faderift | Player Plot: My Father's Eyes

He promises to stop making fun of Templars for, like, a week for that help. Thanks broseph. What an arrow to the neck of one does do, as a helpful bonus, is finally pull Mr. Electroblast away from electroblasting. Mullroy collapses, and Church gasps, fists in the dirt, dry heaving.

The horror with a brand new neck accessory is coughing in a horrible, mostly inhuman noise, scrabbling at the arrow and drawing back. More red comes dribbling out of it, but whether it's red lyrium or blood is impossible to tell. It lessens some of the burden on Murtogg, though he's still covered in the awful stuff, gritting back a scream trying to one-handedly run his sword through the now distracted horror. It takes the blade in its side, but now that it isn't focused on doling out shocks, it's focused on reaching for Murtogg, claws digging into the shoulder not already covered in lyrium.

Church isn't recovered, not by any definition he knows, but--still twitching involuntarily--he pushes himself off the ground low at the damned thing. Despite the swimming vision, it's hard not to make out the hulking red and black mass of bad fuckin news, so he hefts all the strength he's gathered back up to do what Murtogg couldn't. His sword finds horror flesh, or whatever counts as flesh, and sinks in. He falls into the thrust just to push it that much deeper. It howls. And you know what, that's actually a pretty good sound right about now.

None of them were focused on Ingrid, at least. She comes up behind the red templars attacking her brethren templars and aims in low slashes with her sword, hoping to knock them off balance, maybe even hamstring one, if she's lucky.

"The Maker answers those he finds worthy, which you no longer are," she hisses.

She doesn't like the idea of attacking those who were once her brothers in faith, but damned if she's going to let them cause any further destruction.

For most of the battle Bruce had been at the back, throwing up barriers wherever he could, but even he couldn't be in two places at once. He grits his teeth when he sees and hears Church being hit hard, maintaining his defences until he can afford to break it momentarily in order to throw out some healing spells across the party - through considering that he's no Spirit Healer like Christine, its probably not as effective.

Then Samouel gets hit too and Bruce sends a stronger healing spell at his way, hissing out his name gruffly. "Gareth, focus on healing yourself!" Bruce could only do so much from where he is but hopefully its enough to patch up the worst of it.

After saying that he turns back to focus on defense once more, renewing their barriers and infusing Church with a burst of strength, giving him the adrenaline he needs to push on forward.

Goodbye popsicles. Korrin viciously strikes at them, intent on leaving none intact. She'll focus on the weakest one first and go from there, adding to her assault with Stonefist. Having a Fade boulder slamming into the ice makes for a particularly satisfying noise.

"Christine!" Catching sight of her friend, Korrin's eyes widen in horror. She quickly reacts by tossing a healing mist grenade in her and Gilette's direction, not wanting to leave all the work to those with healing spells. They can save some of that for the offense, which is still needed.

Fortitude makes Sam aware of the attack, already throwing a barrier up over the mage, but the spell is a moment too late, the blade finding his side before the spell finishes. The strike is surprising, the pain momentarily freeze up, but he doesn't yell out, instead giving a grunt and sucking in air through his teeth. The pain subsides just a bit though, feeling a healing spell land over him - his name being called out along with it - the wound mending enough that he wouldn't bleed out.

"Thanks-!" He grits out, though he isn't sure that Bruce hears it due his volume and the sound of battle around them. Pressing a hand to his side he channels a bit more healing into the wound so that he can focus better, sword coming up in front of him to block any incoming attacks.

Hearing Korrin yell out in front of him, Sam focuses his eyes on who and where she's throwing her grenade. Seeing Gilette and Christine in trouble he takes a moment to catch his breath before sending a healing spell their way.

Now that Anamaria and Giselle have thinned the herd, so to speak, they focus first on the horrors that are still alive. Church has taken down one on the left, and through the combined efforts of Anamaria's arrows and Murtogg's sword, the second falls quickly after. Mullroy is trying to pull himself to his feet, but between his whimpers of pain and shaking limbs, he can't accomplish it right now. However, the three in the party on the left are now safe as both horrors are dead. Despite his wounds, Murtogg starts moving for the middle to aid the others, especially the mages who both appear to be injured.

Korrin easily brings down one Red Templar, who collapses to the ground, dead. When she sets Stonefist on the next, there's a shattering sound and the Templar collapses as well, though he's still alive. The third comes out of the freeze trying to get his bearings, teeth chattering. Korrin gets in two good hits and he groans, stumbling back, but keeping his feet. The one who attacked Sam (the one who hadn't been caught up in Korrin's cold spell), is blocked from getting in a second hit by Sam meeting his blade. He growls in anger, and rears back, displaying the huge red veins bulging from his neck. It's the perfect target for Anamaria, and an arrow comes whizzing by, striking him perfectly. He gurgles, blood dribbling from his mouth as he goes down like a sack of potatoes. For those keeping count, there are now two swordsmen currently getting the snot beat out of them by Korrin, and a guardsman who just can't knock James down. The other two in the middle section of the camp are dead. So now the shield bearer will go for the easier targets. He launches himself forward, slamming straight into Aleron and Ingrid. Aleron takes the brunt of the hit, body slamming back into the ground and receiving several abrasions just from his body sliding. He's knocked straight out, and though he'll awaken within moments, his disorientation will make it clear he has a bad concussion. Ingrid fares a little better, but when they were both hit, Aleron landed on Ingrid's wrist, severely spraining it. Now the Red Templar guardsman lifts his sword to strike down on Aleron, but there's still time to intervene.

On the right, Burns finishes with the one knocked into the tent and flies back into the battle. The Red Templar with the arrow in his shoulder is trying to rise to his feet after Christine electrocuted him and is completely caught off guard when Burns slices at his throat. The enemy falls back dead and Burns keeps going, trying to aid Gilette and Christine. Korrin's healing mist saves them both, and with the added healing spells from Bruce and Sam, plus a helpful arrow from Giselle, the Red Templar horror currently assaulting them falls back with a roar of pain. But there are still one swordsman (currently locked in battle with Gilette) and another horror to contend with. That horror turns his attention to the woods, shooting red lyrium spikes out at the archer who just hit his horror buddy. A moment later the leaves rustle and there's a thump on the ground, though whether Giselle was hit or chose to jump down from her perch herself to avoid being hit isn't clear. The important thing is that there is now one horror focused on the woods, one horror howling in pain with an arrow sticking out of his hump, and one swordsman getting wailed on by Burns and Gilette. He is not long for this world. Christine leaves them to it and sets down Chilling Array (a series of Ice Mines) in the combat zone. The arrowed horror is the first to step on one of them, immediately freezing solid. Christine starts throwing spells at him, and by the time he comes out of the freeze, he falls over dead.

To recap: the left is now clear, there are two injured swordsmen and a guardsmen in the middle who has just knocked over Aleron and Ingrid, and to the right there is one horror firing red lyrium spikes into the woods at Giselle, and one swordsmen whom Gilette and Burns are in the process of killing.

Okay. Magical healing things! That's a plus. That's a thing about magic he digs. It's fucking weird, but Bruce flinging his mojo around at least gives Church a second wind. He's, in fact, still smoking from the electrocution, and his arms still spasm even as he hauls the sword out of the horror.

With Murtogg racing his wounded stupid ass right back into battle, Church tries to help up Mullroy. They're both weak, despite the magical second wind, and there's even some static charge left that shoots between their hands. But there were only the fourteen, right? There shouldn't be anyone else coming to sneak up on them. "We'll get a medic for you," he grits, he promises. But he's not sitting out of this fight. "Just stay still." It's looking like the fight should be over soon, right?

Church heaves himself up and surveys the battlefield, and after running through one horror, he sees the other shooting its fuckbolts at probably one of the ever so helpful Templar archers, and he has a new target sighted. His run starts at more of a loping gallop, wisps of smoke trailing behind him and muscles tense, but damn it he's going and picking up speed. He's got it dead to rights, and its back is turned.

The horror suddenly raises its other hand and fires, not quite blindly, back at Church.

He has a split second to raise his hand and sputter to life the shield his shard's granted him, but exhausted and pained and distracted, it only sputters. The first bolt of red lyrium strikes the shield for a split second while it's solid, a luck of timing.

There isn't enough of a shield left to block the second bolt from hitting home.

There's an entire couple seconds of time where he doesn't even remember what happened, how he (spun gracelessly and dropped) suddenly got on the ground and his sword out of his hand, absolutely dazed. There's heat in his shoulder, digging in, followed then by the heat that is pain. When he rolls his head aside, blinking stupidly, he sees a chunk of angry red rock sticking out of the meat of his shoulder.

His first impulse is to grab it and rip it out. His second impulse is to remember Murtogg running around half covered in shit and not bothering to, whatever, stop drop and roll. Also, when things have impaled you, you're supposed to leave them in, right? So you don't bleed out and get seven different infections and also bleed out. If Doc was here, he might pretend to know.

"Ow." That's very intelligent, Church. The buzz of pain in his shoulder almost doesn't register so soon after the all-encompassing pain of literally being electrocuted, and he forces himself to at least sit up. His arm sure does feel a little numb though. Whether it's from the sheer impact or because it's literally struck a nerve (or because of being electrofuckingcuted), he can't tell. Tries to reach for his sword with his other hand. "C'mon tall, dark, and rocky...finish the fucking job..."

Maker. Everything happens so fast that Bruce can't quite do anything at all to prevent it, but at least Church was alive. Still. Even though the lyrium (was it lyrium? He couldn't be entirely sure from this angle) on him is--definitely something to deal with, either way.

There's no way they can do it right now, but for the pain--Bruce gathers the mana inside of him and sends out another healing spell towards the Rifter to at least try and ease the worst of it. It's definitely not going to be much but at least its something, and he hopes that somebody more effective at this will be able to help him before things get even worse.

Again he renews those barriers, doing his best to reinforce the main attackers after all the beatings they had taken - there weren't that many of them left now, they could do this. But Bruce certainly hopes they could finish this soon because he can already feel the bite of mana exhaustion starting to eat at him. Even with his quicker mana regeneration he's using more than he gets back and his capacity had never been big in the first place. If this battle drags on much longer then things were going to get difficult for him.

This was why he wasn't suited for the field.

Those renewed barriers are very welcome, Korrin taking all the edge she can get even as her own are slow to decay. Taking advantage of the chilled Red Templar still getting his bearings, Korrin conjures a fiery glyph just below him. In fact, if she can target it so that the collapsed one is also in range, she will. Once it explodes, he'll be plenty warm. He should thank her, really.

And then she spots Aleron prone, with that Red Templar guardsman closing in. Eyes narrowing, she blurs forward on waves of magic. Once she's within range, her own spirit blade will hopefully divert attention from the prone Seeker. "We need healing over here!" She's not without more healing grenades, but her priority has to be taking down Aleron's attacker.

Though Christine has recently decided that she can't shy away from engaging in combat, she is primarily a healer first, and that needs to take precedence right now. With the Red Templars' numbers dwindling, she turns her attention to the wounded and calls on Faith to help her. Eyes glowing blue from the spirit's energy, Christine casts Revival on Aleron, which will draw him from his unconscious state and heal him a little. She can't just take away his concussion, but he won't be in so much pain. Ingrid doesn't appear to be bleeding, and so Christine makes the decision that she can wait longer or receive healing from one of the others. Right now she needs to get to Church. The way Murtogg is fighting, she can't tell if his armor caught all the red lyrium, or if he's just that hardcore. But Church has clearly been hit through the body with red lyrium, and Christine doesn't want to leave it inside him a second longer than it needs to be.

As she rushes across the back line to reach him, the two Red Templars in Korrin's glyph ignite. One takes the brunt of it, screaming in agony before dying. The other is on the edge of it, but he's so wounded that this is the end for him. Unfortunately his death is slower, and he has time to regret.

"He said it'd make us better." Whether he's talking to the nearby guardsman or the Inquisition isn't clear, but his voice is laced with pain from his injuries. "We'd have... purpose again." He lets out a shudder, curling onto his side, knees drawn up. "M-Maker?" It's said in a tentative way, like a scolded child peeking back into the room after his parents have sent him away. Who knows if the Maker will forgive him for his crimes, or even if He exists at all? But in his final moment, this Red Templar hopes He does. The man lets out a rattled breath and is gone, and the guardsman lets out a "Damn you!" right after. Is he angry at the Red Templar for dying or for the Inquisition killing him? The man doesn't clarify, just turns towards Korrin and desperately rams his shield into her body. It will definitely hurt, but beyond some bruising and getting knocked to the ground, she'll be fine.

Only two left now: this guardsman and the horror who just downed Church. Realizing that the immediate danger is in front of him and not out in the woods, the horror turns his attention back to the party. Gilette and Burns are handling the swordman so he's as good as dead. No need for the horror to try and rescue him. Instead he turns towards the main group and focuses on those he sees as the main problems. James, Korrin, and Sam all receive a blast of electricity from the horror's hands. It arcs and crackles between the three, leaving the smell of burning wafting through the air. The horror is putting his all into it, hoping to bring them as much pain and injury as he can in the shortest amount of time possible.

At Church's side, Christine has pulled on leather gloves from out of her utility belt and her eyes are glowing blue.

"Hold still." One hand rests beside the wound, placing down a spell to hold back the pain, and with her other hand she grabs the chunk of red lyrium and yanks it away as fast as she can, tossing it aside. Then she leans in to get a close look, making sure no red crystals remain or have started to spread. It's hard to tell with so much red blood now pouring from the wound, but with Faith's help, she determines he's free from it, and Christine works on closing the wound. When the three behind her are electrocuted, her concentration wavers, but she grits her teeth and continues closing Church's wound. She knows she doesn't have enough mana to heal all three of them, even with Faith's help, and if she tries, she'll have nothing left for Church and he'll keep bleeding out. She would try to help all four and end up helping none. So she stays put.

Church has not been able to provide a distraction for the horror, and, to his horror, it's attacking the others. But it's Christine that runs to his side. "No, I gotta--"

He doesn't get very far before the chunk of lyrium is pulled from his shoulder, and wow, that's...kind of weird to see given that he knows there should be pain galore. It's one thing to see holes in his body when he's outside of his body, and another while he's...still in it.

Faith's in there or around her somewhere, being stern and probably giving him a disdainful if blank look, but he's not gonna talk to Faith, he's gonna talk to Christine. "I'll be fine with some medical care--I've had worse, trust me." Dead's worse, right? He says it all pretty breathlessly for someone who says he'll be fine. Man, being electrocuted and stabbed in the middle of a fight with vaguely supernaturally enhanced beings sure does take it out of you! "You should go keep the others out of pain, and I'll help the Templars run this asshole through."

You just keep telling yourself that, Church.

Focused and enraged as she is, Korrin has very little sympathy to spare for any Red Templar, whether regretful or not. They did what they did and Thedas is suffering for it, so she'll send them to the Maker without regret. Perhaps later she'll ponder those words but for now, getting shield-based takes up her attention and she tumbles to the ground, the air rushing out of her lungs. Still gripping her weapons, she gets back to her feet in one smooth movement and reactivates her spirit blade for some retaliation, swiping at him with renewed viciousness. Whatever it takes, he's going down.

Well, that's the plan. And then that blast of electricity arcs through her, ironically on the receiving end of lightning for once. She screams in pain, feeling herself burning from the inside, and staggers back. Hating to do so, she nonetheless deactivates the blade long enough to toss a pitch grenade at her enemy to buy more time and toss another healing grenade around, hoping to include James and Sam as well.

Ingrid cries out when Aleron's weight sprains her wrist, but she does her best to try and scramble back to her feet. The injury makes it too painful to wield both her sword and her shield--she has to choose just one until she can get it fixed up.

Shield it is.

It becomes both armor and weapon, as she tries to block attacks and bash her foes with it at the same time.

"You have had worse than being impaled?" Christine asks, hoping Church doesn't do anything stupid like jump up and run into battle. She's still in the process of healing the wound, the blood vessels and muscles slowly knitting back together again. But when he mentions the others, a worried crease appears on her forehead and she looks back at the injured group. Church's wound is almost healed. Maybe she'll have a little energy left to at least start on helping the others. Of course, now that she's distracted, this would be a good opportunity for Church to try and get away from her healing hands, if he's so inclined.

Korrin's pitch grenade lands between the guardsman and the horror. The horror is at the edge of it, and with low growls, he starts trying to back out of it. His hands lower, no longer shooting out electricity. Since he's moving slowly, Giselle puts an arrow into him, but it isn't fatal. Meanwhile Gilette and Burns have a bloodied dead Red Templar lying at their feet and are turning around to engage the horror. The guardman is stuck deep in the pitch, but he holds up his shield to protect himself against Ingrid's bash as he tries to back up. It's slow going and his shield is raised enough that neither of the Templar archers hiding in the trees can get a clean shot.

He'll have to thank Anamaria for the shot later, rolling his shoulder a bit from the impact of the blade against his own - damn those guys were strong. Momentarily free of incoming attacks Sam goes about helping Bruce renewing barriers all around so that the other isn't shouldering all the work.

It's at that point that Sam hears a call for healing, though it takes him a moment to spot where the call is coming from, and longer still to see who needed it. His eyes find Christine, which has him giving a sigh, knowing that she had them at the moment. He's just about to make his way over when he hears something charge, Fortitude buzzing in the back of his mind once more. Immediately Sam turns though before he can even finish doing so his body locks up.

The the pain is excruciating, but the electricity locking up his body prevents him from even yelling out. The attack doesn't last all that long, but it certainly brings him to his knees, shaking and gasping for breath, his body refusing to move. He certainly doesn't appreciate being fried - the smell of burning hair and leather is not good.

"It's a long story. Several long stories." Not really the time to share them, as he looks around the battlefield. It's really looking like it's winding down, though. Those Templars totally are gonna fuck up that horror, and there's that guard dude stuck in the muck. Pretty fortified, but their numbers, even injured numbers, even electrocuted numbers, leave them at a super advantage.

"Hey." He rests one of his hands over one of her healing hands. It's very warm. "We're almost through. Save your strength."

Not closing in as she doesn't want to be caught in the pitch while it lasts, Korrin fires from her staff at the guardsman, the powerful bolts of electricity shortly thereafter interrupted by a burst of Chain Lightning that erupts from the staff itself, not her. Having seen this before, it doesn't throw her off her game at all, and she's relentless, not about to stop while there are still companions who need her. In fact, she adds to it with a salvo of elemental blasts from her staff to home in on the enemy ahead.

Edited 2016-09-20 19:19 (UTC)

As much as he hates to do so, Bruce had to take a moment to recover his strength - at least the Rifter was covered now by Delacroix and Gareth. Ataash was taking up the offense for the remaining Red Templars that were around, though he supposes a little bit more offence would be helpful in this scenario.

He throws another healing spell towards the other healers and the Rifter, giving them whatever energy they could to help, then focuses on supporting Ataash with some extra barriers and the like to help her keep up her offence. They were almost through, just a few more of these bastards and they'd be done with this. They could do this.

Christine isn't going to consider stopping. To stop the healing might mean something will go wrong. Something bad could happen, and when she tries to heal him later, it won't work. It will be like with Asher all over again.

"Hush," she says, not moving her hand out from under Church's and continuing to heal him up. The boost in healing from Bruce is felt underneath her fingertips and she has to admit she's grateful for the help. Together the healing spells quickly finish closing up Church's wound, and she places one more spell that lessens pain on him too.

The horror just manages to back out of the pitch, but before it can get its bearings and renew its attack, Gilette and Burns descend on it, going for the throat and the gut. It lets out a screech more animal than human, but the two don't let up even as it falls to the ground. They continue stabbing and slashing until the horror no longer moves and then both men waver on their feet from the exertion. But it's finally dead.

Meanwhile, Korrin's attack is just the thing to get the guardsman out from behind his shield. The first few lightning attacks bounce off his shield, but when she sends down chain lighting it hits him from above, causing his back to arch and his arms to spread out. The shield moves away and both Anamaria and Giselle sink in arrows right where his helmet meets his neck. He lets out a gurgling sound, blood dribbling down his armor from behind his helmet. The energy barrage of elemental energy is the finishing blow, and he falls back into the pitch, dead.

From her spot beside Church, Christine's head whips around, looking for any Red Templar they might have missed. One of those things with the red lyrium spikes for arms surely would have appeared by now, right? Blowing out a shaky breath, she rises to her feet, only now feeling the pain of her earlier electrocution. She stumbles slightly, but keeps upright, moving towards Sam.

"Who needs healing?" she asks. Even though she's hurt and exhausted, being a healer is what she does and she's here to do it. There is still much to do here at this camp as well. They should burn these bodies, search the camp for paperwork about red lyrium shipments, and confiscate these red lyrium crystals for study, of course.

[ ooc: we're good to either backtag more camp stuff here or handwave it. go ahead and move onto the final thread so i can reveal this mystery! :3 ]

Ingrid tests her wrist as the fighting ends. It's a bad sprain all right, she's fairly sure.

"Could use a bandage, I think," she admits, "But the real healing should go to those who need it most."

"I'm fine, see to the others," Aleron replies in a terse tone through gritted teeth. It's unusually grouchy, openly so, for the man. He's only vaguely aware that he's to blame for Ingrid's wrist and once he's made aware of it fully, he will feel like a right ass.

At present, however, all he knows is that his head is pounding and the most irritating ringing will not clear out of his ears. But he will insist that he's fine and shoo off healing because who gripes about a headache? Even a severe one.

Holding his head still, he starts to stagger off the direction of the dead to pile them up for burning.

After double checking Sam to make sure he's all right, Christine's eyes scan the group to see who needs help. Murtogg has already had help removing his armor to see that none of the red lyrium punched through, and Mullroy is leaning against a tree looking wiped. Christine comes over, asks, "May I?" and at his nod she places a healing spell on him to reduce his residual pain from the electrocution.

"Bruce, do you have bandages?" she asks, since Ingrid needs her wrist wrapped. She then moves her eyes over the rest, seeing if they're bleeding or if they can walk without pain. After she and the other healers check over everyone (and maybe they dispense some potions), Christine starts for the cart.

"I am going to collect these crystals for research." Her gloves are still on, and she removes the special box from her satchel to hold it all.

James was laid out, his pain, his jaw tight as he tried to get up from the ground. The electrcity had arched right through him, and he knew he had blacked out at some point. He looked around, croaking softly as the smoke came up off of him.

"Pe - people? My people? Is everything .... okay?" He coughed, as he tried to struggle to his feet

Player Plot: My Father's Eyes

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