faderift | Let No Soul Hunger For Justice: And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going

The screams are... satisfying in a way that would have been disturbing only hours before. Vengeance does not dwell on that. It is too late to dwell. There is only moving forward and dealing with what is now. Even Velanna has turned.

Vengeance turns its attention to her and narrows its eyes. "You above all should understand. How long did you give in to the need for justice and vengeance? They had destroyed your--" Leliana's dagger goes in and Vengeance jerks back, freeing itself and feeling a little concern for the first time. Yes, the sleeping demons were stirring, but they weren't doing enough to protect it. Vengeance prepares to teleport and is stopped from that as well by the blood mage, and struck slightly just after that by a fireball from Velanna.

Angry at the distractions, Vengeance flings a fireball in Merrill's direction... and misses, striking and obliterating a wraith behind her. Fine, then. Let chaos reign. Vengeance sends a Slam in Velanna's direction, hoping to disrupt her rock armor enough to make her remember when she'd been vulnerable and full of judgement before.

Bethany's Winter blast turns out to be little more than a light dusting of ice and Vengeance laughs despite how things are not exactly going as planned. They are not going perfectly for the people before him, either, especially now that sleep has worn off. Kain seriously injures one rage demon... and obliterates another entirely, ending the laugh. Meanwhile Anders and a lesser shade trade attacks - Anders' lightning is somehow a little stronger than it looks, but that's less than useful when the shade uses drain life and starts to heal itself while hurting him.

Seeing as he's fighting back, a wraith targets Kain with a weak projectile. A Rage demon decides to get further into the fray and catches sight of a very Vegeance-fixated Leliana, sending a powerful fire bolt her way.

The impact with Adelaide sends Nathaniel to the ground with her. He can feel the cartilage around his sternum popping, and his head bounces off the ground before he lies still, staring at the sky with the wind knocked out of him. Seconds pass with no air. No breath. Until he finally takes a tearing gasp, heart pounding, and he can finally sit up. His bow was knocked a good twenty feet away, his arrows have spilled from their quiver, but he first grasps Adelaide and looks her over quickly. It's a bad break. And nobody can help her until Vengeance is dead.

He is going to have such bruises tomorrow, if he lives.

He lays Adelaide down with an apologetic glance, then stands, drawing his dagger and moving into a fighting stance. He has two people to shield now.

The others are getting badly hurt, but as long as Vengeance is focused on them, Cole can follow at his heels, daggers biting into demon flesh at every opportunity. Even once the lesser demons wake, Cole remains focused on the larger threat. Until he is attacked again, he will not give up the chase.

As that projectile soars toward Kain, he does very little to stop it. It strikes his right shoulder and he grunts with more pain. It also hurts to breathe, he’s worried that the earlier attack cracked some ribs. It’s a fine line he’s got to walk now, and he knows it. Too much and he’ll be done for. But just enough damage ought to make his next attack stronger. He remembers and clings to that strong feeling he’d first had after drinking the dragon’s blood.

Adelaide’s scream in particular was sickening. They have to end this soon, or they’ll all go down.

With a much clearer path now, Kain can take to the air again and aim for Vengeance. He grimaces when he leaps, definitely feeling the aches from the hits he’s taken. Ugh, he’s not looking forward to the landing. This time, he holds nothing back as he launches into Dragoon’s Pride. It’s swifter than a normal jump, and far flashier… it takes more out of him too, so it’s not something he can pull out often. If he hits his target there will be a bright explosion of energy in addition to the stab from his lance.

It's a good thing the second blast of fire misses Merrill, because she isn't in much shape to move. The Prison had taken and she lets herself fall backward with the force of the slam because there isn't much else she can do, keeping quiet (can't make noise, the humans will hear you; they're taught that young). Then it's time to move (away from Adelaide and Anders and Nate, trying to make herself an easier target so that they're spared), on her back with her heels providing momentum and one arm wrapped around her torso, blood gleaming from a cut on her face. It hurts, and even adrenaline can't quite cover it all up.

And the other demons are waking up.

Forcing herself up, using her staff as support, Merrill spits blood and raises a hand, drawing from the Fade. Tempest rains lightning down, seeking out demons and Vengeance both, crackling and sizzling.

Bethany huffed out a breath - no one liked being laughed at when their spell hits someone's shield like it is nothing but frosting. She is hurting, she needs to focus. She cannot let her anger control her here - this was how Vengeance was winning, after all.

Or ... not.

The other demons were wakening, and Vengeance was taking enough hits. Merrill was bringing down the fury of the heavens themselves so ...

She let go of her anger, breathed deep, and slammed her staff down low in a tight circle around the demons, and right on the edge of where Vengeance was, using Maker's Vengeance to slam them all down into the ground, where hopefully the lightening would finish them off.

Fire rolls up her back, and the cry of pain is low and hoarse. She cannot stop, now. Even as she pulls away her hood and tosses it to the ground, as she feels the heat continue to burn her back, she twists and drops to extinguish the flame, and has no plans of staying down. Her back feels a mess, like the skin could burst and each motion stretches and burns, but she pulls back her dagger as she rises and lunges to justice. Three stabs, though the force behind them feels weaker for the pain pulling at her back, she is nothing if not determined and focused.

Adelaide needs help, Nathaniel needs it, but they cannot be aided before Vengeance falls.

It's bad. It's not just bad, it's awful, and Anders has barely made it to a seated position at last when Adelaide is thrown. They need... Maker, it's hard to think, painful and complicated, but the first thing they need is protection.

Anders casts a barrier over the group, feeling a great deal of guilt at leaving Justice, no, Vengeance, out of it. He's betraying the being who saved his life countless times, but that's what he does - betray and betray - and now it's Vegeance's turn to pay for that.

He reaches out, taking Adelaide's hand and squeezing it for a moment. She's in pain, so many are in pain, and he needs to fix what he's broken somehow. Guilt and despair make for a fairly powerful combination as he throws something that's earth and ice at the rage demons.

"Stop this, Vengeance! This is not the way. It isn't." Not like he thinks the demon will listen. Is there even anything of Justice left? Anything that can return?

Please. She begs like she has never begged before, scrabbling at Compassion's absence. The wounded are worsening, the fight is turning against them, the pain radiating through her leg, through Nathaniel's ribs, Merril's everything-

Not one of them remains unscathed. She reaches, clinging to Anders' hand with a vice like grip as though that would mitigate the pain. Through the veil she screams for Compassion, for patience, for forgiveness, for help- it'd been an accident, it hadn't been intentional and going without will get them killed. Please.

The song returns at a murmur, Compassion uncertain of their failing but sure they do not wish for there to be more death. With soothing brush of power Adelaide is able to focus past the agony that is her leg and stretch out her hand, chanting a familiar incantation, frost coiling around her fingertips. It is risky, without a staff. It is risky as tangled as they all are, but she casts all the same. Blizzard melds with Tempest and the clearing rages in a storm- frost and thunder, wind and sleet, nature itself cracking open wide and furious down upon Vengeance and his demons.

Chaos rules the field, three closed in on Vengeance and attacking at close range, blades and energy flashing around it. It howls and its fury grows... and grows all the more as it still cannot flee, cannot escape the immediate onslaught. One of Cole's strikes in particular drives rather deep and the demon knows it is in trouble.

The trouble is emphasized by magic being unleashed across the field - lightning flaring, ice swirling and shooting, rocks launched, systematically lighting up and decimating the other demons in the area.

A strong barrier flares up around those attacking it and it realizes that focusing on direct attacks will not help now, exactly. Green is the color of this moment - three rifts flaring open as another shade of green surrounds Vengeance and it heals itself, mending many of the deeper wounds but still leaving it sagging a little against the bars of its cage.

Several gibbering horrors spill forth, two rage demons glide, and one terror demon stalks its way out before it vanishes with its own characteristic green.

"This is your last chance to retreat." Not like it believes any of them will, or that it can truly call back the demons. "Most of you do not have to die here."

The slam hit Velanna hard, cracking several pieces of rock off her torso and arms but she holds her ground. A moment later she is swallowed by roots and relocates herself to Merrill's side, to shield her from Vengeance. She's taken enough of a beating.

At the sight of more demons spilling forth from rifts Velanna scowls, holding her staff up and wreathing herself in flame for a brief moment before casting Inferno down, adding flame to the swirl of frost and lightning filling the battlefield.

"You know us all, Vengeance. You know we will not retreat!"

The damage he's taken is really getting to him by now. When Kain lands after that latest attack, he groans in pain, staggering, nearly collapsing. Staying on his feet for much longer is going to be a real challenge. But he can't give up. The more it aches, the better it is, right? All he has to to is use this pain a little longer, let it fuel his attacking strength...

There are more demons, it's all just demons everywhere, and once again Vengeance is giving them his pathetic offer. "Not a chance!"

Once more bringing forth Cyclone, Kain adds a whirling tornado to the storm of elements bombarding the field. As he advances again toward Vengeance, he slashes toward him with his lance, from the ground this time.

Chaos. It is the only word for it all, but there's no time to sort through it. No time for cleaver plans. Maria joins the assault on Vengeance, the need to stop the cause before they all fall out weighing any instinct to protect the others from the lesser demons now. Her armor cannot fully protect her, the maelstrom of magics and demons reaching flesh and bone.

Light fills the room for a moment as The Wrath of Heaven falls on Vengeance and whatever demons are closest, it only grants her a moment and she takes advantage of the light to slice forward at the demon, going high while Kain goes low.

Nathaniel hears Anders pleading as he has heard him plead for months. This will be the last time.

While Vengeance is distracted, he lunges for it, his long dagger slashing viciously at its midsection.

"He's not yours!" he half-screams, half-snarls as he draws back again. "He said so! You will accept it or you will die, you fucking bastard."

It's no longer just about distraction. All his fear and pain, all his projections have come to the fore, and Vengeance will hear them at last, now that he can no longer hurt Anders for it.

"Die and join everyone like you who thought they were entitled to everything. Who thought they could use other people as pawns to gain whatever they wanted and call it right. Every poison-spewing Maker-fearing parasite who tells other people it's their fault if they're hurt, if they're sick or lonely or hungry. You starved him! You starved him!"

He's working himself up, getting reckless, and before Justice is distracted again, he darts back in, dagger lashing out once more. But he must be within Vengeance's reach before Vengeance can be within his.

Velanna comes to her and Merrill tucks in close, arm still tight around her midsection. They just have to get through this. They can survive for that long. She can cast for that long.

She's going to have to, especially with two of their healers in bad shape.

One more Crushing Prison, to keep Vengeance enclosed while elements roar around them. Velanna will keep her safe; Merrill just has to keep doing her best to make sure everyone else is safe, too. Far easier to focus on that than on the pain and the blood and the screams.

It hurt, everything hurt, but Maker's Breath, they were wearing down on it. If only they could all keep from dying before they managed to take down Vengeance.

She had to be careful now - Nathaniel was right there, as was Cole and Leliana. She could not risk anything but pin-point attacks.

So it was fireball, to the terror demons. Winter's Fury, to the rage demons, to slow them down so she could turn back to Vengeance to focus Maker's Fist on him, to bring him down in the cage and sap more of his energy. Bring him down, give those with blades the chance to sink in more deeply.

"No-" Teeth clenched and focus sharp, carving through the pain to find Compassion's song, blue light flaring as their power twines and twists together, the Spirit pressed against her like a second skin on the other side of the veil. Her eyes film over in familiar, soothing blue, sigils and defensive magic snapping through the air as Adelaide pours all she has into one last barrier on as many as she might reach, as she doubles back on her spell. Her voice rises, cold and resonant- her voice. Compassion's voice. Their voice. "We do not, but you must."

At this distance it is not so easy to miss.

Light flares under Vengeance's feet, a powerful glyph of paralysis to double down on Merrill's prison. "And you will."

Edited 2016-06-26 09:42 (UTC)

"I did what needed to be done!" Two spirits of compassion stood against it here and that did not feel good. Vengeance understood why they did not stand with it, but against? Now is not the time to doubt itself, however. Now is a struggle for survival because Anders' allies are proving more stubborn than expected. It sees Kain and Maria coming and braces, but with the prison holding it in place it cannot dodge - Kain's blade cuts deep, Maria's slashes shallowly but the accompanying energy of her Wrath of Heaven hits it hard. Vengeance sends a powerful slam in Maria's direction in retaliation.

Talking may be the only way Vengeance makes it out of this, it realizes. "When no one else would step in, I did. When no one would speak for those who needed a voice, I did. When no one would stop the Templars, I did. I can give what no one else can - the satisfaction of knowing blows against intolerance and injustice have been landed and will be landed." It looks at the mages. It will not join with Merrill, Compassion is too strongly with Adelaide right now to try, but there are others. "What if you'd been taken to the Circle in Kirkwall, Bethany? Would you not have wanted a chance to fight back? Or would you have preferred sitting in a cell and waiting for the blade to fall?"

It looks to Velanna, and sends another slam her way, this one weaker. "You understand how I have felt. Some actions should be prevented when possible, and punished when not. I could give either of you the ability to stand your ground all the better against what is to come. When Corypheus falls they will not need to play nice with mages or Dalish any more, and the Wardens are weakened. Take me as an ally."

Nate's dagger drives in and Vengeance whirls, furious, and unable to react in time before Bethany's spell slams into it and Adelaide holds it still. It can only watch as an inferno rips across the field, striking demons as others are knocked about by the tornado from Kain or Maria's earlier strike of Wrath. A green spot appears on the ground next to Maria and the terror demon leaps out, swinging a glancing blow before Bethany's fire ball hits it.

A gibbering horror lunges at Merrill and bites her, but can't get its teeth too deeply in. Meanwhile a rage demon exchanges fire with Bethany, struck by Winter's fury and sending a fire burst at her in return.

Leliana doesn't know if typical rules of anatomy work for demons; it's not something she's ever much considered.

"Enough."

She strikes, hooking her bleeding, wounded arm around Vengeance's throat or whatever one might be able to guess is its thoat while she stands at its back, using the leverage to better drive in the dagger with her right hand. Leliana withdraws and striks twice more in rapid stabs, aiming for its throat. It might not silence it, but she can certainly try.

"They have endured enough of you." Quiet enough that perhaps Vengeance would not even hear it, as she endeavours to hook her arms around its to rend them back and leave the demon more exposed for Cole and Maria and Kain's attacks.

From across the room, another dagger flies into the demon, sinking deeply.

"I've been waiting too long for him to shut up."

The daggers know where they need to go, where they should go, and yet the demon persists. The blows that manage to land feel like chipping away at a great tree, piece by piece.

Cole does not succumb to physical exhaustion, but Vengeance's proclamations and promises begin to chip away at his resolve in the same manner. This is not like the Envy demon, who only ever sought power and conquest, or the Nightmare, who only ever preyed upon fear. Once upon a time, Justice knew what was right. What was fair. Cole can taste how its nature has been twisted, dark, murky. He can hear the cracks in its arguments where light might have poured through, once. Through which a person might be tempted to take it up on its offer. And it is still not dying.

He starts to lose hope, his attacks landing with less raid-fire efficiency... and then, Leliana. Then a new chance to attack, a new angle.

"Die!" Cole exclaims, rushing forward to renew his efforts.

It seems that their attacks are starting to weaken Vengeance, but he's a formidable foe. Except all that the spirit is saying are empty words and nothing more. Of course, it does bother him that he's held a lot of the same ways of thinking in the past... that the ends sometimes had to justify the means... ugh, no, he could never agree with something that possesses others.

Kain doubles over for a moment after darting back a bit, his breathing shallow and strained. Can he make it long enough to get in another attack? Everything hurts terribly at this point. But. Still. If he can move, he can fight, and right now, Leliana's giving them an opening. He better take it while he still can.

With a growl, Kain leaps forth again at Vengeance with his lance at the ready. It's not quite as high of a jump as earlier, but it's well aimed and strong, thanks to his pain fueling his Blood Frenzy.

Nathaniel is still in a frenzy, lunging in and lashing out with the slice of his dagger each time Vengeance turns away. Now it's trying to tempt Velanna and Bethany. Like hell is he going to let it keep talking.

He is tall, but it's still quite the reach when he tries to stab the demon in the throat. No more talking.

The gibbering horror lunges and Merrill shrieks, swinging her staff and- well, conking it right in the face. It pulls at the injury to her torso but it's an instinctual reaction, and the too-many teeth at least don't rip any chunks of flesh out.

"I've had enough of this!" Lightning erupts once more, going first for the gibbering horror and then arcing to the other demons, Vengeance included.

Bethany swung her staff around, to send a freezing arc of Cone of Cold towards the rage demon, before she turned to face Vengeance. Something flashed across her face - pity, perhaps - before she aimed her staff at him once more.

"I never wanted justice. I never wanted vengeance. I just wanted peace -- and you've never brought that. We're tired of the blood, we're tired of the bodies littering the ground in your mad campaign to change something that could never be changed through murder. The templars proved that, and the mages too. All your revenge has gotten us are more graves than I care to count."

She stared at him, before she said sternly. "Go home, Vengeance. We don't want you anymore."

And she let loose a Flameburst, following Merrill's lightening, keeping it right on Vengeance himself so she did not hurt Nathaniel, or Cole, or even Isabela.

Edited 2016-06-30 03:40 (UTC)

Let No Soul Hunger For Justice: And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going

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