faderift | I LIKED TEVINTER WHEN IT WAS STILL UNDERGROUND

Newt thinks he can feel the damn humming beneath his skin, given how many days it's been now since the humming begin. Like an itch in a particularly unreachable place, he can't quite ignore it, even for as much as he tries to.

He's covered in dirt, dried blood, and other questionable material that seems to inhabit the Deep Roads in spades; he can feel the aching exhaustion running through him in his bones. And yet, he feels entirely alive. This is where he wants to be; out in the wilderness, helping people the best way he knows how.

He's just managing to find a comfortable rhythm in getting his mind to focus on anything else but the humming when the attacks begin. He moves to help out Isaac when the group of creatures begins to infiltrate the rest of their group as a whole.

"Merlin's beard!" He shouts as one of the creatures launches itself at his face. He flails as he goes down, but he manages to move his wand to blast the creature away from him.

As the creatures pile on them, Newt throws himself (probably recklessly, because, really, is there any other way of fighting?) into the fray.

Rey was near the front of the group, though the steady discomfort of the Deep Roads is wearing on her enough that she wasn't taking a lead like she might otherwise. Her sensitivity to the Force tended to make her more susceptible to the corruption throughout Thedas, and this place is rife with it. Her bones nearly ache from the pressing darkness alone, and if it weren't for the fact that she needs the Force she'd be sorely tempted to close herself off from it. At least for a little while.

She's considering her choices for the hundreth time in the hour when she hears the commotion towards the back and she turns, tiredness and discomfort forgotten, her lightsaber igniting in one fluid motion. The white mabari at her side also turns, growling as the darkspawn descend, and both move together to drive the advancing forces back.

As a tiefling-turned-qunari, Jester still has her dark vision, which means that she gets a real eyeful of their attackers.

Her first reaction is to yell. "AAA!"--and then, with that out of the way, her second reaction is to grab hold of the Traveler's holy symbol. There's a glow about her, divine magic, and as she squeezes the symbol tight in her hand, she yells, "Okay, fuck off!"

As her words bounce around the cavern, there is, in their wake, the sound of a bell tolling, solemnly. Or maybe it's a trick of the underground. In any case, the devouring corpse shambling toward the tail end of their line crumples at the knees, and staggers.

Almost simultaneously, Jester's spiritual weapon bursts to life above her. The giant lollipop, almost offensively bright in its colors. She swings it around to bash the corpse over the head, but still has time and breath for a compliment to Rey and her lightsaber: "Hey, your sword is really really pretty!"

There will be time afterwards, probably, if everyone survives, to apologize for not seeing them coming—maybe to explain that they're everywhere, above and below, in tunnels on every side, and shrieks in particular are clever enough to take advantage of that confusion, to seem like there's solid rock in the way until suddenly there isn't, or maybe to not do that, because it's not like it's going to make anybody feel better about this situation.

But for now, Alistair's apology comes in the form of a blade skewering (not slicing, to minimize the spray) through the chest of the one hovering over Isaac, and a quicker estimation of the situation than would be possible if he couldn't sense them, count them, measure their intent.

"Get the genlock," he shouts to everyone else, in lieu of another warning about the blood and tainted knives, when he's already given several—shouts, then remembers the rifters and adds, "the stocky one, the mage," for clarification.

That certainly is a glowing lollipop being used as a weapon, Newt has just enough time to think before he's dodging another attack and retaliating in kind. As he twists and turns himself, he gets another glimpse of Jester actually swinging the lollipop. From what he can tell, it's very effective.

When Alistair mentions focusing on the genlock, Newt immediately searches for the creature in question. Once he finds it, he moves, quickly and carefully, trying to avoid getting sprayed with blood, to focus his attacks on the more immediate target.

"Stupefy!" He calls out, aiming directly at the creature, which promptly falls though Newt knows it isn't dead. Not yet.

"Quick, I don't know how long the spell will hold!" He calls out to the others as he continues to direct his attacks at the genlock.

Blame requires a level of attention to detail that Isaac's not quite prepared to give anything other than the ringing in his skull. Time dilates about the taste of blood, the overpowering sense of wrong,

There are a lot of ways that he’d prefer not to die. This checks at least four off the list.

(Count them: Darkspawn, underground, surrounded by spirits, while someone's screaming about beards.)

Dead tissue shambles more quickly than one might expect — slowed temporarily by the blaze of light from Rey’s saber, from Jester’s... whatever that is. But Alistair’s right; they’re little without the Genlock. It's well-armored, and sturdy for it, its fall answered by a volley of jagged frost to Newt.

The shriek topples off Isaac’s back with the wet sound of steel through rot, and he rolls to stagger dazed to his feet. His staff's out of easy reach, but that's a realization too familiar by half. Energy collects about his hands, contorts the air: The telltale signs of casting cut a twisting wire through the Fade, sharpening the group's movements, adding weight to their blows.

Not his finest work, but it’ll do. A second shriek leaps for Jester.

Edited 2018-08-23 16:56 (UTC)

THWACK.

Isaac's spell does its work. That is, it gives extra sharpness to Jester's perception, and extra heft to Jester's Spiritual Weapon, both of which are exactly what she needs in this moment. She swings the lollipop around and grand slams the shit of the shriek, catching it in midleap. Its scream cuts off with a wet ulp as the head of the lollipop collides with its gut. Thrown a fair distance, it crashes into a craggy rock and slides to the ground.

"Yaaa! I got one!" she reports, cheerfully. "It is not the Genlock, though--but I can keep getting these little guys, easy-peasy-- hey, you assface, you stay down--"

That last word is punctuated by another brutal hit from the lollipop to the shriek's head, as Jester rushes forward to meet the shriek where it is trying to pick itself up. Though a little less brutal than the first strike, the hit is still pretty good. The shriek falls back under the assault, dazed, wheezing instead of screeching.

Newt is in the midst of aiming another attack when he's suddenly hit by a blast of cold. He would say 'cold air' except that it feels as though he's been struck by winter itself. He freezes, literally and figuratively. Except for the curses falling freely from his mouth, that is, most of which begin with some variation of 'Merlin's saggy left - '

He has to wait a few moments before he defrosts enough to resume attacking. When he begins again, he finds that his spells seem to be hitting with more force and accuracy both, though he can't keep himself from shivering, and he can't seem to quite hit the one they all really need to deal with the most.

"There's only one of those genlock, right?" He asks, not sure if he wants to know the answer or not.

She gives Jester the barest of smiles at her compliment, too busy trying to engage the enemy to entertain the moment. Her blade slices easily through dead and dying flesh, the accompanied sizzling smell entirely unpleasant as she tries to cut a path to freedom.

"I'm on it!" Rey yells as she cuts a walking corpse in half before sprinting towards the genlock, Isaac's spell settling over her and allowing her to push herself a little harder, the Force singing in her ears.

Spending much time underground may just generally be a mistake. The thought had occurred to Marcoulf the first moments they'd descended down into the dark of the Deep Roads and it hasn't remitted much since. The roiling mob of darkspawn descending on them hasn't improved the impression.

But this at least provides some obvious direction. Diving into the fray, Marcoulf wades his way toward the swarm surrounding Newt. Scrabbling all the way back to the genlock seems unlikely, but he can at least see to it that the mob doesn't overtake the-- rifter mage while Rey hacks her way toward the real target.

"My guess is we'll find out when it dies," Marcoulf growls, driving his blade through the too-soft-too-brittle middle of the nearest corpse.

"Fair enough," Newt agrees with the barest hint of a nod, placing most of his concentration back into the fray of the mob surrounding him. The additional strength is especially appreciated, as is the additional aid provided by Marcoulf. Newt focuses on casting Body-Binding curses at the creatures, hoping that, if they work, they'll make the darkspawn much easier targets for the rest of the group.

He tries to pace himself, knowing that pushing himself too far could end badly, while also being aware that the darkspawn are as stubborn as he is on a good day.

"Do they have any other weaknesses we should know about?" He asks, wondering if he might have a better spell to suit the situation at hand.

I LIKED TEVINTER WHEN IT WAS STILL UNDERGROUND | Closed

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