WAKING NIGHTMARES IN SKYHOLD

[fleurdesel]

WHO: Adelaide LeBlanc, Vivienne, Cullen Rutherford, Sabriel Abhorsen
WHAT: Subduing an Abomination
WHEN: Haring 11
WHERE: Gardens, Courtyards, Beyond the gates
NOTES: Violence, gore, death, corpses, etc.

It is another night in Skyhold- calm and relatively quiet, most asleep or tending to their solitary business without expecting anything too strenuous at the late hour in the depths of their stronghold. For all that it is still undergoing renovations it is secure and has come to be something of a home for most that have traveled there looking for sanctuary.

The night's split by a deep, rumbling laugh, spurred on by the rending of flesh and the bright surge of flame, a chorus of screams and prayers rippling in it's wake. An abomination has ripped its way into being in the gardens, twisting the body of the boy into a creature seven feet tall, his mage robes shredded in tatters over misshapen muscle that twists and knots over protrusions of bone and raw, pulsating, pustulent meat. His face a rictus of vicious intent, irregular fangs nd warped, drooling lips below terrified, human eyes. In one hand he has the battered corpse of a young woman that he drags by the ankle as he smashes his way through the scrambling crowd of the garden, bursting into the main hall- many of his peers broken and bloodied and sobbing in his wake.

A call goes out- the first to the scene are the first to see this creature, the first to act in the Inquisition's defense.

Comments

[madame_de_fer]

No small fortune, Vivienne had not yet retired for the evening. Not fully. She had only just begun to wind down for the evening by shedding one of her infamous hats when the sound of destruction ripped through the night. There is no mistaking the sounds she hears, above and behind the screaming of fear and pain. There is an abomination on the loose.

She had warned those naive children such a thing would happen. Oh how for once she would very much have liked to been proven wrong.

Vivienne is beyond livid.

The Iron Lady wastes no time in grabbing her staff and rushing to the gardens, from whence the sounds of horror come. Apprentices are staggering away, battered, bleeding, terrified. A guard rushes past her without a word in obedience to the Commander's instructions. Thank the Maker there are at least some here with a modicum of sense to remove any potential collateral damages from the area.

"I agree. If it stays, it could bring down the walls upon our heads." And if the creature manages to do so, it could well bring down a sizable portion of the fortress if the right support walls are hit. In order to encourage the abomination to move as they wish, she casts calls forth a blizzard to engulf the creature. It will most certainly have to move out of the gardens to avoid the swirling ice and snow.

[paperwing]

The first thing Sabriel senses is death.

She feels it like a sword plunged through her chest, bile rising in the back of her throat as she doubles over where she stands on the fortifications, winded. Time slows. It's a moment later when she hears the screams of fear and terror from those not so unfortunate to die in the moment the abomination rose, screams that pierce what was once a clear and peaceful night. Sabriel does not so much sleep these days but collapse from exhaustion, and now, any sense of it is banished, as she stumbles, runs, pushes herself in the direction her body is telling her not to go because she knows what she will find, and she does not want to see it.

So careless. She had tried to walk a middle ground with Harrowings, knowing there was no guarantee, that even the most gifted of mages could face the hardest of horrors - from personal experience, no less - but they had tabled the discussion, and chose to do nothing. They had tabled the lives of young mages that were now lost. Mages that would never, ever have a choice due to their deaths, because their betters, the people they relied upon for guidance, had been unable to agree.

Sabriel follows the trail of fleeing apprentices, not joining them but unsheathing her sword from it's place on her tunic, entering the gardens just after Vivienne. They should all feel the thrum of magic as she casts the first of what may become many barriers over the four of them, and it's only then that she dares look at what once had been a mage.

She thinks of her father. She breathes in, harshly, once. Not now.

"We need the mountain," Sabriel adds, urgently. "If it falls, we have the advantage. Not here, it will take us with--"

Whatever else she is about to say is cut off as the combined ice walls garners the creature's attention to the four of them. It should not be quick, but she knows it will be.

And it has fire.

"Move!"

[fleurdesel]

"The courtyards-" Half a mind on the abomination, the rest on the bleeding mage under her hands as she taps deep into Compassion's power and lets it flow forth. Enough to stem the bleeding, enough to hand them off to their friend and bid them go, then the next, and the next after that in this little broken huddle. With Vivienne's blizzard they're shielded from sight for the moment but how long until the first roiling gout of flame actually hits anyone?

There's a hiss and a glow as a flare blasts beyond the cutting wind, scorching the grass just to the left of them, glancing off of Sabriel's shields. They hold. Adelaide's earlier wall of ice? Does not- but those it shielded have long since fled.

Long enough for her to raise another, creating a bottle neck leading through to the blizzard to the courtyard proper before scrambling to her feet and ushering the last of the limping apprentices from the area. Those bleeding and broken, dead or dying cannot be moved so it is to them that she casts- it isn't much. Something to soothe, to mend some of their wounds, to ease the ache of passing- but it is what she can manage without leaving herself vulnerable to further attack.

[perseverances]

Cullen has his shield raised instinctively, knowing full well the fire from a mage's spell hurts just as badly as normal fire. Even with the cold winds of Vivienne's spell whirling around them, it was only so long before they died down.

"I will lure it away and toward the Courtyard," he begins. He doesn't have magic, and it's too dire of a situation to see if any of his Templar abilities still work. He won't risk lives if they don't work. But he is confident enough in the magic of these women that they will prevent this monstrosity from doing any more harm. "Steer it with your magic if you must, but we must get it out of Skyhold before it kills any more people."

[madame_de_fer]

There is a nod of acknowledgement from Vivienne. Through the courtyard is the best course of action. Unaware that Cullen has desisted from lyrium use, she is rather relieved to have a Templar with them. The ability to supress magic as needed will be a great boon to them.

"Adelaide, another ice wall, if you can." Between the two of them, they should be able to create a bottleneck which will force the creature to go the direction they wish. The problem is that with the other mage healing the injured, her own magical reserves are likely to be depleting and she's needed to resolve the mess that inaction has wrought.

Vivienne lays down her own wall of ice, not waiting to see if she will have assistance in creating the blockade she's hoping for. To encourage the abomination not to retreat further into the fortress, she puts down ice glyphs. With any luck if it attempts to cross that way, the pain of exploding shards of ice will encourage it to rethink that path.

[paperwing]

Her shields may hold, but Sabriel wastes no time in replacing them anew. She knows that may be unwise and could leave them vulnerable later, but that roar of flame only grazed the protective boundary she'd raised - there was no way she was taking the risk of letting them slide until she knew its full strength.

Not that she wanted to find out. She knew equally as much that other two women's reserves would not last forever, and neither would the surpressive abilities of a Templar - they had to do this quickly for their own sakes as much as those around them.

"We'll have to keep a pace if I am able to continue shielding the Commander," she says, noting Vivienne's ice glyphs and adding a sparse scovering of paralysis glyphs in the gaps between. Not enough to stun it completely, but enough to act as a deterrent. "I will do my best to protect you both whilst you cast," she adds to Adelaide and Vivienne. Her fire magic has no use, here, but she has her shields, she has her debilitations, she has her sword if need be, and she will use it.

The ice is not something the abomination likes. It can burn through it, as it does with another bout of flame in the direction of the terrace and the last of the blizzard, but it takes time it does not want to take when those it wants to pursue are moving away and the other way is oh so much easier - another wall of ice will likely make it go where they please. It turns, movements laborious, arms swinging, and those same arms are not empty, but carry something.

Someone.

[fleurdesel]

"Done." Benefits of being a Spirit Healer- that which she uses to heal comes not from herself. Benefits of focus drills and multitasking, of swapping between her own reserves and tapping into Compassion for healing- she can twist the mending into it's conclusion with one hand and extend her other to cast another wall. Tall and towering, thick and straight- attempting to guide it from the main hall to the courtyard proper. Even in the chaos she is as precise as possible, expending only as much energy as she must before moving on.

Some of these apprentices are beyond saving. She must focus on those they can.

It pains her to stand, to leave them sobbing and frightened as they are dragged away or as they slip into the Fade permanently- but there is nothing more she can do. Standing she moves to keep pace with Sabriel and Vivienne, hands frosted over. Guiding it away from the main hall, back out to the courtyard- and Cullen playing a pretty lure? Walls she can raise, shields she can cast, but they can attack- an abomination is too human for Compassion to bear her striking.

"One moment-" She weaves her spells quickly, hands glowing and snapping through the air- willing into being two glowing, gold green wisps of light that circle Sabriel and Vivienne to empower their spells for the time being. Cullen, playing decoy like an idiot, warrants something else. Her eyes flash with Compassion's power, her hands glow, and it will offer him an edge, an enhanced clarity, strength, and speed for however long she can hold the spell together.

[perseverances]

Unfortunately, the Commander can play the decoy well. He knows when to defer to more powerful party members, and Adelaide, Vivienne, and Sabriel are some of the best. When the spell envelopes him he's wary at first - not many know of what he's gone through at the expense of magic and demons, but he nods back to the caster out of deference and takes his shield and sword up and clangs the two of them together to get the Abomination's attention.

He trusts that the ladies will also help everyone else steer clear from their end, while he shouts for everyone to get out of the way near him. No one else deserves to die or get injured tonight.

[madame_de_fer]

Enhanced magic thanks to Adelaide is always a benefit and somewhere in the back of the First Enchanter's mind, she is pleased they are all of them so easily capable of working as a team. She nods once to Sabriel, acknowledging her supportive shields and a call to keep a moderate pace. Time is assuredly of the essence before more lives are lost, but a rushed battle will do none of them any good.

Taking advantage of the distraction that Cullen is providing, Vivienne encases herself in icy armor, then fade steps directly behind the creature to begin lobbing more wintry magic at the Abomination. Fighting fire with well... ice actually. Once they've driven it out, she intends to freeze it in place then assault it with another blizzard.

What's bothering her is the young corpse the monstrosity is hauling around. Not merely for the additional death, or even the morbidity of such an act. There is a reason this creature is doing such a thing, unusual though it is. She quite suspects it has a hand in why one of the mages has succumbed and once this terror is over, intends to find out if that is so.