faderift | A (recruitment) mission into the Deep Roads

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A (recruitment) mission into the Deep Roads

WHO: Kit and OPEN
WHAT: Down in the Deep Roads, one dwarf is picking a fight he can't refuse.
WHEN: Sometime during this month
WHERE: The Deep Roads
NOTES: Warnings for blood and violence! Also, while this scene is open to everyone, it is most suitable for characters who are Grey Wardens and/or dwarves. People are totally free to hop into existing threads as they happen.

Somewhere else in the world--somewhere above ground where the sun shines and the wind doesn't reek so thickly of fetid darkspawn offal that you can taste it on your tongue--the Inquisition has tasked a number of its best to investigate a new opening in the Deep Roads. The goal is to seal it before more of the monsters can spill out and attack the Inquisition outposts stationed below and above ground.

As far as goals go, it's a pretty reasonable one, with realistic expectations regarding success. At least it would be under normal circumstances that don't involve an ogre camped out in the frame of an ancient dwarven doorway, grinding its horns against ancient cogs and gears that are essential to repairing the door and sealing up the entryway. Its face is riddled with newly inflicted lacerations, blood flowing freely from the wounds in thick rivulets over its hideous face and maw; most noticeably, it's been blinded, its eyes scabbed shut.

The one responsible for meting out its injuries is hunkered down beyond an angled turn in the Roads. The dwarf's tattooed face and Legionnaire armor is splattered with sticky black viscera, but he himself doesn't look injured. He's crouched down with a lit match, inspecting damage done to his axes.

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If there’s one thing Melys has learned it’s that when someone sends a number of their best, they tend to send a couple of other poor bastards along for contrast.

A less charitably-minded individual might call it bait. Thankfully, as the very picture of graciousness, light, and determination to push someone else in front of any ravenous, roaming darkspawn —

No one's going to be dangling her off a stick no time soon.

"Pissssss—"

She cuts herself off, tails out into a sharp breath. 'There's Darkspawn about', great warning, great intel; doesn’t say dickall about what to do with Blindy, here, and if she’s gripping her torch now so hard her hand’s shaking that’s nothing. Nothing at all. No nausea in her throat, no readiness to run.

(Difficult to manage, with people at her back or she'd be beating feet already. There’s her first fucking mistake in all this. Well, second. First was coming along without knowing they were going after bloody darkspawn—)

"That one," A hissed whisper to her nearest companion, the slight jerk of her chin to Kit. "Ghoul?"

She doesn’t know much about those, just knows they happen, and why else is there a dwarf just crouching there like this is sunny fucking day?

Edited 2017-07-11 01:34 (UTC)

Teren, for her part, is glad for the bait.
Being among the Wardens-- perhaps the only Warden-- assigned to this exciting task, she's very keen on finishing the job and getting on with her life, which will apparently be made much easier by the fact that their biggest obstacle is blinded.
At Melys' question, she snuffs the air quickly and shakes her head-- not a ghoul-- and steps lightly forward, where she stands before the ogre and slashes one dagger quite assertively across its throat.
"Why not finish the job," she sighs, slashing with her second one in the other direction just to be sure. She angles her head to look down at the dwarf, knitting her brow. "Thought you'd take your tea first?"

The ogre dies messily, its throat spurting gouts of black blood all over the place as it gurgles and and thrashes and eventually collapses with an earth-shaking 'thump' on the old stone road. For certain variables of 'dealt with,' being very dead is an acceptable condition.

For his part, the dwarf watches the spectacle without comment from where he remains crouched in the shadows, but thinks ahead to at least put out the match before it can singe his fingertips. Then, with some apparent difficulty, he heaves himself up to his feet to reveal that he is injured, after all; there's a tourniquet bound snugly around his left thigh above a grisly wound that has been patched and poulticed, but will still need to be tended to by a healer before too much time has passed.

He has his teeth bared in an expression that somehow managed to be both grimace and lopsided grin, and shrugs with deceivingly little effort. "Seems like you've got it under control," he replies, then catches sight of Melys looking white as a sheet and ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. He waves at her, kind of like he's trying to soothe a spooked horse.

Teren doesn't deal with darkspawn outside the presence of Wardens, most of the time, which is why it takes her a split second to realize-- annd now there's blood everywhere. It splatters her from face to knees, and she closes her eyes and sighs, the universal reaction to an unexpected mess.
"Get back, idiot girl," she motions to Melys, "unless you're excited to join the Wardens or be dead, whichever happens first."

There's more than one way to handle someone looks this scared, and if the blank look she turns on Kit's wave isn't much of an improvement — well, less helpful and more effective is Teren's comment just after.

Something in her face collects ugly, and the wavering light source stills, hefts a little higher. The rising urge to set Teren's hair on fire, smothered for now.

(She's not afraid of some wizened old bint, you are, and anyway better to try it above ground,)

"Y'all ain't want to get it in that neither," She points out Kit's injury, mouth thinning into a dubious line as she shuffles back. "How you getting up to fix them gears then?"

Since that's evidently going to be their problem. She's got this real important job, with the torch, see? And them being wardens, or soon-to-be-dead and all — take a look at the dwarf, not hard to guess which he belongs to; not hard to figure that startling acrobatics aren't on the menu today.

It's a long moment before some corroded instinct of bravery, sympathy, whatever, lifts her bad arm out in a grudging invitation to lean.

Edited (i remember i have icons) 2017-07-11 19:00 (UTC)

Not soon-to-be-dead. Already dead. Metaphorically speaking.

He's far enough out of range of the ogre's death throes that all of the tainted black gore that now creatively decorates the road and walls around the door frame isn't any danger to his open wound. For now. Melys's concern--if it can be called that--is answered with a slight shake of his head, as if to dismiss the problem, though the small smile he offers her hopefully conveys that he appreciates the sentiment.

"I'm hard to kill." He gestures at the dead ogre with one bloodied axe. "Shove that big guy up against the door frame for me and I can get up to the gears easy enough. I'd do it myself, but it's hard to get any leverage with my leg like this."

Trying in vain to wipe some of the blood off her face and leathers, Teren snorts in disgust and then simply throws down teh handkerchief she's been using. Never mind, it's pointless.
"You'll have to forgive me, these brittle old bones aren't made for pushing," she says, wiping her blades on her pant legs, "I'm going to see what sort of company remains."

Hopping over the ogre's leg in a decidedly un-brittle manner, Teren pauses to give Kit a once-over before turning and walking into the cavern, daggers at the ready. If there are any more, might as well deal with them before they can get to the door crew.

A shrug; no skin off her back if he doesn't want the help (pettiness is second nature to the practical knowledge that people who limp are easier to outrun). She sticks the torch out at arm's length to the nearest, non-Teren member of their little team.

"Reckon you better hold this, then,"

For all the fucking good it'll do. Avoid the blood, Melys. Drag the ten foot monster to the doorway, Melys. Sure, you got one damn hand, but you'll figure it out,

She fishes a rag from some pocket, ties it up tight about her face. It's got the eminently practical side effect of keeping most of her expression hidden; the better to pretend to some scrap of confidence as she lifts a leg to kick the ogre — just checking, always check it's dead first, that's just sense.

"C'mon,"

A growl to any unoccupied member of the mission. This isn't something she's about to manage alone.

Some pimple-y kid with large, horrified eyes takes the torch as it's handed to him, too frozen in place from terror to be much use anyway. At Melys's growled demand, several others who possess more spine exchange dubious looks, then move forward to help her more or less roll the dead mass of the ogre into the doorway. It's an incredibly unpleasant task; at this point, the dead beast is oozing from places that are better left up to the imagination.

"All right, that's close enough," Kit says to them once the ogre's corpse is more or less in a good enough position. Once Melys and the others have moved out of the way (which he doesn't anticipate taking long, since he certainly wouldn't stand closer to that reeking thing if he had any choice), he sets down his axes, limps over to the ogre's head and takes hold of it by its massive horns. He leverages himself up onto its bulwark-like shoulders almost exclusively relying on the strength in his thickly muscled arms, steadies himself with his good leg, and then straightens up to survey the state the gears and cogs are in.

"...yeah, you fucked this up nicely, didn't you," he grunts, ostensibly to the ogre. He glances once after Teren, just to make sure she hasn't encountered any enemies she isn't prepared to handle, then looks back down at Melys. "You got a hammer or anything?" he asks, then jerks a thumb at the gears. "One of these is knocked out of alignment. Pretty sure if I can bash it back into place, we can get the door shut."

When Vandelin said he'd like to see more of the world now that he wasn't confined to the Circle, he hadn't expected the universe to oblige him with a 'sure thing, buddy, how does a ruined tunnel miles below the surface of the earth and filled with poison-monsters sound?' Cheers, Inquisition.

Not that he's going to give any indication, if he can help it, that he didn't sign up for this darkspawn fiasco on purpose. Of course he wants to be here. Because he is a calm, competent professional, and he is not at all terrified of enclosed underground spaces, or darkspawn blood, or women who have tried to mug him. He'd given Melys his warmest and most serene smile before they'd started the trip down, just to illustrate how entirely above-it-all he is. Now, it's gotten a bit more real.

When the ogre-corpse is finally dealt with--a feat for which Vandelin can't claim much credit, though he can say he tried--he leaps at the chance to make himself more useful. "I can try to use my staff," he offers. "Maybe the flat of the blade attachment would work, and if it doesn't, I can always take it off and sort of--" He mimes jabbing at the gear with the butt-end of the staff. It's worth a shot, though it may be a task best suited to someone with a bit more upper body strength than the spindly elf. This will not stop Vandelin from insisting on doing it himself. He sets about it with grim determination.

Kit eyes the flat of the blade attachment somewhat dubiously, but doesn't try to stop the determined elf from clambering up onto the ogre's warty back. "Sure," he says, glancing over his shoulder one more time just to make sure Teren is still doing what she does best. She is. "Knock yourself out."

The flat of the blade--or the butt of the staff, depending on which end Vandelin decides to wield against the stone first--does about as much good against a set of ancient, dwarven-made cogs and gears as one might expect. If one of the two is going to give way, it's probably going to be the staff. Grimacing, he turns his attention back on the other adventurers who are hovering around the perimeter, then spots the axes he'd laid down on the stone.

"Hey," he says, to Melys or to any others who might be nearby and more willing to touch a weapon sporting a fair amount of darkspawn goop on its blade, "hand me one of those axes, will you?" Those things are dwarven made, and heavier than they look, and, he thinks, should get the job done.

Edited 2017-07-12 23:31 (UTC)

Teren is off a small ways, just out of sight but audible by the occasional unbothered grunt-slash combination that suggests there are in fact a few darkspawn back here. Not to worry, she's faster and smarter than them. And probably meaner.

She drops the leg she’s been hauling before Kit’s even got a full syllable out; Rick (you know, Rick with the mustache,) curses under his breath as he’s left to ease it down the last foot or so.

It’s tough to bite back a comment on Vandelin’s jabbing; it’s a little easier remembering there’s only one of them can see in the dark. Creepy little shit. And that smile earlier, Maker. Way to look like some bloody cave ghast. She’s heard some of them even wave sticks around and call it spells —

"If this don’t work," She hauls an axe up, tests the heft before offering it out. Too heavy by half. A hammer, indeed. Go into the water holding one of these and you'd be right fucked, but suppose you go into water down here, that's a given. "Just lop off a bloody horn, seems he was jamming them easy enough."

And who gives a damn if some Darkspawn’s headpiece splinters? She shoots a wary glance off in Teren’s direction, shoves Pimples closer to Kit to light the work. A motion to Vandelin:

"Y’wanna shout or something if you see any slip around the," Melys thinks abruptly better of whatever it was she was about to call her, "Warden. Yeah?"

Edited 2017-07-14 21:13 (UTC)

Vandelin looks up at her, elf-eyes gleaming flatly like brushed nickel in the low torchlight (and if only she lets on how unnerving she finds it, he'll make sure to stare unblinkingly at her as often as he can manage, just on principle.) His attempts have been almost entirely futile, and his staff, sturdy metal though it is, has a sad little dent in the end now, but he suppresses a flash of indignation nonetheless at the acknowledgment that there are more helpful things he could be doing.

Faced with the prospect of trying to lift an axe that probably weighs half as much as he does, though, and conceding that he can see what the darkspawn are doing better than the shemlen are equipped to, he hops nimbly down from the ogre's reeking back as readily as if watch duty had been his idea from the start.

"Let me know if you need help getting a horn loose," he says, and goes to gird Teren's back. He thinks he remembers how to manage an ice wall. Maybe. It's been a while. He'll cross that bridge if they come to it.

Kit leans down to take the axe as Melys hefts it up to him; the strain of doing so causes a painful twinge in his injured leg, and he grits his teeth in a sudden grimace of discomfort. Yes, that's definitely going to need some looking after, sooner rather than later.

He grunts as he straightens back up, examines the haft of the axe, then scrutinizes one of the ogre's horns for comparison. "Might do," he agrees, both with Melys and with Vandelin, though by that point, the mage has already hurried off to provide assistance to Teren. He lifts up the axe and gives Pimples McGee some minor directions over where to best angle the torch, then gets to work.

Soon, the ancient stone corridors are ringing with the loud, metal-against-metal clang of the axe's half striking the misaligned gear. Kit certainly doesn't have time for half measures at this point; the racket is bound to draw the attention of additional darkspawn from beyond the door, but striking the gears with any less force just won't do the trick. Once, twice, three times, four times he brings the weight of the axe to bear against the gear, grunting with the effort it takes to do it and maintain his balance with only one good leg. At last, with the last strike, the gear finally gives way with a groan and snaps back into place.

"That's it," he calls out, already trying to clamber down from the back of the ogre as quickly as he can with his injured leg. To Teren and Vandelin, he shouts, "Come back so we can get this door closed!"

They'd better book it back to Kit and Melys quickly; already, there's a distant but growing rumble from the deep as darkspawn, drawn by the combined sound of combat and the metallic clanging, begin to surge upwards from the deep.

Vandelin is not a man accustomed to putting faith in others, but thus far, both Kit and Teren have amply proven their ability to handle the darkspawn that have surfaced. His own presence feels like more of a formality, a just-in-case, a largely unnecessary backup--

--until now.

The encroaching horde of darkspawn is audible to anyone with ears, conjuring up endless roiling masses of snapping horrors in his mind's eye, and even the stupid voice in his head telling him that running headlong into danger constitutes bravery can't keep him from following Kit's order without hesitation.

His staff is at the ready as he rejoins the group, his mind racing over the utility spells he hasn't recently had occasion to use. He can throw up a passable shield when he has to, can blast back a few overachieving darkspawn that might get closer than the rest, but none of it is his particular area of expertise. He doesn't know how his well-practiced magic might work on things as mindless as darkspawn--but perhaps they can all find out together.

Teren follows Vandelin several moments and unpleasant sounds later, stalking over with a healthy portion of black, gooey blood spattered over herself, her her bearing hawklike and unnervingly alert.
"We're off then," she asks, sounding a little breathless.

Every blow on the gear shoots her posture more nervey, until he's done and her shoulders are strung taut as wire, hand white-knuckled on the hilt of a dirk.

(Some use it'd be. She's seen these things; sword and plate won't do much in numbers.)

"Any time now's fine," She hisses under her breath, half to Teren, half to the black cave air. Melys shifts on the balls of her feet. Pimples hangs in uncertain place, caught between the bravery of adolescence and the base, sensible fear of things that howl in the dark. Rick grabs for an edge of the door, gets ready to haul. "Any fucking time —"

Edited 2017-07-17 22:43 (UTC)

Several meters behind Teren and Vandelin, a growing number of lumbering, hissing, snarling genlock and hurlock raiders are scrabbling out of a hole in the stone and earth and are making a dedicated push towards the still-open door. The only thing holding them up, currently, is their inability to rein in their bloodlust; they're as interested in turning on and savaging each other as they are with hurling themselves after their new prey.

"Any fucking time--" comes Melys's very apt hiss, as Rick and a handful of other Inquisition grunts begin to heave the door closed on its hinges. It's a slow process; doubtless in ages past, Kit's people would have engineered a complex series of mechanical processes that would have preceded the closing and sealing of this door. But whoever knew how to power those processes has long since returned to the Stone. They're going to have to do it manually, and that means slowly.

Which means they're going to need some kind of a distraction to keep the blighted monsters on the right side of the door.

Kit turns on his good leg, heaves his axe high, and brings it down in what would be a lethal strike against the ogre's thick, meaty neck if the creature weren't already down for the count. The blade of the axe cleaves straight through the ogre's muscle, sinew and bone, decapitating it in a grisly display of violence. Black, reeking blood doesn't spurt so much as spill out across the stone floor.

He seizes it by its matted mane and hoists it upright. "Out of the way!" he shouts in warning to the others--including Teren and Vandelin as they come careening through the gap in the door--and hurls the ogre's head right into the oncoming pack of darkspawn. In addition to bowling some of them over, it has the added benefit of smelling just like the kind of disgusting, rotten filth that darkspawn love to chow down on. Several of them immediately lunge towards the ogre's head and let into it with abandon. The one or two who keep rushing for the door meet a swift end from the blade of Kit's axe.

He staggers back out of the way just as the others finally heave the door shut, and at that point, whatever remains of his stamina is well and truly spent, and he goes down onto his good knee, unable to stand.

Teren is more than happy to oblige, scurrying out just in time to turn back and see the delightful sight of darkspawn cannibalizing their own. "Maferath's balls," she intones, sounding as impressed as she is disgusted, but her reaction only lasts as long as it takes to yank Kit by the collar of his shirt and help him stumble out away from the door.

"You looking to catch the Blight?" she snaps, "Maker, the lot of you, might as well join the Wardens now while you're ahead." Kit in particular concerns her, and she looks down at him with an expression that's almost pitying. "I suppose you're ready to meet the Maker either way."

She's encountered Legion of the Dead before, in her limited jaunts through the Deep Roads, doing exactly what they're doing now. Kindly, she doesn't point out that Kit is the most intact of any she's seen.

Well. That's one way to keep the darkspawn at bay, certainly. If there's one thing this guy's got, it's style--though perhaps not for much longer, if they can't help extract him from this hellhole.

It's not often that Vandelin wishes he'd taken his roommate's advice all those years ago and learned some proper healing magic instead of rejecting the entire School of Creation out of spite--but wartime does have a way of reminding him of its merits at every turn. He might as well be an apprentice, for all the good he can do with it, but he's been fighting his way across the Marches for too long now to avoid picking up the very basics.

"Let's none of us get introduced to the Maker today if we can help it," he says, kneeling beside Kit and examining the injury as thoroughly as he can without touching it. "If I can pull together a temporary fix, do you think you can make it out?" Emphasis on the 'temporary.' He just hopes it won't make the injury worse in the long term.

Rick rubs at his jaw, watching the closed door warily. It's a long moment before he stoops over to Kit, sticks a hand out to the axes in expectation.

"Lemme get those," He says, with a look on his face that implies he's not really asking. Never a big man, and not intimidating now, just serious. And ready for a nap. "Can be stoic about it when it's not slowing us down."

"Should give him your stick," Contributes Melys, already speed-walking her way back up the tunnel (pries open Pimples' fingers and there's the light in hand again). "There's a temporary fix for you."

Teren's assessment is pretty spot on, though at her last comment, Kit offers her a grin that's more a baring of teeth from pain. "Returning to the Stone," he grunts, already slowly extending out his injured leg as far as he can stretch it to assess the damage. "But. Yeah."

The wound looks--and feels--worse than it truly is; some stitches and several days' worth of bed rest, and he'll be able to limp around on it again without too much discomfort. He's truly had worse before. Nevertheless, when Vandelin crouches beside him and looks a hair's breadth away from casting a spell on him, the color seems to drain out of his face, leaving him ashen-looking like slate stone.

"No--please," he adds, looking chagrined over his own discomfort with the magic. He gives Vandelin as apologetic a look as he can muster under the circumstances, and can only hope he understands. He nods at Melys's suggestion. "A crutch will do--and maybe a shoulder, over rough patches." He's already struggling to heave himself back up to his feet, and doesn't object when Rick takes hold of his axes for him. As long as he gets them back, he's got nothing to be stoic about.

"Right, that," Teren mutters, and turns back long enough to give the heavy door a kick and ensure that it's secure. Having done so, she passes the rest without a word, ranging ahead of them and taking it upon herself to be the lookout in case anyone should come at them from the front.
Or... somewhat more plausibly, she's done socializing for the day.

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A (recruitment) mission into the Deep Roads

just let me know if anything needs changing, folks <3

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