faderift | Put Back Your Dead

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Put Back Your Dead

WHO: Malcolm, Saoirse, Simon, Kain
WHAT: Reports of the walking dead present an opportunity to impress the Chantry--one way or another
WHEN: Early Justinian
WHERE: Exalted Plains
NOTES: Gross zombies, gratuitous violence

In the wake of the War of the Lions, the Inquisition has offered its help in Orlesian efforts to clean up and restore order. However, the Chantry requests the presence of the Kirkwall arm of Inquisition forces in order to give all the fallen soldiers on both sides of the battlefield their due last rites. The problem: the dead won't stay still enough for that. Should the Inquisition suss out the source of what's causing this undead uprising, it might go a long way to making a good impression with the Chantry. Which, like it or not, they are desperate to do. Wren has tasked Malcolm, a willing volunteer, to lead the team into the Plains.

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[For all your let's get along, have CR, and dick around on the way there needs.]

It’s good to be home...ish? Although Kain hasn’t really considered Orlais the home he returns in ages, it’s still the place where he’d grown up. Aboard his dracolisk, he keeps an eye out for trouble along the way. While things are so calm, he casually remarks, "I actually wouldn’t mind encountering a bear. It would be something to warm up with along our way."

He’s only just barely recovered from a situation that had knocked him right out, so in a way he’s looking to test his strength. Though the undead will surely provide their own challenge.

Home is Starkhaven but the young woman cannot deny she was born in Orlais. Her mother was from here, an entire family line that she knows nothing about and likely never would. Unlike the human nobles, she doubts the poor (and especially the city elves) had much in the way of tracing their family line.

At Kain's statement, Saoirse cannot help glancing over her shoulder from atop her own mount. "Perhaps it would be best to avoid the bears," she says with a small smile. "It sounds like the dead raising might warm us up enough."

"Bait some bears and bring them along," Malcolm actually jokes for once in his life. The mission is a sour one on multiple notes, but the company is fine. "Though, I suppose that does run the risk of undead bears..."

"What if we kill the bears and distract the dead with the meat?" Simon is something like eighty-five percent serious about this.

"Just fling it like you do with an angry dog. Would the dead folk eat it, though, is the question. Maybe they're not interested if it's not alive. Or not human--or elven, sorry," he amends, with an apologetic sidelong glance at Saoirse.

Kain definitely finds that to be an unsettling notion. "I’ve seen plenty of disturbing things in my time as a Warden… demons, darkspawn and such… but never yet an undead bear. And that’s one opportunity I’ll gladly pass on."

He pauses for a moment, pondering. He’s having visions of somehow trapping and bringing a live bear along… but that’s… probably a bit too risky. "I’d think the dead would go for anything that’s warm enough… but lose interest once they’ve ripped it to shreds. Or they realize it’s not moving. One or the other."

Edited 2017-06-21 18:55 (UTC)

Saoirse offers a smile toward Simon at his apology with a shake of her head. Quietly, she listens to Kain with a tilt of her head and chuckles lightly at the passing thought of an undead bear tearing through a wave of equally undead.

"They will likely focus on whomever is causing the most damage to them, though I hope we are able to stop all of this before it gets bad enough that we would very much need the help or a bear... undead or not."

"It's a shame, though," Malcolm adds wistfully, a little more seriously. "To be taken over so mindlessly by demon or magic or Maker forbid both, to make a mockery of both life and death. The Chantry Sisters were already going to have a hard enough job getting to all of them without risking one of the dead jumping up to kill her. ...Suppose it's best to get the jokes out now; we want to make a good impression on those that asked us for help."

Things have deteriorated somewhat since the initial request. That, or Orlesian forces are frighteningly effective at killing, and less so at burning their dead in a timely manner. ~~Por que no los dos.~~ Ser Duquesne, the highest ranking officer of the Orlesian forces in the Plains, meets the team to inform them of the situation as it stands.

"Good of you to come," he says quickly, more as formality. "We think we have located the source of all this..." He motions an armored hand to the field and the undead. "That stronghold far afield seems to be where they're stemming from. My men have also reported unconfirmed sightings of living going in, no doubt our culprits. Or bandits making a poor move to steal from our people," he adds lowly, anger thickening his accent for a moment. "If you can get there and stop whatever damned curse of demons has afflicted our fallen, we'll be ever grateful." Not to mention in their debt, though he doesn't vocalize that part.

It doesn't look like an easy trip, either fighting through or trying to take a longer if sneakier way around. "My men are ready and willing to help draw their attention, aid in the fight, for the sake of protecting the sisters that came to bring them their eternal peace. Just...see to it, before we're overrun."

[This thread will be for making their way to the ramparts in question, feeling free of course to NPC as much as you wish and encouraged to make your own rolls for injuries if you feel it pertinent! There will be a subthread later for facing Gordian and his forces on the other side, and the results of that encounter.]

It seems that things have gone from bad to worse the way he describes it. Just what they need. But they have a direction, that’s the important part. With a path ahead of them, they can move onward and take these undead out at their source… whatever it entails. It’s definitely a good place for a Warden to be involved.

"Then there’s no time to spare."

Kain glances toward the field. "Any preferences for how we handle this? I’m of a mind to charge through..." But he’s willing to consider alternative ideas, if someone more stealth minded has them.

Malcolm frowns, considering the field of battle as well. "Riskier. More straightforward, but other than our fellow Orlesian forces, are we really on that much of a time constraint? If others can get in around, we might be able to make a hasty entrance without attracting too much attention." But he's personally always been a bigger fan of sneakier.

"Though perhaps with a fast enough push, shields plowing through...?"

"It's not so much the time constraint," Simon opines, "as it is--well, trying to slip past without attracting notice is great if you're good at that sort of thing, but if you're not, you just end up having to fight on their terms whenever they happen to notice you. I don't like the look of those close quarters up ahead, and I feel like that's where we'd have the most trouble being stealthy."

And, though he'd rather not admit to it quite so explicitly, he's...not so handy with the sneaking. Being approximately the size of an adolescent qunari and clad in jingly armor with a huge unwieldy sword does not make him ideal rogue material.

"But we are a bit short on shields, so..."

Edited 2017-06-20 13:36 (UTC)

He thinks better of arguing, given the...group he's with. No, perhaps sneaking is going to be more trouble than it's worth. It didn't seem like a mission that would require a bunch of rogues, after all. "You're practically a shield yourself." Oh good, an actual joke from Malcolm. "Then we go through where the crowding is thinnest and carve out a path ourselves. At the end of the day, they are still merely the living dead, not the same skilled Orlesian soldiers they once were. Bit easier to handle."

A bit.

Saoirse hangs back, listening but watching out over what she can see. "If absolutely needed, I believe I could try and find a way around. I'm smaller and I know how to keep my head down, and perhaps the undead pay as little attention to elves as some the living."

She smiles lightly toward the group at her own joke and settling her staff against the ground.

As a reaver, Kain's entire fighting style is based on running into the midst of battle and dealing with whatever happens. It'll even help him if he ends up taking a couple of hits out there. He’s never had much care for stealth in general, although he knows it has its place, tactically speaking. Still, it seems that they're all comfortable enough with... charging on in, more or less.

"Fortunately, the undead aren't very observant anyway." Saoirse may have intended that jokingly, but it actually... makes a lot of sense, same for that fact that they won't have the same skill levels as living, thinking fighters. They may be a small group, but they have advantages here. "And if we keep a steady pace, we ought to be able to make it through."

"Fair enough," Malcolm concedes. It isn't ideal, but nothing about anything they do is. And two of them at any rate are built much more for plowing through. "Simon, Kain, take charge in the front. Saoirse and I will bring up the rear. We move at a steady pace; we watch one another. We do not slow, or we're sure to be overrun. At least once we get inside, we won't be trying to avoid them on all sides."

"Yes, of course." She responds with a nod. "I am not healer but I do know some magic capable of defending and shielding us. Let me know whenever you might need attention diverted from you and I will do my best to make sure it happens."

Simon unstraps his sword, curiously relieved in spite of the task ahead. The idea of trying to slip through unnoticed had had him on edge, ready to crawl out of his skin, but he knows where he stands with a direct approach. It's just enough of a relief to prompt a small smile at Malcolm's joke, in spite of himself.

"Got it," he says. Two meat shields and a magic shield in conjunction--it's as good a defense as any. He looks to Kain for confirmation, and moves out at as fast a pace as he knows he can sustain, every muscle tensed as he tries to keep all the nearby undead in his field of vision.

"Right. Let's do this." Kain nods sternly at Simon as he readies his sword as well. He's also glad they're going with the direct approach. It plays to his own strengths, at least.

It takes just a quick moment to ready his Painbringer and Devour skills, preparing himself so that he can channel the enemy's attacks into his own strength. With that, he's off, charging into the fray. The point is to push through, so he doesn't let himself get diverted... or stop, not until a couple of the undead get directly in his path. Even then, he tries not to slow much, his sword slashing toward them with a heavy blow.

They reach the outpost, it's tall wooden walls and maze of entrances and ramps. Inside seems eerily calm compared to the attacks of the dead and the arcane horrors. The dead are still here, but fewer in number. If they wind their way toward the center, they can hear voices, clear voices speaking to one another, or see the occasional very much alive body move just out of sight.

At the center of it all are Orlesians--Freemen, people who are clearly no longer with the army, either army, a lot of them young rather than hardened veterans. "They're here!" one shouts, and a few of them flee on sight. "Cowards!" shouted after them. Others shakily draw their weapons, and others yet put their weapons down in surrender. It's not a coherent or organized group, though if they should all get their shit together, they would at least be an annoying force.

"Don't just stand there," barks a new voice, older, something a keen ear might catch is not quite Orlesian though it tries very hard to be, "attack them before they disrupt my work!"

From beyond the Freemen, a lanky man in white, frou-frou Orlesian styling that still leaves plenty of room to fight. He snatches up a staff, a fiery energy forming at the tip. "I'll not have you interrupting my work, Inquisition!"

As they enter the literal ground zero, Saoirse's focus zeroes in on the lanky mage that appears to be in command of the Freemen here and likely the reason behind the reason that the dead have returned to life. She has taken a position of safety, behind the warriors but steps forward past the others with a hardened look on her face.

With a flick of her staff, defensive spells are cast first before electric energy beings to form around the top of her staff and she looks over to the others.

"We must stop him. We cannot allow them to continue making a mockery of the dead."

Simon hates a coward in the way that can only come from projected self-loathing, but if they're expected to fight these poor dumb Freemen bastards, he's glad the ones who fled got out when they did. He doesn't want to cut down some trembling seventeen-year-old with a homemade pike he barely knows how to use. Almost none of the Freemen look distinguishable in any way from his family's neighbors back in Starkhaven, except that they probably smell a bit less like fish.

This frilly fuck, on the other hand, is a target he doesn't mind whaling on with extreme prejudice. "Maker's balls, he's like a perfect storm of everything a decent person hates," Simon mutters. "If we take him out--the others won't put up a fight anymore, will they?"

"I would prefer to take him alive so we can reverse this chaos." Having a shield of Freemen, no matter how disorganized, is still going to pose a problem. Malcolm raises his bow, trying to aim for Gordian past bobbing heads.

"Ser," he booms over the noise of dead, of yells, or shifting armor and weapons, "in the name of the Inquisition and in the name of the Maker, I urge you to stand down before more blood is drawn this day. It--"

One of the Freemen charges, which spurs on the others. Those surrendering try and scamper out of the way, back against walls or back behind the Inquisitor forces. It leaves Gordian time to launch his own attack, a blaze of fire whipping toward the group.

So much for the diplomatic approach.

Ugh... sometimes, he's reminded of why he's so glad to have left Orlais behind. There's a certain pompous way of behavior that just comes so naturally to people like this man... There's no doubt that they have to be rid of him, as soon as possible. Kain is of a mind to charge in and give it everything he has... but then he's reminded that he'd be more valuable alive. A shame.

But it's definitely better picking him as a target than these Freemen. If it were a regular regiment of seasoned warriors, he might have felt differently. But as it is... well...

He cries out as he dodges that blast of fire. Yeah, this may not go so well. He's willing to attempt just beating the man to an inch of his life, but who knows if it'll work out? "We can try taking him alive... but we may not succeed!" With that, he looks for an opening to charge in closer.

With the chaos somewhat settled, there's time enough to sort through the remains and find an end to the swarm of undead, to settle them for good. Choices need made about who and what they have in their possession, and whatever information they gather needs to be spread to the Orlesian forces, who will then spread it further. Just in case this happens again.

And when all is said and done, and the dead have been laid back to rest, the funeral rites still need to finally be done, as originally intended.

[This thread is for the aftermath of the Gordian fight and finding what's needed to stop the undead here for good. There will be a subthread later for Sister Sidonie and her questions for the Inquisition.]

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