faderift | ( closed ) player plot: the stars go waltzing

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( closed ) player plot: the stars go waltzing

WHO: Adelaide, Araceli, Avery, Bellamy, Bruce, Ciri, Cosima, Daenerys, Jamie, Korrin, Lexa, Martel, Merrill, Ruby, Sabine, Teren.
WHAT: catch all log; the capture of shardbearers, their rescue, and related shenanigans.
WHEN: Gently timey wimey for flexibility, Team Rescue arrives at the outpost on the 10th.
WHERE: Orlais/Nevarra borders (roughly halfway between the Fields of Ghislain and Trevis), and then a Creepy Place.
NOTES: Log for the missing shardbearers player plot; ooc here & here. Only the travel threads for teams one and two are going up for now, the rest will go up on Friday :]b And to clarify - when I say party style, what I mean is subthread to your hearts content!
WARNINGS: HORROR THEMES. Abduction, experimentation/torture, forced ingestion of lyrium, implied past deaths/murder, violence.

SPEEDY LINKS

TEAM ONE: travel to Craintellier
TEAM ONE: rift two attempt & Venatori attack
TEAM ONE: dungeons
TEAM ONE: escape attempt — Cosima, Jamie & Lexa only
TEAM TWO: travel to Craintellier
TEAM TWO: post rift investigation — Adelaide, Bellamy & Sabine, Bruce, Korrin & Teren, Ciri & Merrill
TEAM TWO: take the outpost — Attack & Distract & Stealthy & Stealy
TEAM TWO: regroup & into the dungeons — plus a Lexa-shaped guest star
ALL: finding your shardbearers
ALL: boss fight
ALL: epilogue & return to Skyhold — tba

click for bigger version. full map of Thedas here.

East of Perendale and south of Trevis, next to a river's winding course, there lies the bones of a fortress. It is an old and almost forgotten place, a dramatic, clawed seeming thing reaching up into the sky, harsh against the the rolling hills.

It is an ancient place, dating back to 660TE, a testament to an Empire suffering after civil war and grasping to restore its wealth and influence after it had been so shaken. It stands as a memory of grandeur, rather than an icon of it, and bears the marks of devastation and scarring that so much of the land suffered during the First Blight. It was all but abandoned thereafter, host only to the desperate and the greedy, and never for long. Once ornate mosaics now only hold flecks of gold, flakes that stubbornly resisted the hands of looters trying to pry them away. Other colours, reds, whites, greys and blacks, they all remain.

The site was chosen for its riches, sitting atop a mine that once held immense wealth, seams of gold that would bring wealth back into the Empire and help restore stability. Opulence, the central Tevinter staple (aside from slavery and blood magic, some might say).

But they dug too deep, and when the First Blight came so too did the darkspawn.

It has a new master, now, and he serves the Elder One. Parts of this stronghold may be in ruins now, but remember: it is not what lies on the surface that counts, but what lurks beneath it.

AD VICTORIAM, AD GLORIA.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Thanks to Bruce's Barrier and Merrill's roots, at least Korrin won't have to live through the nightmare of harming her allies. If the timing had been less than what it was, she could have carved a bloody path before being stopped. Knight-Enchanters are rather ridiculous that way, after all. She struggles against the binding at first, rather fiercely, but thankfully the madness begins to seep from her eyes before she has a chance of breaking free.

Fortunately for the Golem, it is benefitting from Maris&friends casting haste and barrier on it. What a good day to be a Golem. The barrier helps - for now - to counter some of the damage that Merrill is inflicting, though the vines are struggling against the flesh that they are entangled with.

Infuriated by Teren's knives biting into it, even with the barrier sustaining it from taking much damage, the Harvester tears away one of its arms and and twists to beat at Teren with the torn away, limb, lurching and shuddering furiously to dislodge her, and getting in two brutal strikes.

The immediate concern of Rogue On Back is but one of its ninety-nine problems, and the Harvester opens its mouth against to unleash bile burst in a follow up to the spit spray. Rather than simply being gross, the bile projected spreads much further, clinging and corrosive.

There's a shriek as the bile spews out; Merrill throws up an Arcane Wall for everyone on instinct, ducking her head to protect her face and eyes from the corrosive liquid.

"Oh, Creators- oh, oh, that is- Adelaide!"

Bruce is a healer but is low on mana, which means they may need the mage who specializes in cooling ice and healing.

Beyond that, vines continue to lash at the golem, twisting around its feet and trying to prevent it from using any more limbs. They are careful to go around Teren, even as one reaches to try and lock around the head of the fleshbeast. Likewise, once Korrin looks fine, they'll retreat from her.

Teren is quick, but not quick enough, especially when her adversary has had haste cast on it. The first blow is nearly enough to topple her, but she maintains her grip on one knife and is on the verge of recovering when the second slams into her. It knocks her hard onto the ground, and she briefly disappears below the thrashing vines, her continued existence heralded to the others by a savage scream of anguish when the acid splashes onto her.
She's both lucky and unlucky in this regard: lucky in that she was thrown far enough to avoid most of the spew, unlucky to have been temporarily incapacitated in doing so. She's mid-roll when her right leg is doused from shin to upper thigh, but at least so are some of the vines, helpfully dissuaded by Merrill.
Despite her injury, however grievous it may or may not be, Teren's survival instinct never really goes away. She writhes on the floor, evading vines and groping around for her remaining knife (the other is still embedded in the golem), trying to shut down the part of her that feels pain.

Hands full of cloak and wolf fur, mind wound in silver and blood and injuries not mending- it is something of a relief to be called into action where she might do something. One hand still pressed firm against the welling blood on the wolf, Ruby's side she spares a wave and a hand to spinning out a blooming blue mist of healing that coils and concentrates around Merrill, Bruce, Teren, and Korrin. Rejuvenation, restoration- all of the pain and injury she can sooth and mend at a distance en mass- doubled down with renewed barriers for all of them.

It is the most she can offer while otherwise occupied.

Maker, please let it be enough.

That arcane wall and healing mist/creation spells are life-savers, since Korrin's barrier has since expired. Unable to act on her own, she's grateful for at least some protection. As soon as the vines retreat, she springs into action, tired of the golem being fast and protected. That nonsense has to stop, now. So, it's time for Dispel on the golem before anything else can interrupt her. Then, not waiting another moment, she charges at the golem with her spirit blade activated. Now that she can think for herself again, the Vashoth mage is happy to show the golem her expertise in slaying its kind.

Thank goodness for Merrill's quick timing. Her spell takes away the worst of the attack, though some of it still splatters onto Bruce's armor and he can hear it hissing as it starts to eat at the metal. Forturnately its only on his arm guards, so Bruce quickly takes it out before it can eat through and get to his skin.

--though instead of simply tossing it away Bruce has a much better idea to make use of it, thanks to Adelaide's quick saving too. It doesn't bring back everything, but its enough for Bruce to enact his plan.

Summoning out the hottest flames he can muster up right now he quickly heats up the metal, hot enough until it begins to to glow a bright red - and before it gets too much for Bruce to handle he tosses it hard in the direction of the flesh golem - in the opposite direction from Ataash - and executes another blast of fire when the metal piece is in its face, turning it even hotter right before it strikes into its flesh - with luck.

Why does no one ever consider the Golem's feelings? Ya bastards.

Barrier and haste being lost is brutal for the Golem, but he's going to be absurdly tough, largely because reasons. With an enraged roar, the creature goes into a fury, striking hard and fast despite the loss of haste .

Reaching down, he scoops up the unconscious form of Jamie who I absolutely did not forget to mention earlier, how dare you, and hurling him at Bruce in retaliation for that burning bracelet, ass hat.

The pain from the metal burning into its flesh and the twist and strangle of the vines spurs on its fury. It swings its atm cudgel at Korrin, lashing over and over to keep her at a distance.

He just wants a nice relaxing ~~blood~~ bubble bath and you're all oppressing him.

Teren is an unrepentant oppressor. ...well... she might be repenting a little right now, but only because she feels like half her leg just got burned off. Adelaide's healing mist prevented the acid from eating all the way through her skin and muscle and bone, but the leather on her right leg is in tatters and the flesh looks half-cooked.
She sees Jamie go flying and realizes she has to get back up again, because this is why she's here. She staggers awkwardly to her feet, cries out, stumbles down again, and then begins to crawl back toward the rampaging golem. She wants her damn knife back.

Gripping the one she still has, and painting from the pain, she waits for the beast to step back down by her. If or when it does, she lurches at it to drive her dagger in through the top of its foot, forcing it down as far as she can, intending to either cripple it or partially pin it in place. She curls around it as she does so, making herself small and a more difficult target in case it should decided to dismember itself and beat her with the limb again. This is going to smart tomorrow.

The only appropriate reaction to being so thoroughly oppressed is to retaliate further. A wave of energy, of something that feel wrong and cold as it crawls over the skin of everyone in its proximity rolls from the Golem. It is a foul magic, a pulse of life being perverted that echoes over all of them like a second heartbeat.

With the aura of undeath cast, the dead warriors and dead mages in the room start to rise, lurching towards the party. Each member of the party will have one to deal with. Or two. Who even remembers how many npcs there were and which ones did or didn’t get sucked into the blood magic hug of doom that became the Golem, because I sure don’t.

Still; even now the Golem’s flesh bulges and struggles against Merrill’s magic, and it bellows at Korrin’s strikes, and its skin still burns from Bruce’s attack. On a less positive note, Maris has recast haste on it, but now there might be some extra back up on the way.

Jamie. Merrill tries to raise some vines to help catch him, but there are so many to control and so much going on that she's not able to see how successful she is. At least they have barriers and her Arcane Wall, but they're tiring and the golem just seems to get more angry.

Always with the undeath, too. A Virulent Walking Bomb is directed to the corpses closest to her, Merrill hoping that a domino effect will take more down for everyone. Then it's back to the vines, twisting up the legs of corpses and pulling, trying to drag them down and embed them in a tomb of vegetation.

As much as Korrin wants to dispel that haste effect or the foul magic, she's not quite able to use that spell again right now. Soon, but not just yet. So instead, she grits her teeth and focuses on what can be done, namely zap as many corpses as are within range. Chain Lightning is cast, tearing through them and the golem alike.

"If you all get as clear as you can, I can Firestorm them!" She's not about to do that spell without warning, not in close quarters. Until they move enough to make that possible, she'll renew the attacks with her spirit blade, focusing largely on the golem but any corpses that get in her way will also be targeted, as viciously and quickly as she can manage.

Oh mother of Maferath, not undead. Teren grits her teeth and rolls her eyes as two of them start making for her, no doubt an easy target. She attempts to wrench her knife back out of the golem's foot, but then it steps away and the metal slips from her blood-slicked glove before she can get a grip on it. She takes a stumbling step after it, but suddenly finds that a tangle of vines prevent her from moving her legs too far, especially the injured one. Instead of walking, she sort of collapses forward into the vegetation once more, disappearing from view once again like an incredibly violent and angry dolphin in a sea of thorns.
She's still in the process of trying to wrest free of the vines when the undead warrior, incidentally the one she already bloody killed, is upon her. It's followed closely by the second, and she quickly gives up on fumbling for one of her boot knives in favor of slamming her foot repeatedly against the nearest shin while cursing incomprehensibly in Nevarran.

Well at least it got its attention for a bit there, but the unconscious body being hurled at him is something he was not expecting. Merrill's vines help in making sure the Rifter doesn't just slam right into Bruce, though he still does have to do some physical catching of his own to ensure that he doesn't land into a painful heap on the floor.

Oof. Good thing there was a wall right behind him for support. Bruce more or less manages to grab onto the Rifter and place him aside, doing his best to keep him out of harm's way while he's out for the count. Once that is settled he turns his attention back to the golem--and its new undead compatriots. The foul magic tingles across his skin and seeing all these bodies only makes it worse.

Gritting his teeth Bruce starts casting one fire spell after another now that enough of his mana has returned. He can't quite move since he's backed all the way into a corner, but at least he doesn't have to worry about his back as he fires off his spells, taking out as many corpses as he can around him and around others so that they can focus on the golem.

That knife in the foot makes the Golem's steps stagger, though it was hardly a graceful creature before then, and the chain lightning adds to the burns making it rage all the more.

It keeps bellowing, over and over, a loud and rattling sound. It lashes out, grasping some of the things that are not under Merrill's control and slinging them across the room, a frustrated gesture of pain more than anything very tactically helpful. For Teren, though, it means that she goes from drowning in vines to pretty much airborne, flicked close enough to the Golem's back that she might just be able to get purchase on her other knife, again, and the undead that was near her is pushed back into the centre of the room.

Between the vines dragging them and the Golem accidentally kicking them in certain directions and fireballs pushing them back, the undead are for a moment mostly clustered in the middle of the room when Merrill's walking bomb goes off and decimates half of them.

The Golem roars again, and then performs vile disembowlment tearing away pieces from its and its own entrails and tossing them towards the other undead to make more of them, hideous creatures writhing into life from torn flesh as it slaps against the ground. The undead are, for now, clustered together.

One of Bruce's fireballs hits the Golem and it tries its best to tear one of its legs from the vines, stomping on the ground and making more stones fall away from the ceiling as it follows up with another exciting round of bile burst.

(This is fine.)

Edited 2016-09-23 11:59 (UTC)

Korrin's seen a lot of gross things in her time, especially in the past year, but that vile disembowlment is definitely up there on the list of things she'd rather never see again. At least they're clustered together still, and that makes her job easier. Renewing barriers for as many allies as she can get within the range of the spell, Korrin then acts. She slams her staff into the ground, ignoring how much that makes her scream in pain thanks to that fucked-up wrist, and summons the flaming meteors to slam into whatever they can reach. The more the battlefield is cleared, the better.

There was clearly a lot of damage done this time - surely the golem wasn't going to last for much longer, though then again Bruce wasn't going to depend on that. He had never ever been that lucky.

Catching sight of the elder Warden struggling with the vines he quickly turns his attention to her first, casting another barrier to shield her further before blasting off the vines around her with a fireball to give her a clean shot, then supplements her a boost of energy to give her more strength in her strikes.

After that is done he turns back to the golem, once again channeling out whatever mana he can and wields his flames to enact a wall of fire that surrounds the flesh golem, hoping thet it would be enough to keep it restrained.

She can fly!!
...and there's her knife, which she latches onto and then finds herself back on the golem's dorsal side, in considerably worse shape than she was the first time. Her burned leg is hard to move, and she's keeping herself up with just the healthy one and her arms. But Teren isn't exactly made for strength, and despite Bruce's assistance, she's fading.
And now everything's on fire. Or at least everything around her, and the golem, and she looks accusingly at the mages like 'who's the smartass' before wrenching her knife out of the thing's back and descending clumsily to the floor. At least the vines are gone, and she has a window of opportunity to grab her second dagger from its foot before it forgets about the fire and realizes it has company.
Teren hopes to get the jump on it before that can happen. Keeping herself close to its body and hopefully out of range of its meaty and unnatural arms, she punctures her way around it, half in a continued effort to murder it and half just to keep herself from crumpling to the ground. The golem is her crutch, and the magical energy boost is keeping her on it.

She's just glad she was on its back for the bile this time.

Edited 2016-09-23 16:42 (UTC)

Hey, everybody! Just gonna get some apologies out right here at the beginning.

Because after all these undead rising and whatnot, it's probably going to be pretty alarming if anybody turns around right now and sees one of their own allies, pale-faced and covered in blood almost head to toe, charging toward them with an awkward, half-limping gait but still somehow moving faster than the human body should be able to run!

Like some horrifying Ringu monster or something, Avery draws up on Merrill lightning-quick, stopping only inches from her. She looks at her for a second in silence... then turns her grim gaze toward the golem. "Andraste's tits, what am I doing?" she sticks around just long enough to mutter, then dashes off again, not wanting to waste this trippy Haste effect Adelaide has given her on something silly like thinking about how fucking mad this is.

And at the speed and insanity level she's currently operating on, when Avery grabs one of the heavy chains hanging from the ceiling and uses a bench and an undead Venatori as stepping stools, she manages to leap and swing right over the wall of flames, slamming ungracefully into one of many shoulders on the disgusting creature inside (the golem obviously, not Teren). Fortunately, her reflexes right now are literally the quickest they've ever been in her life, so Avery manages to not only find purchase, but actually wrap the chain around whatever weird, awful part of this thing passes for its throat and yank back with all of her might, hoping to seal that bad boy right up and avoid any more acid sprays. Then she starts looking around for any more chains in reach, to try to tie and tangle around the golem's various limbs as well when it inevitably attempts to dislodge her.

"That's right, you bastard! Choke on it!"

Having done all she can for Ruby, Ciri, and Araceli Adelaide turns her focus to her fellows fighting the golem. Avery makes fine use of the haste cast upon her. Slipping back into the spellbloom's glow she has mana enough to offer one last reinforced round of barriers for everyone she could see (Teren and Avery being high or behind the beast unfortunately leaves them beyond her sight) and a strong, coiling whirlwind of a blizzard to assist Korrin's Meteor storm in downing the undead. Less snow and more hail, less frost and more churning wind she slams her staff down to center the spell- it's eye whipping the flames around the Golem to greater, more violent heights.

Special nod to Merrill for doing her utmost to stay alive; good job to everyone for still being alive. Flesh Golem appreciates it less, but Flesh Golem is a bit of a diva.

Bruce's wall of flames makes the Golem recoil, and it is about to roar again when Avery's got a chain around its neck. It struggles again, but the effort sends it staggering into the wall of flames.

Korrin's attack is super effective. Meteors drop in a blaze, burning them even as the Golem tries to throw more entrails, create more threats, and it is then that Adelaide’s blizzard joins with Korrin’s spell. The fallen meteors and those still falling are whipped into further life, churning and storming around the undead to tear them apart and crush them. The energy from the fire spell and the heat of it clash with the cold gale of the second, creating a vortex that tears through the undead and cuts towards the Golem as it tries to struggle with the chains, tear off two more of its arms before the magic burns out.

The Golem jerks back, hard, and the sheer strength and weight of the creature pulls at the chain, pulls again, and a great shower of rubble starts to fall from the ceiling. The worst of it falls in the centre of the room, but it sends cracks in the ceiling, and warped pieces of metal and stone and dust fall around our intrepid heroes. Some a large and blunt, others have sharp, wicked edges. A great chunk of ceiling falls almost on top of Bruce. It doesn’t, thankfully, but it is close enough to scrape down his back, leaving abrasions and exploding into smaller pieces that blast across the ground with the force of impact.

Another pair of great boulders falls between Korrin & Merrill, bursting and sending sharp pieces of stone flying through the air around them. A vicious piece of stone finds its way to Merrill’s thigh, if she is not quick to avoid it, while Korrin has to contend with a sharp shards biting into her calves.

The Golem tears a vine from the ground, and it it flicks it twists around a piece of metal, and stone that it lashes across the ground towards the other mage, the troublesome one, slashing Adelaide across the jaw and shoulder and wherever else the tangled mess of stone and metal and plant might strike her.

Teren & Avery are spared certain things purely for proximity, but their efforts are enraging the strangled creature, and it does its utmost to stamp and lash at them, putting them in danger of being thrown.

The last round, now: tear this fucker down.

Teren has one job now, and that's hold on for dear life. Caught with her daggers dragging down the golem's side, she looks up to see that it has a new visitor in the form of Avery, who is busy choking it out with a chain. Nice.
She's fortunate to have been able to avoid the fire surrounding them in her bloody and awkward slow dance with the beast, but there's no time or strength to evade the vortex of area spells approaching them.
"COVER," she barks at Avery the moment she spots it, and though she attempts to follow her own advice, she's slowed as she makes her way around to the far side of the golem-- the lee of it, if you will-- and it batters at her other side, just enough to really sting. Leather and skin are torn from her left arm, side, and hip, leaving scratches and burns that are far from lethal but certainly don't help her mood.

"TAke it down," she attempts to yell, either at Avery or anyone who will listen, but the volume dwindles midsentence. Most of her concentration is now focused on simply staying out from underfoot, since even if they kill the thing, she won't last long if she falls and it steps on her. ...or falls on her. Her arms shake with the strain of holding herself up, and she wonders when she was ever young enough to be this reckless.

Korrin cries out, as damn do those shards hurt, but that golem seems to be on its last legs. Healing can come afterward; for now, she refuses to stop her momentum unless actually rendered unconscious. And good fucking luck with that, golem.

Using Fade Step to blur in close, Korrin strikes with her spirit blade as viciously and deeply as she possibly can. "Fucking DIE already!" If she never has to fight a flesh golem again, the Vashoth mage will be perfectly content. As it is, she'll settle for destroying this one.

Having to protect the unconscious rifter at where he is the only thing Bruce can do is to cast a barrier around himself right before the ceiling crashes onto him. The barrier manages to shave off the worst of the damage, but it still makes contact and Bruce grunts as he feels it scrape down painfully at his back. Nothing that'd cause bleeding, probably, all the same Bruce reaches behind with a wince and casts a quick healing spell to cover the surface wounds to stop any more chances of bleeding. Nobody really needed that.

With that taken care of Bruce focuses back to the fight, hearing the warden shout for them to take it down. Calling upon whatever mana he still had Bruce conjures up a large fireball and flings it right towards the flesh golem with a shout. That thing had already been causing trouble for long enough - now it was time to finish this.

"Take it down with what??"

Avery may be fast right now, but she's still flailing to hold herself up here, avoid the golem's attempts to grab her, and stay clear of the worst of the fire and ice it's stumbling around in all at the same time. Once most of the chains she's been trying to tie it up with (and the ceiling they were attached to apparently) have been torn down as well, she's thinking maybe it's time for Plan B. Which is, um... She hasn't thought that far ahead yet actually, and before she can, all of the beast's flailing somehow causes her to lose her grip on the chain and get spun around until she's dangling off the front of its shoulder instead of the back. Her eyes go wide as she realizes she's pretty much staring it right in the face, and she breathes out a quiet, "Oh, shit," before letting go and dropping roughly to the ground as it grasps the empty space she had occupied a second earlier.

Then Bruce's fireball explodes above her and Avery scrambles under the golem's legs while it's distracted. She takes a hit from the section of its body that could debatably be called a "foot" in the process, but her speed lets her at least turn a potentially deadly crushing into a glancing blow. It's still nearly enough to knock her flat on the ground, but somehow even bruised and battered and lightly scorched she manages to get around behind it again and grab for some sort of shiny object on the ground that she is hoping is a discarded sword or something??

Except, well... She's not sure exactly what it is, aside from an oddly-shaped pair of scissors that is presumably used for surgery, but it's sturdy enough to give her an idea. Quickly clambering up to grab the chain still dangling from the golem's back, Avery slips the scissors through one of the links, then rears back and slams them as deep as she can into its flesh... essentially tying its head to its own ass, yes. And--

Wait. How many dozens more of these knives, needles, and other various surgical tools are lying on the benches and floor down here again? Maybe she could disable this thing's movement completely and bring it down to size a bit if she used what was left of her Haste to stab its legs with those! Like. With every single one of them. In rapid succession. Pincushion style.

...well, she'll never know if she doesn't try, right?

( closed ) player plot: the stars go waltzing

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