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[CLOSED] PLAYER PLOT: The Ashes Underneath His Nails
WHO: Jim Kirk, Hermione Granger, Adelaide Leblanc, Herian Amsel, Anders, Inessa Serra, Raylan Gibbs, Ciri
WHAT: The Inquisition sends a group of agents to uncover the truth behind a string of mysterious disappearances.
WHEN: Kingsway 1st - 8th
WHERE: Emprise du Lion
NOTES: Plotting post is here - feel free to post in there still for queries and concerns and further stuff where needed. Warnings for blood, violence, talks about death, experimentation horror, abomination-related stuff etc and eventual on-screen child death. ALSO no tag order - just respond when you feel like you should and I'll try to hit it back if it feels appropriate!!
WHAT: The Inquisition sends a group of agents to uncover the truth behind a string of mysterious disappearances.
WHEN: Kingsway 1st - 8th
WHERE: Emprise du Lion
NOTES: Plotting post is here - feel free to post in there still for queries and concerns and further stuff where needed. Warnings for blood, violence, talks about death, experimentation horror, abomination-related stuff etc and eventual on-screen child death. ALSO no tag order - just respond when you feel like you should and I'll try to hit it back if it feels appropriate!!
 |
| (—he remembers the chill of the frost and snow biting at bare skin, its usual pure white now tinged a horrid pink from the blood on his hands. He's far away from them now, the danger and the pain and everything else, but the blood will forever be on his hands no matter how much he tries to wash it away. His father had been right all along. He truly was a monster of the greatest kind.) |
QUEST: THE ASHES UNDERNEATH HIS NAILS (PART I) The message had come swiftly, the letter itself hastily written with a shaky hand. The request itself was simple; a plea for help from a village at the outskirts of Emprise du Lion, whose people have been mysteriously disappearing over the last few weeks. Considering the ongoing civil unrest that's still transpiring in Orlais the Inquisition made its decision to send out a team of agents to look into this message and see exactly what was going on. The eight agents tasked with the mission were given enough time to prepare for the trip ahead. They would all meet up first at the Inquisition camp set within the Emprise and from there travel for about a day until they reached where their destination was - Fromage, a quaint little village that rested at the outskirts of the area. From that point on, it was up to the agents of the Inquisition to solve this ongoing mystery. The mission: to discover the truth behind these disappearances - and to stop it, if possible. |
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Being told to stand down all but gives her whiplash, looking to Adelaide in shock. She must protect, she must move forward, and she might argue that when the Spire fell they had both been Enchanters, and her teacher was no longer so senior to her as to issue orders. It is a battle of instincts.
She stays her hand, though, the fire at the head of her stave burns more fiercely.
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"Warden Ciri, I suggest you stand down as well, until he actually attacks someone." Anders is only calm because he has to be, because there's Rage here and they sorely need calm. They need thinking, not panic.
"We've barriers up." And he's clearly draining magic from the demon. "We've every advantage over this if we think and breathe. There is still a boy trapped in there, his body is not warped. He is not yet lost. And one case of this working is all we have because it's only been tried on one person."
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"Hey," he said, not shouting, but firm. The kind of voice he'd use on a young student who was acting up, but hadn't crossed the line yet. "Come back to us, kid. You can fight it. You survived this to become strong, not to let it take over. Tell it to go, and it'll go. We can still help you. We can still protect you."
His mind was a vague blur of praying, calling out to every deity that would listen to make this work, bring the kid back down. Part of him feared they were past the point of no return.
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If she was less in control of her emotions then rage might have blossomed in her chest as well when Anders speaks to her as if he had any say in her actions. Fine. They wished to reach him? Then she'll hit it square where it hurts. She wasn't going to swaddle a demon and hope for the best.
"Hey, kid." There is nothing but bite in her voice as she approaches closer to the child and the fire. Unlike Raylan, there is no praying. "And after you burn this place down then what is going to happen? Do you think the demon will just let you go after it gives you what you want? You know that isn't true, you know it's lying to you and you're scared. You'll leave here with that thing and all you'll know is screaming and pain but you'll be the one causing it. You'll do to others what they did to you and those you loved."
What the hell was she playing at here? She couldn't get through to mages more experienced than this kid at Weisshaupt... what chance did they have here? "Do you really think the ones that died here wanted you to bear all this pain and rage?"
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"It no longer matters what papa and mama think," he says, only the faintest hint of sorrow in his voice that's quickly covered by the anger that follows. "I made this choice. I wanted it to stay. It's the only friend I have who'll help me." The book in his arms is burning from all four corners now, but the heat of it barely stops the child at all, entirely unfazed. "It knows my rage, because it is my rage."
The blood along his cheek abruptly crystallizes, a flurry of frozen red fractals covering the side of his face and quickly starting to spread. The hum of lyrium heightens even further, and the steam from before returns once more, this time in tenfold.
"Nobody will hurt me again. Nobody will touch me again. I'm stronger than everybody else. I can crush them. I can crush everything--starting with you!"
With an inhuman roar the child suddenly surges forward, the ashes of the storybook crumbling onto the table, and fire burns underneath his skin as he lunges straight for the individual closest to him.
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The boy shifts. Twists. Lunges- and Adelaide released Herian's shoulder. Snapping a glyph of paralysis under him would only do so much- and run the risk of catching Raylan. All she can do- all she does? Is summon wisps for her student. Provide a heroic aura for Ciri- as close to an apology as she will manage.
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As the demon moves for Raylan, she keeps the sword ready for defense, and brings the spirit blade swinging down towards the creature's shoulder. This time she will not be so easily stopped, determined to keep striking and keep its focus as best she can. She understands rage very well.
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At least they could make it quick.
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There is little time to acknowledge the spells cast over her, she sprints forward and takes aim at its back as it is exposed in the lunge. She takes no pride in this or enjoyment that she had been right.
Ciri wants this done now and aims for his heart.
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Tried being the keyword, since that's when Anders's paralysis hits him.
The child snarls as the glyph activates, the pain enough to make him temporarily pause in his tracks. The pause is enough for everyone to see the new state of the child, cracks in his skin glowing an eerie red, wounds that have all been sealed with crystallized red lyrium. He looks nothing like a child and more like a miniature monster, ready to strike and tear, to hurt just as he claims to do so.
That want burns strongly, enough for the child to trash himself out of the paralysis just in time to catch the blade with a hand. It slices through his palm cleanly, and before Ciri can pull it back out the wound crystallizes around it.
"I'll crush and tear you to pieces. Burn, burn--everything needs to burn!
With another snarl he grips onto the sword by its blade, not caring for how it cuts him, holding it tight as he attempts to swing it himself and throw Ciri off to the side.
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"We have to take off his head!" That's far louder. "It's the only way to kill an abomination that still has human form. It can take any other wounds." He had. Casting again, this time Anders tries for an arcane prison to hold the boy in place a bit longer.
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What they'd been testing.
What they'd created and abandoned once they could prove it to be done. What every cut and gouged out organ had been for. What every desecrated corpse and note had referred to and oh- if the shape was not enough, the crystal? Compassion's focus shifting from protect or an urging that they destroy is proof enough.
Gold light gathers in her palms, flares at the butt of her staff as she slams it against the ground, flinging it to Herian. "You have till the count of thirty!"
Around her the world will slow-
It may be enough.
Andraste preserve them, let it be enough.
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Ciri is thrown, Adelaide calls to her, and Herian grits her teeth as she strikes to shove one blade into the demon’s chest, immediately bringing her second hand to her spirit blade so she can put all her strength into a swing to cleave its neck in two.
Maker, guide me—
And woven into the prayer and her will and the ferocity of the swing is the desperate hope that it will strike true, that the sword in the chest will have been a distraction, that she can keep anyone else here from coming to harm.
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Focus.
Acting quickly, she calls upon her affinity for ice, causing a ring of it to sprout up from the ground to hold the abomination in place. It stops just short of the head, Inessa trying to give Herian her chance. Then she darts toward Ciri with Garahel, ready to guard and heal as need be.
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What she doesn't expect is it's own strength and although she is thrown to the ground, one hand holds on to her sword with an iron grip. There was no chance she'd let this beast take her sword.
There's a flash from the other side of the table of something that Ciri cannot make out but it does not slow her down as she pulls the knife hidden in her boot and leaps back to her feet, aiming to sink it into one of the beast's eyes.
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The child screams, clearly not expecting that level of pain, and the pain makes him wilder than ever. He lunges blindly for Ciri, intent on exacting his revenge--
Then Heiran's sword comes down.
It does go through to his neck - but only about partway before the crystallization of his blood happens again and that, too, wraps around Herian's blade, keeping it there. The same happens with his eye as well, making it all a far more gruesome sight than ever. The child roars now, his anger and pain further fueling the demonic fires that burn within, and the lyrium around his injuries catch fire, melting the ice, before he lunges out to try and strike his closest opponent once more. The injuries mean he isn't as fast as before, and losing one eye means his aim is going to be rather off, but the child clearly doesn't care. All he wants to do is to burn and to hurt.
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A moment later he's stepping forward and swinging, which puts him possibly in reach of the thing but at least the ice may counter the fire of rage and meet Herian's blade in the middle of the poor boy's neck.
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It should be clean, swift, merciful. It cannot be this. The flames and the look of something that was once a child with her blade in its throat makes her heart start to hammer faster, memories of the tower hooking into her lungs and her heart and seeming to pull downward, dragging with an impossible weight.
She keeps trying, teeth bared as flames of the demon's attacks start to lick over the front of her robes and biting into the skin of her abdomen, but she ignores them in favour of trying to make full use of the spell before it fades, forcing it through the rest of the flesh and swinging it back again, hacking relentlessly.
https://youtu.be/1IJ0k0SRYoA
His hands grab at Anders's robes the same moment his staff blade slides through the flames and meets its target on the other side of the child's neck. The child roars, the flames getting brighter, making both Herian's and Anders's robes catch fire. His grip on Anders's robe tightens, ready to tear it off and sear demonic fire straight into his flesh--
--then he stops, chokes, and gasps from Herian's continued strikes, and the pause is enough for Anders's own staff blade to sink through the rest of his neck, meeting Herian's blade at where it had been stopped.
Instantly everything stops. The fires on the child flicker once, twice and then die out abruptly. The child himself continues to try and clutch at Anders's robes with his last remaining strength, and in his one good eye his gaze becomes distant.
"Mama... papa... you're here."
With those last words the child lets out one last, final gasp of breath. His eye glazes over, and his entire form slackens as the child finally passes on. Cracks start to spiderweb across the crystals on his body, crackling loudly in the ensuring silence, and there's a brief pause after that before they splinter and fall apart, though before they land onto the ground they fragment further into dust that seemingly vanishes. With the wounds unsealed blood flows freely once more, and they drip slowly onto the ground from his many, many wounds.
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He'd taken a few steps back from the child once it had stopped coming for him, so it was only a few strides to get to his former student, grabbing her shoulder and trying to turn her. "Don't look," he said, doing his best to block her view with his body, too.
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Damn. It's all he can think as the battle ends, swift and brutal. His logical mind said that what had transpired was a mercy, and a necessary thing. He was not so naive as to think that everyone could be saved; knew that the hard decisions had to be made and were more often than not forced.
Even so, his stomach turned at the sight of the broken child. But he would not look away. He could not. He needed to remember this sight, to remind himself how harsh this world was, and so that his child was not forgotten. It was selfish, most likely, but at least no one could judge him for what he did not voice.
Slowly he ran a hand through his hair, trying to push away in his inherent emotional reaction, summon the rational captain. It was over, but they were not yet done.
"I'll go find something to cover him," he said, remembering the covering on the wagon. They could move him with that, give him a tiny shard of compassion even though it was to late.
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And if this boy was simply left for them to find on purpose.
Fires need putting out, wounds need tending. A wave of cool air for the fire, a moment's weariness and thick swallow against the migraine pounding at the base of her skull before she taps the ground and calls upon Compassion. Eyes and hands glowing a cool blue mist wafts along the party- easing aches, closing wounds. Her face is a blank mask. She cannot afford to lose her composure.
She'll never regain it otherwise. "Herian."
Gently. As gently as she can manage.
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Everything gets hotter, brighter and Ciri shuts her eyes for one brief moment. It's in that moment that everything is suddenly over. The heat lingers where her body has been burned but it is no longer so hot. She opens her eyes just in time to watch everything turn to dust and watch as blood begins to pool on the floor.
Her grip slackens, pulling herself away from the body for an instance before she reaches out and pulls her knife from his face with a tired look before. People begin to speak but it's hard to focus so she heads to where Inessa stands with Raylan. All she can think of now was sleeping, she wanted to sleep so bad but all she can do is gingerly reach out for her friend's hand.
"I'm sorry, Nessa." It feels like the only thing she can say now.
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"Councillor LeBlanc," she replies, tone very even. "We should burn the body, unless you have need of it for the Inquisition. There are the other bodies in the pit," Herian continues, a careful control stretching over each word and pulling taut, "that should also be given funeral rites. At the very least, they should be moved and given a proper pyre."
Only the briefest pause, and she looks between the others here. "There are a good many bodies to be moved, if there are any willing to lend me aid."
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