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Simple Gifts [Closed] - Part 2

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Teren is inches from grabbing one of the ropes when Jang's cry gives her pause, and she's in no position-- hasn't enough knowledge-- to do anything but listen to the person who seems to know what she's talking about. They got the ring out, at least, now they just need to make it to the docks?

She makes her own awkward, aching, clambering descent, not stopping until she reaches the ground. "What," comes a sharp, nervous bark: how are they really in trouble now, moreso than they already were?

They make it from the tree without further incident but, as they reach the ground there is a rolling sense of wrongness to the air around them. The other tress seem to shift, dark lines dropping from them toward the ground. Ropes. Nooses. They stretch down from the pines like arms reaching for the ground.

Above them, there are a pair of shrieks as the wraiths reach the center of the room. The sounds ring out but some of their ethereal quality has been shifted away. Some of it resides in a low grade screaming, soft and distant, that issues forth from the rocks around them. They are steaming slightly in the rain, hissing and crying like heated coals that have had water dumped on them.

The nearer Jang draws to the trees or to any stones, the more pronounced the effect becomes.

Behind them, at the window, the ghostly face of Alvar appears. She looks down at them blankly, her face a light in the pitch of the room, and begins to smile.

"You heard me. I know what that sound is, we need to get inside!" Drawing a bead on Alvar in the window, Jang begins to move quickly across the open area, heading towards the church. "That was Ghost Rock, a...thing from my world. It screams when it burns, you never forget the sound of it. And for the tree, it's a Hangin' Tree. Possessed tree that tries to grab people and hang em' high." She moves in the darkness to somewhere to get out of sight of Alvar.

"Where are we going anyway? The docks? Who knows how to shut this thing down?"

"Jang!" comes an angrier shout, mingled with creeping panic, as Teren recognizes the shape the ropes are taking. Her heart seizes unhappily and she stumbles away from the trees, clutching her arm and nearly falling over again, though losing her footing makes her cast her eyes upward to see Alvar staring down at them.
That's... profoundly not good.
"Take it off!" she snarls, "take the fucking thing off before you kill us both!" She too backs up to stand against the wall of the abbey, glancing over her shoulder in the direction of the docks. "You're not going over there like this!"

The wind picks up as they argue and the trees stir violently, their new appendages drooping lower. They are far away but the sight is unnerving at best. Alvar vanishes from the window as they move from sight and, at once, it becomes chilled around them. The bite of cold is significant but not direct, the Wraiths are on the other side of the wall and while they cannot hear them, they can likely feel the movement of the temperature as they head toward the doors.

Solas has been searching for the ring alone since he left Galadriel's side, sure of her protection in the wake of the Inquisition rallying around her. He did not like to do it, did not like to slip away and leave her side, but he knew that he had to find the ring for her, had to make sure that he was able to do what he had promised for her. Trailing the wraiths was not so difficult, not when he knew spirits and demons as he did, but the chill and danger of the place was enough to shake him.

He'd been making his way across the abbey as best he could, knowing they would need to move to the docks eventually. He goes around the edge of the abbey, uncomfortable and bruised from the weather, but he breathes out a sharp noise all the same. It's the whip and wonder of the sound of shouts and snarls that draw him closer and his eyes narrow. Teren and Jang he recognises, but the shout moves him closer, grip on his staff sure. No spirit magic, yes, but the Rift magic... Fire... He could use that, if necessary.

"Take off the ring. Teren is correct." His voice is set, sure; stern. "I must return it to its owner."

"What? No it's fine! Lets get out of here first THEN worry about who's got the sparkly ring!"

Jang looks up at the now empty window, the steam from the hissing rocks curling around her boots like tendrils. No sign of Alvar, and she much preferred to have a location on that particular enemy. The other...things happening, deal with in five minutes. Can't fix it if you're dead after all...

If these magical things are happening because of who's wearing the ring, there's one clear solution. And Jang is being obstinate.

"Take it off," Teren hisses through her teeth, drawing a blade and advancing a couple steps to hold it menacingly-- she's nowhere in the vicinity of screwing around. "Hold it in your hand."

There's a crowd of civilians, pilgrims, injured, who don't need... whatever this is. Anxiously, Teren glances toward the wall, shuddering at the notion that she can actually feel the wraiths looking for them.

"NOW, Jang."

"Damn Teren! Is this really the time, we need to run! Are you really gonna stab me here?"

Jang takes a step back, looking from the knife to Teren. Something must be happening to people here, they want the ring, enough to attack people for it. She just needs to hold onto it for a bit longer, get it somewhere safe, away from everyone. Just need to hold onto it...

"Yes." Teren advances again, drawing her other large blade from behind her back, one at a warning throat-height for Jang.

"Last chance." She doesn't want the ring, despite feeling intrigued by it; it's simply clear to Teren that the longer it stays on a person, the more dangerous the world around them will be. She's already learned the hard way that touching it herself is a bad idea.

Their argument reaches a fever pitch as the cold of the wraiths vanishes. Solas is ignored, at least partially, as Jang withdraws and Teren advances. They are given a spare moment, standing in the wake of the building, before a shriek resounds around the wall, from the trees.

The sound is sharper near the ring.

It echoes against it, after a fashion, and the walls seem to scream as it does. They have only a few seconds before the wraiths descend.

"Shit! Come on, emergency exit!" Jang turns from Teren, risk assessment shifting to the wraiths and flicks a card towards the stone wall.

"Fire in the hole!" she shouts out as the card detonates, but with a lot more power than before. The wall crashes inwards, scattering a few rows of beds that were on the other side, but a large hole now present.

A lot of things happen at once, but one of those things is Jang ignoring Teren's warning. As she turns to blow the hole in the wall, Teren slashes out with the knife poised near Jang's throat, but is also thrown aside by the blast. She rolls a foot or so, and then lurches back to her feet, tearing after the rifter in a panic. She hates that noise, she hates all of this, and if Jang keeps the ring, she just knows they're even further up shit creek than before.

Solas is beginning to get angry, a frustrating thing born of his desire to bring this ring back to Galadriel. He knows from her the dangers of the ring, what it can do to people, and clearly Jang is already suffering the consequences of it. He has to get it back, has to make sure that it does not fall into the wrong hands, that it is only in his possession long enough for it to go to Galadriel.

"Jang! Stop!" Reaching out, he brings his staff around and summons his Pull of the Abyss, dragging her back by the strength of his magic alone. It should be enough to hold her in place as he moves forward, rushing after her with his eyes focussed entirely on the Rifter, fury starting to colour him.

"Remove the ring or you will perish! It will take you!"

The Pull of the Abyss grabs Jang handily, and it also manages to snare the debris from the wall and Teren. They had only seconds before the wraiths were upon them and those seconds are bitterly spent--the creatures appear around the corners of the walls, moving in near unison, with their blades drawn.

Solas is the easiest found--two move for him while the other two move toward the twisting rift spell and the people trapped inside it. They strike at Solas as he runs, missing narrowly and winding up to strike again and, all too soon, the three are surrounded with only the hole in the wall to provide an escape.

Jang lets out a cry of pain as Teren's knife cuts a long shallow slice down her side, blood beginning to flow from the wound, dripping onto the sizzling ground where it flashes to bitter steam with another scream from the burning rocks. This time though, the scream has notes of joy mixed in, joy at tasting blood again.

She is about to ignore it, and focus solely on running through the hole she punched in the wall when she's gripped by Solas's magic and yaked away from safety.

That, as it were, was the last straw.

"FINE! You want it you lunatic? Come and get it!" And with that, Jang flings burning cards towards the wraiths, the cards crackleing with power as they slam with great force into them.

This has quickly devolved from the simple snatch-and-grab Teren had planned, but the terror of the situation doesn't fully hit her until she is unwillingly dragged back out of the hole by a spell and brought face-to-face with the wraiths. A wordless, frightened yell escapes her, and she dives back for the rent wall without any intention of doing any fighting. She's seen how this ends: people lose arms. And lives.

"Jang," she calls again, helplessly, once inside; Solas, from her point of view, looks doomed. Why are mages like this

Solas does not, at least, seem particularly concerned about the wraiths that are chasing after him. A veilstrike heads towards one and he aims another shot towards another, this time a bolt of ice that should be enough to incapacitate it. His concern is not the wraiths right now; his concern is, instead, on getting the ring back. It is not Jang's to take and, clearly, she does not have the control over it that she should.

The challenge is there - come and take it. He will.

"Jang!" There's no hesitation. He ignores the wraiths, the damage to them done, and follows after her.

Two of the wraiths, those struck by Jang's cards explode in a shower of brackish water, dousing everyone as they are destroyed. The wraith that is struck with the veilstrike only stumbles, the one attacked with a spire of ice does not react at all at the ice pierces it and sticks. A moment later it has grown a hard shell of frozen water around the wound. Ice armor, and it is spreading.

This is a poor forum for argument and becomes poorer still as the wraiths come close enough to swing their blades properly. One brings a blade down on Jang, carving into the stone as it swings, the other copies it, in time, as if by command.

The stones around then steam and scream and, unfortunately for Teren, the interior of the building will be less friendly soon. The dormitory behind her, all rows of beds and furnishings cast into disarray by Jang, is growing darker and colder. Already the shadows deepen and stretch away from the hole in the wall.

"You. Are. Making. Things. WORSE!" Jang screams at Solas, as she rolls to the side, sparks flying from the blade cutting into the Ghost Rock, and it starts to burn. The flames are blueish green, and in the depths of the flame and smoke you can see faces, eyes and mouths screaming in pain. And the flames spread, flowing like syrup up the walls and down to the ground, sparking and hissing and screaming.

She scuttles backwards, trying to get inside, away from the flames and away from the wraiths, but most of all, away from the person who seems so obsessed that he is willing to die to obtain her ring. But she won't let that happen, She has it now, and she can handle it.

Teren can't recall the last time she was this frightened, and it only seems to be getting worse. There's no time.
But Jang can't face every direction at once. She's coming backwards, and Teren, growing desperate, is behind her, with a blade at the ready to punch into Jang's back like a needle into velvet: it's a well-practiced angle intended to sever the victim's spinal cord, leaving them alive but paralyzed from the waist down.
They can drag her if they must. They'll kill her if they must. But that ring has to come off.

"You would repair all this if you would hand the ring over!" Solas knows exactly what is happening. It is what Galadriel had warned him about, what he had been concerned over when he had first realised where the ring might be. Jang cannot control is, has no means of subduing the power, and he has to make sure that the ring is off her body as soon as he can, even if it means removing the finger.

Moving forward, he watches Teren, nods his head, shifts and begins to cast his magic, to make sure no wraiths come. Let Teren handle Jang - he's sure that he can wrangle the ring from her, if necessary. He is the authority on magic and the Rifts here, let him have the ring. He knows the danger, the effects, the problems.

"It must be kept away from anyone who might use it!"

Jang feels the knife enter her back and she cries out in pain, but the pain stops, and she falls to the floor. Her legs won't work, and it takes a great deal of effort to raise herself up. She turns around, seeing Teren standing there, bloody knife in her hand.

"You bitch..." With a wordless cry of anger, she flings a card at Tehren, it flips in the air and landing face down on her upper chest, where it burns. It burns with a green fire and the air is suddenly filled with the smell of burned flesh and cloth. A ace of spaces glows for a moment on Teren before it faces, leaving the scorched flesh.

"Something to remember me by" Jang spits out at Teren from the floor, more cards appearing in her hand. "Good luck without me assholes."

They are focused, almost utterly, on the fallen Jang--the wraiths that swing and move toward them, the flaming walls that scream with the voices of the dead, even the footsteps that approach from within the dormitories, carried by an invisible shape, all are ignored in favor of cutting Jang down to retrieve the ring.

"They won't be entirely without you," a voice speaks from the gaping hole, the one Jang is half collapsed within. A freezing bolt of cold moves through Teren and then closes on the space before her. Alvar forms in the air, bluish and translucent with her dead gaze locked on Jang's face.

Her hand presses down on Jang's chest and then sinks within it. Jang screams and the cards in her hand evaporate into fine mist. The spirit of Alvar smiles again right as she sinks into Jang's body.

Right as she retakes her ring.

It's uncharacteristic for Teren to ever look guilty about something, but as she meets eyes with Jang on the floor, there's almost an apology in hers. It didn't have to be this way, they could have just gone for the docks-- but she doesn't have long to think about it, because suddenly there's a searing heat on her chest, and Teren's resulting scream is of panic as much as it is anguish. She collapses against the far wall, gripping the injury with one skinny hand, looking up just in time to see Alvar finish the job and disappear into the now-dead girl.

Outside there's the elf, and beyond him, a forest of nooses. Backed against the wall of a damp, shadowy room, in pain and terrified, having just killed an ally for what seems to amount to no reason, Teren both laments and drearily welcomes the possibility that she is about to die.

Simple Gifts [Closed] - Part 2

The Abbey on the White Cliff

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After a long pause, we are back to horror I am so sorry guys.

WELL BYE

o damn