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

[eolasemah]

After a short time, the apparition behind them dematerializes with the silence and swiftness of sand being blown across a desert. "Beware," whispers a female voice in each ear, "it nears."
The wind gently stirs the light hair on each elf present as a small form emerges beside Pel, a little hand already in hers, the shape of a small girl with shifting features like the passing of clouds. She's perhaps a year older than baby Sina, big enough to walk but still so tiny, her hand gripping Pel's fingers with the familiar touch of a child to a trusted family member. Contrary to the demon's games, the specter exudes warmth and protection, grounding strength, and it looks expectantly up to Pel with its curious green glowing eyes.

[mythalenaste]

Pel gasps and stiffens, afraid the demon is about to do the very worst trick it can do and use her daughter against her. But seconds pass and nothing happens. She gazes into those green eyes and slowly, her muscles unwind again. Her hand closes around that of the tiny girl.

"You're a..." She doesn't have to say that it's a benevolent spirit. Something about its nearness and form causes her to get a better hold on herself. She knows who she is around this child. It's the other one that weakens her. She knows what she has to do, and there isn't much time.

She bends down and hoists the spirit-child up into her arms, balancing her on her hip, and keeps walking toward the Gallows.

"It was real," she continues. "I think it's preyed on me since the plague. In my mind, I blamed all the death on some greedy, petulant force of the universe that liked to kill elves. That gave the demon its identity. It's followed me ever since. Feeding. Now it's getting less food and wants to sow more seeds."

She prepares to shove the door to the mage tower open, but it opens first. Standing in the doorway is an animated corpse, a bloody hole in its chest. He is a Dalish wearing Keeper robes and garish vallaslin. He raises a staff and instead of attacking, Pel screams. She knows that face. She watched that face die. She was the one who made it happen. She did the Childe's work.

"No, no, no, no," she begs, shrinking back, arms wrapping protectively around the child in her arms. "Don't make me do it again, please!"

Sounds come from behind. Other corpses rise and begin to shuffle toward the party. All Pel can think of is that she must protect Sina, though she knows it's only a memory from more than a year ago. And yet it had been similar, standing up after so much torture, driving a spike of ice through the man trying to kill her Sina. And there was another Sina to protect as well, although Pel had not known her name, or that she would be a girl. But she can't protect either of them if she is mad or dead.

[samahl]

Cyril tenses at the appearance of the child, but when Pel relaxes around her, so does he. He really only can take the mages' guidance here. He's still too new with the Fade and it's workings know what to do on his own.

Then they find another dead body, Pel screams, and the ones around them start to move. Cyril reaches for his bow again, ready to fight.

"Pel?" he asks, speaking loudly in an effort to make her focus on how best to protect them all. He knows she does better when she has others to look out for. "Pel," he repeats, more strongly. "The corpses..."

[faithlikeaseed]

"Beware, it nears."

Ample warning to be alert--whoever their guardian spirit is, Myr breathes a word of thanks to the Maker for her even as the first of the walking corpses appears. The air around the four living elves shimmers and thickens into a defensive barrier as he lags a step--then rounds on the dead behind them with staff and blade already in-hand. (Don't look at their faces. Don't look--) Not many--yet--but with how thickly they're piled on the ground, how quickly they're waking, he doesn't like their odds. Maybe a greasefire...

He shakes his head once, aborting the thought; this isn't his to solve. (Break the shell of someone else's nightmare, deny her the victory in his haste to leap to her defense--as much help as assisting a butterfly from its cocoon too early.) "Pel," he echoes Cyril. "It wants you running." So don't, he doesn't say. He trusts her further than that.

But even so he locks eyes with the nearest of the shambling dead and lifts his chin in silent challenge. Come for him, first.

(hovertext!)

[eolasemah]

If anything, all the evidence one needs against the child being a spirit comes to light when the apparition of Pryderi lurches into view and the little one recoils, curling against Pel's shoulder and gripping the fabric around her neck as a living child would when confronted with a nightmare. Or, in this case, simply a nightmarish memory, one she hadn't expected to see.

But in truth, it can't hurt her. Not anymore. And Pel is quailing, backing away, when she must step forward and fight.
The voice is disembodied as it begins to sing, a child's voice merging in and out of a young woman's, with the simple clarity of a nursery rhyme intended both to soothe and distract:


"Mar lahn elas tarosa su Mythal,
Sul'emalan or tunan,
amelan or vun i alas aron..."

[mythalenaste]

Pel looks down at the child in her arms when she recoils and knows who she is. She is the woman who reminds Pel that the Creators are merciful as well as vengeful, kind as well as fierce, tempered as well as wild, furious as well as wise. She shows Pel how the sword and the olive branch can both be wielded at once, and that there is no weakness in humility and gentleness. The path navigated well is as important as the battle won, and mercy can only come from those with the power to mete out justice. She believes in Pel, proving Pel can be believed in, so there is no excuse for not believing in herself. Mythal must have given her this last chance to protect her, to save her from fear in a literal sense.

"There is no Mythal," says the voice of a different child. Behind the group, one of the corpses carries it. The corpse herself is beautiful, with long white hair and a striking resemblance to her son. The child she carries is white as paper, with enormous white eyes and two antennae--or are they antlers? Some peculiar humanoid offspring of both insect and halla, clinging to the woman in a cruel mockery of Sina.

"It was always me," the Childe continues. "Always, always. You prayed for strength and I gave it to you. I took away your fear."

"You," Pel says, voice shaking, "you gave it to me in the first place."

"I was hungry!" the Childe argues petulantly.

Pel is done conversing with a demon. She is done with corpses. She is done with this torture of staring at the vacant faces of her loved ones. Whether Mythal exists or not, Deheune was right--strength comes when you need it and not a moment before. If she cannot be fearless, then she will turn her fear into a weapon.

"You," she growls, "can have it all back, then."

One massive surge of mana brings a hundred roots from the ground. One pierces Pryderi in the throat while the others cause havoc among the other corpses. Cyril's mother is slammed to the ground, and the Childe vanishes.

"Run!" Pel barks to the others. "Up the stairs, sixth floor, go, go, go!" She tears off a piece of root from nearby and summons an ice blade from it, a makeshift magical sword. To Sina, she whispers, "Hold on tight, da'len. I've got you."

[eolasemah]

A kiss on the cheek in response, and the child is gone, but the three are now riding a halla sprinting effortlessly up the stairs. If impeded by a corpse, it lowers its head to ram the creature away, not even slowing as it races to their destination.

[samahl]

The moment his mother appears Cyril has decided he's honestly had enough of this place. Before this moment, if asked he would have stated he didn't fully remember what the woman looked like, but when she appears here he knows exactly who she is meant to be. Unlike the demon's puppet creature or the corpse of Merrick though, he just manages to feel annoyed and tired.

Only the thought that Pel needs to be in control stops him from trying to shoot the vision of his mother with an arrow. He's more angry that the demon would use her to taunt Pel than anything else. Perhaps he should feel shocked or hurt over it, but honestly she's such a long forgotten dream to him that he doesn't know how to grieve for her.

Then Pel does take control and the creature disappears. The body that is shaped like his mother falls and for some reason he can't get his legs to work right away. It's only when Pel has made herself a sword and spoken to the child version of Sina that he's able to pull his gaze away from the empty shell that looks like the woman from his faintest memories and move.

[faithlikeaseed]

There's something almost pathetic about the demon when it finally appears, something that Myr'd be inclined to pity, had he not met its like before. (Save all of that academic sadness over the Maker's first children for later, when it's safe.) As it is, his expression goes flat and fixed at the demon's pleading, eyes shifting from it back to the encroaching undead. Pel needs to do this but they're running out of time...

And then the roots erupt like a sprouting miracle and put paid to the Childe's handiwork, provoking a quiet oath out of Myr. There's so much they never learn in the Circles, so much that was only hinted at in rumor and vituperation against the heathen. Actually seeing it gives a reason why and it's hard not to watch.

Yet: "Run!"

After a display like that, he's not one to argue with an order to run. Yet still he lingers a moment--faintly envious of Pel's handiwork--before turning back toward the tower as ordered. The expression on Cyril's face catches him mid-stride; he can't know what it is about any of this that's troubling the other man, but that dull look hardly needs an explanation. "You're all right?" he starts to ask--

And the dream shifts, landing them on halla-back. Myr makes a startled noise and grabs for whoever's nearest.

[mythalenaste]

Something snaps at their heels as they are carried up the stairs--something shaped like a werewolf, running on all fours after them. Pel swings the ice-sword and takes off its head. It seems to be the only follower--until they arrive at Pel's room, where the Childe stands alone, guarding the door.

"Please," it wails. "Please, Pel. You--you're my mother. You gave me form. You gave me a name. I loved you the only way I knew how, that's all I did!"

Pel dismounts from the halla and gives it a pat. Sword in hand, she approaches the demon. She is not afraid. She is angry. Deep down, there is a little pity for this trembling being, but not very much. This thing, this parasite tormented her for years, whispering in her ear. It kept her from people, it made her play her entire life safe, it hobbled her ability to make new attachments. She has lived alone, dealt with trials alone, trembled at worst-case scenarios that never came to pass alone. Because of this demon.

"You were probably a benevolent spirit once," she says quietly. "You probably did love me, if you're capable of love. I used to think you were some kind of petty god of death, but you're just a pathetic little leech. Taking away my fear is my job."

"But it's not--" The demon doesn't have the chance to finish. Pel's sword arcs out, opening its chest. Then she thrusts forward, ending it. The demon dies impaled on ice, and seconds later, its body dissipates into the Fade. Pel tosses the sword aside and pushes open the door to her room, and halts at what she sees.