PLAYER PLOT: Enfenim

[mythalenaste]

WHO: Pel, Sina, Cyril, Beleth, Sorrel, Myr, Saoirse, side of Anders and Alistair
WHAT: A demon has trapped Pel in the Fade.
WHEN: Forward-Dated to 25 Firstfall
WHERE: The Gallows, the Fade
NOTES: Trigger warning bonanza for insects, body horror, corpses, dismemberment/maiming, death, illness, drowning, blood + will update if any more happen.

What am I to do with all of these dolls?
They've covered the floors, they've covered the walls.
They're stacked up chin-high all over the floor,
But my greedy child is screaming for more...

Comments

let's add some TW for potential death by fire

[faithlikeaseed]

There's a certain sound a furious hive has to it--an awful throbbing buzz that every beekeeper learns early to ignore at his peril.

It's been a long time since Myr's heard that noise, a long time since he learned the subtle art of soothing a fractious colony with magic instead of smoke-- A long time since he's been stung, though it's a pain one doesn't soon forget. (He has heard of men stung to death by feral swarms, how they swelled and blackened and died in agony as their organs shut down--but they died. In a dream under the thumb of a demon seeking to feed from his fear, he knows--dimly--he won't get such a mercy.)

I'll make them stop, the demon promises, and Myr snarls soundlessly as he struggles for footing. Fuck you, he thinks, forcing rage past his own terror (drowning again, too disoriented and voiceless to cast and this ocean won't respond to his magic anyway, no more than one of water would, he knows with the awful certainty of dreams-- a mage without control is a danger to himself) and (it could work, it's in control of this, it could work--except if he gives up his eyes in the Fade will he ever again be able to see in his dreams?)

No swimmer, he, but a sea of insects is a different beast from one of water and for one brief blessed moment he makes contact with solid ground--a second of stillness in the pain and tumult is all he needs to cast. Grease is a fast spell, one he can force without words if he doesn't have to think to target or reduce it, wrenching gallons of the slippery stuff from the raw Fade around him to drench himself and the nearest bees alike. Then he's swept from his feet in a press of tiny bodies now gluey and wingbound with oil--now flammable.

I won't give you the satisfaction-- Half-threat, half-madness; don't die, Anders had said, and he's got to win through this and find Pel, and burning's a hell of a way to go, but if he can somehow call the demon's bluff enough to force it into the open--

[eolasemah]

Always on the beach, always waiting, Sina's dream is the same as ever with only a few details changed. One, the tide has risen to where it sloshes around her nose and mouth, choking and freeing her in turn, never an easy breath or a moment to relax. She's on the balls of her feet, and in theory all she'd need to do is rest down on her heels, let it happen. For whatever reason, she hasn't yet, and continues to gulp the air. Once, long ago, there was something she looked at across the wavy expanse, something she hoped to reach. Now, there is only the sea and the moment itself.

And two... Myr.

Myr in distress. Thrashing around, radiating terror and anger, causing a fracas about twenty feet from what used to be the coast, the green of the sky illuminating his restless silhouette. Sina hesitates for the time it takes to realize he's really here, then takes a deep breath and submerges her head to swim to him.
The water around her friend is cloudy, but the ever-present green glow of the shard lights Sina's way. It pierces through the blackness to reveal him, struggling mindlessly, and Sina extends her hand to touch his arm, to break him out of it.

Even if Myr knew what she looked like outside the Fade, he wouldn't recognize her now. A phantasm of glowing green magic, Sina's hair floats around her head in an eerie, rim-lit halo, gently carried every which way by the shifting water. And it is water, now, the buzzing in Myr's ears entirely to do with the pressure of it and not the collective shrieking of angry bees.
"Come out," she suggests, her voice unmistakeable despite her fearsome appearance. Bubbles spill gently from her mouth as she exhales the words, extending her hand with a sweet smile.

[faithlikeaseed]

Between one moment and the next--(he can't find footing any longer in the tide of insect bodies, not so much as would let him center himself, let him call a spark into life)--Myr's world changes to water and the actinic green glow of the Fade. He nearly sucks in a lungful of ocean in surprise; coughs bubbles, wincing at the sting of seawater in his eyes and injuries. (The bees are gone but their handiwork remains, venom seeping slow through muscle, blood, and skin.)

Has he forced the demon's hand? The vision hovering before him doesn't look like any demon he's ever seen, but it's fearsome all the same--strikes echoes of another dream of the sea, another unknown entity--and he reaches back for his spirit blade as it opens its mouth to speak--

He knows that voice, knows it and thought never to hear it again. Sina? he mouths, wide-eyed. His fingers slip from the hilt of his blade and he reaches for her outstretched hand without hesitation. Come out, she said, but-- How? He can't swim; it's only the shock of her presence that's kept him from panicking in the crush of the current, but the white-knuckled way he grips at her fingers speaks his fear louder than words.

[eolasemah]

Sina's other hand grips Myr's wrist and gives him a tug, accompanied by a quiet giggle that echoes through the depths around them.
And just like that, it's not depths anymore, but sky. The two are floating gently, neither flying nor falling, the faint humidity and calm, nighttime darkness suggesting that it isn't simply an empty void.
"What are you doing here?" Sina asks, the verdant green glow shimmering as she speaks, reflecting gently in the puff of the clouds that float around them. She laughs again, a pleased sound. "Is this yours?"

[faithlikeaseed]

The transition's so quick he's barely got time to register it, eyes wide and nickel-bright with surprise in the darkness. (He can't help himself, reaching out to touch the clouds with curious fingers. It's been a long time since he's had a flying dream--floating dream--instead of a falling one.) "No, it's Pel's--I think," he answers at last, carding his sodden bangs out of his face and looking at her sidelong. (The glow's unsettling. Everything about this is unsettling. But it's the only chance he'll ever have to see her.)

"She wouldn't wake up--so we came in after her. There's a demon--" An involuntary shudder interrupts him; close, Myrobalan, too close to making another bad decision. Maker be praised for small mercies. "--holding her, we think, and that's what caught me. You haven't seen--anyone else, have you?"

[mythalenaste]

The low hum of bees begins in the tone of a weepy and petulant child, but the bees cannot be seen.

Noooooo, that isn't fair! You're not supposed to be here, Sina-doll! You're just the skin the snake shed!

A projectile flies at the glowing Fade-form of Sina, a hundred or more bees aimed at her head.

[eolasemah]

There are no bees at all, as far as Sina's concerned. She's swept up by a sudden gust of snow, which dances around her in a wind that billows her hair and the skirt of her shift. She's amused by it, and for the briefest moment-- maybe he didn't really see it?-- the glowing creature becomes a sandy-haired girl in a nightgown, who's gone as quickly as she came when the luminescent green eyes meet Myr's again. "Pel's calling," she announces, and just like that, it's all gone.