder. The warden in the crooked cloak straightens up at the sight of her, but she pays him only a little heed as she surveys the scene.

"Reinforcements," she says, as she jerks her head over her shoulder, "right behind me. They'll help to clear the rest of this corridor and get your wounded out of here to the healers. We're running out of time. You lot--" Another quick survey, this time of all the non-wardens in the hallway-- "You're with me. New orders. We're all in need of your help, most desperately." There's a tight look on her face, plain and urgent concern, though she doesn't sound quite desperate.

"Roostmaster," Trabent begins, but she silences him with a withering look.

"Remove your wounded," she advises, sharply, "before something comes along and removes you with them. Come on--"

And as Trabent casts a chastised look toward the dead warden, the roostmaster's taut urgency returns. She steps backwards, keeping them all in her sight, a silent plea--then turns on her heel and strides off to shoulder open a door a little ways down the corridor, back the way she came, leaving them to follow. The tromp of boots and the echoes of shouting prove her words true--reinforcements are on their way.

He doesn't like this. He doesn't like this at all... but he prefers it to other options. There's no trusting the Roostmaster, not when she's refusing to listen to her own man, but at least the wounded are being gotten out and he can hear that they have better numbers than he'd thought. It might not all go wrong.

Anders straightens from the Warden and nods. "Shall we walk into the trap? Something this complex would take a great deal of care, after all. It would be a shame to waste that effort. Especially if it's a gift from Tevinter."

There's no disguising the dryness of his voice. Why had she been carrying a basket? Why is she running around alone? And are the reinforcements really for them, or are they for the Tevinter?

"Trabent, was it? Please do move the injured. And then, perhaps, seek us out and shine a little light into this darkness? Some of us are Wardens, all of us are going in blind. That means we're far less helpful than we could be. Unless you want to send one of your men with us who can tell us more of what's coming on. We'll take that."

Calm comes from the entirely unjustified relief he's feeling, and with that, clarity. That, and Justice is focused and ready to take on more demons. Thinking is always easier when they agree on a purpose.

Nathaniel is given a soft smile over her shoulder while Jayne is scratched behind the ears. It's some comfort, in a dark time. None of them have answers, none of them know enough, but they're together.

"Stay safe," Merrill implores their warden with the crooked cloak, Trabent- whose name she perhaps never would have known, otherwise. "All of this screams of mind control, of blood magic. Trust yourself over anyone else."

And then she does follow the Roostmaster, because- well, because Merrill wants to know what is going on.

"Hahren!" It's called out, though she doesn't know if the woman will respond. Still, some respect may go a long way, even if it's Dalish respect. "Please, tell us what the orders are -- and what they were. I do not want to let demons destroy you, but I cannot let Corypheus take control. We need answers. And if you refuse to give them-"

Can she threaten this? Can she truly?

Yes, she can.

"If you refuse to give them, we will leave."

They have to leave Trabent and his injured behind, if they have any hope of keeping up with the roostmaster. The parting look the warden gives them is one of helplessness, in the face of advice and well-wishes. He nods to both all the same. He looks as if he might follow them too, if he could, but he can't and doesn't.

The roostmaster has a long stride, and despite having asked for their help, she's already aways down the corridor. Merrill's hail gets her to look back over her shoulder, her long nose wrinkled. It isn't precisely an expression of distaste. It's more the look of someone hearing plain speech after having spent a great deal of time alone.

"My orders come from me." A simple answer at last, and the roostmaster slows her pace a little, if only to allow them to catch up. "I am the roostmaster, aren't I. That title's got to count for something. And you can't leave. Leastways, not yet. I'm bringing you up here because I need to get the hatchlings free of this place. If rumors are true, I need that done sooner rather than later, so congratulations--" As she speeds her pace again, and they turn down another corridor-- "You're my help."

"Hatchlings?" Nathaniel did not expect to hear that word of all words. He is tall, his stride also long, and he comes up beside her. "Roostmaster? You can't possibly have hatchlings. Gryphons are extinct. What do you have here that takes priority?"

Gryphons would take priority. But there aren't gryphons.

Edited 2016-06-08 05:24 (UTC)

He stares as he keeps up, until a moment later all of the words click into place and he's hastily securing Purrelden's pouch, murmuring apologies to it. It's not possible. Nate's right. There isn't a chance the title means what it used to, but if it does, he's not going to have a kitten roaming near untrained hatchlings.

"How could--" Except the how doesn't matter. "We have to be quick, if you're actually saying what you seem to be. There's a village down there, and demons."

Edited (AGH TORI) 2016-06-08 05:29 (UTC)

"Well I'm sure as shit glad it ain't pigeons." Mal drawls as he jogs along, Jayne bringing up the rear. Ain't no demons gonna sneak up on them. "Dy'n to save an extinct species, now that's got nobility written all over it. But pidgeons? Nah. No thanks."

In case it isn't terribly obvious- Mal very much doubts there are actual birdcats waiting for them.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

last edit I promise

no subject

no subject