MOD PLOT ↠ BLAZING LIKE STAR-SHINE

[faderifting]

WHO: All characters signed up to participate in the Battle of Ghislain
WHAT: The Inquisition faces off against the armies of Corypheus
WHEN: Covers most of the day on 11.28 (forward-dated)
WHERE: The Fields of Ghislain, Orlais
NOTES: This is Post #1, covering the battle itself and the retreat. It contains top-levels for each of the teams and an open prompt for the retreat. The OOC post with more information/explanation is HERE. If you're not sure which team your character is on, there's a LIST. POST #2 covers the aftermath of the battle.

Scouts accurately report the enemy's movements: after a slight slow-down believed to indicate that word reached the of the Allies' sudden appearance in their path, they have elected to remain on-course, and arrive almost precisely when and where they were expected. By sunset the night before they are making camp just over the rise to the northeast, easily visible from the hill, and as night falls their fires can be seen winking along the horizon, a close-packed glow.

The mood in the camp is tense, openly jittery rather than the tightly-wound nerves of the past month, but with a sense almost of relief that after so much preparation and so many weeks of anticipation, the day has finally arrived. Some corners of the camp, particularly the greener recruits and the Antivan veterans, are raucous around their campfires, singing and drinking, playful brawls breaking out, but commanders are strict about the wine rations, and even those who choose to take the edge of this way make an early night of it. A scattered handful of men attempt to quietly slip away during the night, mostly Orlesian conscripts, but a few Inquisition agents as well. Some succeed, but others are caught and imprisoned--the Inquisition's few held to be returned to Skyhold where it can be determined if they are traitors or merely cowards, the Orlesians only as long as it takes to find a tree and an audience to watch them hang and spread the cautionary tale.

It is expected that the enemy, hoping to make up for its surprise at finding the Allies prepared for their arrival, will attempt to catch them off-guard by attacking before dawn instead of waiting, as is traditional, for first light. They are all roused from their beds to form up in the dim grey as quietly as possible, moving into formation in the wet grass, a heavy morning fog lingering on the field ahead. It's cool and raw, the air still. But the ground moves: the shudder and rumble of hooves striking earth, felt before it is heard. The Orlesians raise their pikes, the front line braces, and it begins.

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TEAMS 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • RETREAT
Team members can break off into smaller groups within their top-level prompts—it doesn’t need to be one 13-character thread—and the retreat is an open free-for-all.

Comments

[libratus]

For once in the course of their recent acquaintance, Ilias doesn't have to fight the urge to roll his eyes, even if the half-exhausted relief that pulls at his mouth instead carries a distinct twist of of-fucking-course. Of course Kostos would make this a competition. But if that makes it seem like a challenge they can meet instead of two absolute fools considering standing ground in the path of a horde of nightmare creatures that everyone who likes living is quite sensibly running from, Ilias will take it.

"Only one way to find out, yes?" At least their jostling can serve some kind of purpose, this time.

"But," he hesitates, but Maker forgive them, there isn't time to equivocate on this; he knows how many bodies he can puppet at once. "Not the usual wisps. Even with two of us, we won't have the numbers if we only summon spirits we have to control."

—If they summon spirits they can control at all, that is.

[exequy]

Kostos doesn’t balk for long, but he does balk, eyebrows furrowing with an argument—with fifteen years of knowing people were waiting for his skin to bubble and his bones to bend, and the point that means he has to prove, and the things that means he doesn’t fuck around with—that’s aborted by a ragged edged scream from not nearly as far away as he’d like.

He steps closer to Ilias, mainly to get out of the way of an incoming horse. It doesn’t have a rider, anymore. And Kostos’ face doesn’t clear, really, but when he opens his mouth it isn’t to call Ilias names, so overall it’s better than it would have been ten seconds prior.

“I can keep them moving downhill.”

Maybe. Mostly. More than they would in his absence. It might not keep them from going after straggling soldiers instead of darkspawn and demons, but it will have to be enough, because Ilias is right. Wisps won’t be.

[libratus]

Can you?

Ilias just looks at him for the space of a breath, as if Kostos's assent is the thing that makes the suggestion no longer hypothetical, not a matter of numbers and practicalities anymore but of real, raging things they are about to pull from the Fade and hope they can keep away from the people they're trying to save. Fingers tighten on his staff grip; he thinks of Berenike's leathery clawing at the bars of her cell, the spirit simmering and suffering within her, and instead of asking Kostos how certain he is, he just.

Nods, like he believes it. Like this will work. Because the alternative is turning his back on screams he didn't do everything in his power to stop. Because that isn't an alternative.

"Then I'll start at that rise," with a tilt of his staff to it. A spot just far enough to give the fleeing a chance. A decision Ilias lets hang, weightless between them, for one more teetering moment before he turns against the crowd to plant his staff in the dirt.

And the dead begin to climb to their feet.

A retreating soldier's cry at the sight sounds at first like hope, to see a brother-in-arms stand again — twists into a moan as fast as the corpse's grasping fingers find darkspawn flesh and tear. Heads turn in the field; anguish spreads through pockets of Orlesian and Antivan troops like arcing lightning, and someone starts pointing, frantic and furious over the heads of the rest, toward the mages up the hill. Casting blame. Rallying.

(The chanting and staff spinning aren't exactly inconspicuous.)

[eruit]

Hanzo can feel the prickle of magic.

It's been attacking him throughout the entire battle, pushing at him, drawing him in a way it hasn't for a very long time. He had given up magic for almost a decade, had forced himself to become something equally as deadly without the strength of it, and now he is paying the price. He is not as adept as he could have been and he wonders, absently, if the Inquisition would request that he begin to use spirit magic again, that they might demand him to do it, to bring the pieces of himself together.

The threat of Tevinter is still thick around his shoulders and has him on guard throughout the entire battle. He fears seeing more Venatori, seeing any Shimadas, seeing anyone he might recognise pictured amongst the people he attacks, but he does not pause. His sky blue spirits swirl around him, unguarded and unashamed, and he rushes through on shaken legs as they tuck against his sides, whispering and alerting him as he sprints and lunges towards where he can see the two Nevarrans, one who knows too much and one who knows so little he is more comforted.

Either way, they're drawing too much attention to themselves. If this plan of theirs is to work - and even a fool can deduce it, even from this distance - then he must summon his strength and make sure they do not falter. Skidding to a stop nearly, dropping down to crouch on the ground, Hanzo draws the few arrows he has remaining and allows his spirits to possess his arm, to shoot them at inhuman speed, eyes narrowed and set.

I have lost my home and my brother. But I will not lose my honour.