Simple Gifts [Closed] - Part 2

[laurenande]

WHO: Galadriel, Thranduil, Solas, Myrobalan, Merrill, Kitty, Lakshmi, Teren, Marcoulf, Jang, Obi-Wan, and Anders
WHAT: A trip to a perfectly normal Chantry in the middle of nowhere.
WHEN: Current.
WHERE: The Island of Alamar, Ferelden.
NOTES: Current warnings, to be updated: Mild Gore

The Abbey on the White Cliff

Around noon on the fourth day, Brigette and the other sisters gather up the people of the Abbey. Everyone who can walk, who can stand, is urged to join them in the auditorium--the doors at the end of the main hall are thrown open and the people welcomed in. Today Reverend Mother Alvar will be enacting her final miracle and, in the grand tradition of this Abbey, the people are invited to behold and take joy in the sight of it. They are encouraged to be there for the end of the previous Reverend Mother's life, just as they are encouraged to welcome the new Reverend Mother, Luca, as she assumes her new position.

The auditorium is a wide, stepped chamber that drops downward into an open forum and stage. The roof is high and domed and was once constructed of the same grey stone as everything else on the island. It was caved in at some point, destroyed by a falling tree, but it has been patched over with wood and canvas. The extensive scaffolding speaks volumes of how much effort has gone into restoring this room, but all of it stands still and empty in preparation for the ceremony.

Above the center of the stage, in the very middle of the room, visible from all angles, there is a great green tear in the veil--a massive rift cleaves the room in two. It churns sluggishly, ebbing and twisting, muted under the weight of whatever pall hangs across this Abbey. Around the rift there is a golden arch--the wood is carved into flames and swords and papered over in hammered gold leaf. Behind the rift there is a triptych depicting scenes from the Chant and each is lovingly painted and framed in gold.

The room is filled with chaos, but not of the sort one would expect in the shadow of a rift. The people who meander in, the pilgrims who take up the seats near to the stage at the base of the steps, all of them are smiling, all of them are happy, some are weeping tears of joy or remorse, but all of them are entirely unsurprised by the rift's presence. They take no issue lingering near it. Praise is heaped upon the carpenters for their diligence in finishing the arch, songs are sung softly as everyone gathers, and eventually the room is prompted to recite from the Chant as Alvar comes to the center of the stage. She is frail and those who spoke with her earlier will see how she has aged--twenty years in a day, it seems--and she leans heavily on Luca until she moves apart to stand on her own.

Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls.
From these emerald waters doth life begin anew.
Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you.
In my arms lies Eternity.

When she speaks the Chant, for a moment, her voice sounds youthful again--no older than Luca's--but it is fleeting and before the end she is breathless and thin once more.

OOC:

Hey everyone, this is part 2! I will be posting an initial thread for this scene that will be a free for all, but feel free to start a thread beneath the Ceremony Header if you want. Below I will be reposting the updated areas and people links, same as the previous post.

New Top-levels are welcomed, as always, but if you have questions please hit me up.

This section will contain the rest of this plot, unless we skyrocket to too many tags for me to keep them straight.

Comments

[justice_is_blond]

Kitty, Teren, Myrobalan, Marcoulf, himself, not even half of their party are out and there are so many civilians as well. He takes in Luca, diverting one hand's worth of healing into her before looking up at Myrobalan.

"Don't even think about going in there again. I'm heavier than you and I can and will sit on you. I'd threaten Teren, but she'd bite me." She wouldn't. He's on the verge of just plain babbling because he can't save everyone, maybe can't even save the majority of the crowd in there, and now Obi-Wan is caught too. The other wraiths are bound to hone in on the--unless someone distracts them.

Spirit magic doesn't draw attention to the caster the way he'd thought. It draws attention to the spell. Anders casts again, bringing up a half-dozen wisps, and sends them to surround the demon. He's getting close to his limit, but that doesn't stop him from starting to channel into the downed Sister. She's a part of this mess, helped cause it or at least didn't stop it, but that doesn't mean she needs to die for that.

[faithlikeaseed]

The flash of a lightsaber--that hideous scream--and water, so much water-- Myr watches the wraith die in freeze-frame with something between awful relief and clutching horror. That had been a Revered Mother--or was it a demon, a spirit, something with a false face come to the wrong side of the Fade where nothing else occupied it?--and that eats at him; but it was also a murderous wreckage of a woman who gave up her life for compassion's sake. (Which one, a small part of him wonders. Maybe Alvar. Maybe that's a mercy that she didn't suffer long.)

And then it's over and Obi-Wan is calling for help--Jang still needs help--the pilgrims who aren't yet out of the room need help and there's only one of him. And Anders is--

Myr feels more than sees the dispatched wisps bob by to play bait and hisses through his teeth. (Later, he'll grant that it's clever; right now he's still furious.) Worry about your healing, he wants to snap, but doesn't. Instead:

"You won't."

Because that would require catching him. He steps forward to make space, pulling another escaping pilgrim from the room by her outstretched hand and neatly trading positions with her. Invokes haste once again and extends it as far as he can focus, lending a little extra speed to those escaping. Another step, another pilgrim grabbed and shoved behind him and then he's gone through the press, stepping through instead of around on his way to Obi-Wan's side.

"Can you get them off if we cut you out? The boots," are his first words on arriving, eyes flicking to the Jedi's maimed arm then away in a flinch--up at the demon and the nearest of the surviving wraiths. Only when he's certain there isn't a limb or a sword about to be swung at them does he scrape the butt of his staff across the ice, etching out the lines of a disarmed fire glyph. It ignites on the last stroke, bright as breathed-on embers, and water beads on the ice beneath it.

[laurenande]

The Greater Terror is hellbent on attacking the Inquisition, something which does not change between Myr's exit and re-entry into the room. The Wraith that is slaughtered nearby does have one advantage, the floor is covered over in fresh ice and the creature is as caught up in the deluge of water as Obi-Wan, it is briefly cemented to the floor and, during its struggles, there is time for those knocked prone to rise back up.

The wisps draw some focus from the stunned wraiths but their presence is ultimately ignored as the first of them draws up its weapon and strikes the terror. Its sword, a bar of jagged metal the length of its body slams down against the demon's back and embeds itself there. The wraith tries to yank it free but the blade breaks, snaps and becomes water. The water freezes as it touches the air and the terror is further immobilized.

A second and third wraith strike it, a fourth, and soon it is howling, twisting as it is carved into. One of its arms is torn free by the fifth and it falls to the ground nearly crushing Brigette who is trapped in the room along the far wall. The wraiths are not careful with their swings, nor the handling of their weapons, and they strike the floor, the walls, and nearly the Inquisition as they attack the terror.

Finally, the demon rises up and screams, it's limbs twist and shatter the ice binding them, spilling blackened blood across the floor. The sound it makes is a terrible, earth shaking thing that knocks everyone and everything back. The braces holding the walls are unseated, the ceiling makes a terrible sound, and all at once stones begin to fall. The injured demon splits open the floor and delves back into it, gone only briefly--the wraiths watch it, barring the paths out as much as the free space in the room, but they do not hinder those who try to move past them.

They do not seem aware of them at all, in fact.

[whiskeyandbrimstone]

Jang watches this all in slow motion, Obi-wan cutting through the wraith, the wraiths descending on the demon, hacking and slashing at it and finally the breaking free as it howls upwards, the force of it knocking people back and breaking the supports of the roof.

She sees it falling down slowly, like leaves and she sees Brigette, trapped against a wall, pieces of masonry descending down. Holstering her rifle she moves fast, a blur to anyone watching in normal time, but from her point of view, the distance seems to stretch onwards. A hand of cards appears in her hands and she flings it towards the wall Brigitte is against, the force of the spell cracking and blowing out the wall like she did before. It'll attract the wraiths, but that's a problem for the future. Admittingly, it's about 5 seconds in the future.

Reaching Brigitte's side, she wraps an arm around her and lifts her up, almost throwing her through the whole as she jumps through herself, landing in the mud and rain outside as she moves with Brigitte away from the scene of terror in the chapel.

[hello_there]

The ice around his ankle is simmering, hissing with the contrast between Myr's magic and the frozen... Well, it certainly looks like water, not that Obi-Wan is inclined to taste it. He pulls ineffectually at it, once, twice, a third time, and then it breaks free, one leg loose, the other still frozen.

"I like these boots," He replies, voice terse under the joke, "But yes."

Come on, come on, come o—

The roof's support shivers and wavers, breaks in places, and the stones begin to fall. All around them the demon is flailing, the wraiths striking madly, the ice cracking as ever-larger debris mazes the surface with cracks and impacts. Obi-Wan redoubles his efforts, then glances up and flings up the stump of his arm blindly, trusting to instinct, and the Force.

...And the chunk of roof, a broad, heavy slab that might easily have crushed one or both of them, freezes midair, as if surprised by his reaction. For a moment, Obi-Wan holds it still, gritting his teeth, and then the line of his gaze crosses the place where his sleeve is a gory, rag-ended mess and his hand...

The stone wavers. The ice melts. The glyph crackles. He pulls at his foot without lowering his hand, groaning audibly under the strain. Obi-Wan wants very much, to lie down in a nice, warm, dry bed, and pretend nothing like this has ever happened, just for a few hours. And then the ice finally gives way, and he's able to kick free.

The stone remembers gravity, and falls, sliding off and to the side, as safely as Obi-Wan can manage, and he turns to Myr breathlessly, sure he'll find no argument in: "Let's go!"

[faithlikeaseed]

The instant the glyph's set Myr's attention is elsewhere; the wraiths and demon are too close, the ceiling is falling in, there are still people trapped on the far side of the room, there isn't enough time. He can feel in a distant, detached way, that he can no longer attend to any of this as it needs to be. Despite the haste he hasn't leisure to consider it all, to plan, to think beyond action and reaction to the nearest threats. Fingers against the hilt of his spirit blade, pulse pounding in his throat, he braces as the demon shrieks--

Catches movement overhead and looks up in time to see what's surely his death, the death of them both, Lady Andraste in Your mercy tell Your Husband of us that He might receive us in His breast,

He will remember later the exact shape of the slab as it stops and hangs above them. He will remember later Obi-Wan's labored breathing behind him and the cold prickle of fear-sweat on his neck.

He'll remember the giddy relief when Obi-Wan frees himself at last and the stone falls away, the death sentence suspended another hour. "There are still people here," he says by way of argument. (I'd prefer to wait for the roof to be fixed. Was one of them Estmond?) "We can't--I can't--"

Another block of masonry thumps down before his lifted foot as if to cut off the rest of his argument; wide-eyed, pupils turned pinpricks with panic, he casts about them as if to see someone he could dash off to rescue now, to make his point. But there is no one close enough and he has pushed himself dangerously far on his mana as it is. He swears like a sob in Tevene and puts the last of what he has into a glyph of repulsion, flung with desperate urgency toward the far wall and the two stragglers there who can't outrun the roof. It might--might--provide some shelter before it expires, might push the worst of it off them, even if he's never tested it with anything inanimate heavier than snow...

"All right, all right, let's go," though damned if he'll make the retreat any faster than Obi-Wan can, any faster than the last of the pilgrims they chivvy ahead of them, sheep before dogs.

[chainlightning]

Instinct says move, and Merrill moves. Similar to the demon, she moves through the earth - but hers is natural magic, tied to the earth, where the demon seems to warp it. Merrill emerges from her spell next to the carpenters near the door, who she proceeds to bodily shove toward the door and relative safety.

"Out, get out!"

There are still people inside, and Thranduil and Solas are among them, but she's already moved. If she can get back to them to try and help them out, she will, but Merrill has had enough innocent blood on her hands. These people may be stupid, but they don't deserve to be crushed under the falling roof.

[laurenande]

The Inquisition flee with speed but they are nearly caught in the falling roof. Herkle and Merkle manage to catch Thranduil and Solas as they leave the room, bringing up the tail end of the party. Estmond and the pilgrim at his side do not have the same luck and are caught when the wall beside them collapses. Their screams are echoed in the demon's as it jumps up through the floor again and resumes fighting the wraiths beneath the rift.

The wraiths, whatever they are, are not aware of the state of the ceiling and, at several points, large pieces of them are crushed by falling stone. Several are destroyed, whole, when the rubble catches them. Most survive, stepping over fallen stones with their remaining limbs, weapons bent or broken wielded at the demon.

The rift spits and hisses, bubbling dangerously again, above the fight. The walls, caught up in the combat and pressed in by the weight of the roof, fall before the threshold of the door, barring any further entry. The pilgrims move away from the doors, from the wall on whole, and scatter into the main hall. The demon screams as the rift lets out a bolt of power but the sound is cut short, cleaved in two amid the thunderous sound of falling stone.

The way is blocked and, were it not for the spitting light that erupts from the rifters' hands, one might assume everything on the other side had been destroyed.

There is a long moment of silence and of shock as the pilgrims stare at the rubble that blocks the entry to the auditorium, to the wreckage of that place. The rain falls heavily beyond the new wall and, after that long moment has passed, a rolling sense of cold passes through the rubble and into the hall. Briefly, but clearly, the shape of a young woman with braided hair appears. She is ghostly, transparent and made of fine mist, and her eyes are blank as they scan the crowd...until they fall on Luca and they are not.

Luca, stunned and on the floor, her head no longer bleeding but still out of sorts, looks at the figure with awe and alarm. She breaks free from Anders's hold and tries to stand with mixed results. When she finds her voice, all she can say is: "Alvar?"

And, as soon as she says it, the figure breaks apart and the cold moves.