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Entry tags:
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.
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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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?"
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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.
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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.
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--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.
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"We're off then," she asks, sounding a little breathless.
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(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 —"
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"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.
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"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.
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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.
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"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."
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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.
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Or... somewhat more plausibly, she's done socializing for the day.