faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ BLAZING LIKE STAR-SHINE

MOD PLOT ↠ BLAZING LIKE STAR-SHINE

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.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ranged attack, as long as it is within a certain distance, is definitely where Jester can shine. It is difficult to shine in the mud and blood and torn-up grass of the battlefield. This isn't like the fights that Jester is used to. The Mighty Nine are mighty in even matches. Jester is mighty in one-on-one. An all-out battle is something different, and more than once Jester has clutched at her holy symbol and thought, Shit balls fuck, and then, Traveler please, an ardent prayer answered by a swell of magic: Guiding Bolt, or another blow from her spiritual weapon, or, or, or. She isn't helpless. This is just a lot, man.

Tessa looks way more like she knows what she is doing. Jester has a moment or two to spare an admiring glance her way. She tries to mimic that confidence, bares her teeth at their foes and gives them good growls and words in Infernal, meant to shock and scare and terrify.

At some point, she ends up next to Tessa. One of her sickles is in her hand, to dispatch a blow here and there when her lollipop is busy.

"Hi!" she yells, as she reaches around and cuts down a man with a big bushy beard who is about to swing a sword at Tessa. "It's me, Jester!"

If Tessa had any idea that she actually looks like she knows what she's doing, she'd laugh. Her internal monologue right now is similar to Jester's, as it's mostly Fuck! Shit! Oh fuck! Die! Fuuuuck thiiiis! Every moment is just a desperate attempt to stay alive, and her ferocity comes down to being terrified mixed with probable PTSD from living in a fallen society full of brain-eaters. But as long as it looks cool, then she's coming out ahead, right?

"Hey! Doing okay?" She notes the guy go down and adds a "Thanks!" before dodging a swing from another enemy and swinging her axe down on his forearm in response. The man naturally screams and Tessa jerks her axe out of the wound to swing it across his neck. He staggers back, but she doesn't bother to watch him fall. There are other assholes to cut apart.

"Oh yeah, oh yeah, really great--"

Brisk, and a little breathless, as she blasts Mister Chopped Neck with Thaumaturgy. The gust of wind is itty-bitty, just a cantrip, not enough to bowl anyone over. Except Chopped Neck is already toppling backwards, and that gust of wind is exactly what he needs to fall. And die.

Satisfied, Jester swings her sickle around to chop toward another solider. The blow goes wide, but her spiritual weapon is there to konk down on the guy's head.

"We're kind of screwed, I think! You and I are doing good, but--"

The thought is left unfinished as a volley of arrows rises, suddenly, from the line of archers that have pushed halfway up the hill.

"Oh, shit!" Jester yells, and grabs her shield, swings it around to hold up over her head. She is, unfortunately, a big target. And the shield isn't that big. Maybe it will be just enough?

Jester can say that again. Not that they're doing terrible, but when you're on the ground in the middle of things, it's hard to know how the battle overall is going. All that can be seen is their little chunk of it, and this chunk is pure chaos.

Tessa isn't as fast to respond as Jester, and she lost her own shield on the hill earlier in the fight. Arrows go whooshing by her and before she can even react to them, pain blooms across the side of her head so intensely that she falls to her knees. Thankfully that gets her out of the line of the rest of the arrows, but she just got fucked up somehow. Her vision swims and her head throbs with pain. And yet she's in somewhat of a daze, not knowing why she's on the ground or why she hurts.

"AAHH!" Jester screams from nearby. Which probably doesn't help any hurting heads, but oh man oh man oh man, Tessa has fucking arrow in her head.

A fucking arrow in her head. Like, what?

Jester keeps her shield over her head, to protect her from the rest of the arrows. She scoots closer to Tessa, a frantic scoot, her knees in the mud and the rough grass of the hill.

"Tessa, Tessa, Tessa-- Tessa! Can you hear me!" Her eyes are open at least, sort of, kind of--Jester can tell as much, especially as she closes the short distance between them. "Ahhh, what the hell--this is bullshit--"

Shock has fully settled in and Tessa can only tell that something's wrong. There's pain, and confusion, and just overall wrongness.

"Help," she says weakly, unable to really comprehend what's happening. There's yelling, and the word sounds familiar, but she's so in shock that she can't recognize it as her name. The arrow is above her right ear, parallel to her head with the arrowhead stopped by her skull. It hasn't pierced through the skull into her brain, but it's carved a path through hair, skin, and the outermost part of her skull.

She blinks slowly, sees the grey-blue skin, and knows this is a friend.

"Is it bad?"

"Um," says Jester, more than a little high-pitched, "ummm, well, well-- it isn't good."

Shit. She puts her fingers in her mouth for a second, and bites gently at them. It is not half as good as like eating a pastry, but it is a minor stress relief.

"Um. You know how sometimes, people, they shave lines into the sides of their heads, and it looks really really cool? Like tiny undercuts? That is, sort of, what this looks like. Buuuuut... gorier? Like really really gorier? Like-- oh, ah," out of habit, she has started to reach for it, but then remembers, don't pull arrows out of wounds, and retracts her hands. "Ahhhh. Maybe, I can heal you? I don't want to take it out. Isn't that bad? Because blood will just start, like, gushing, everyone, like ahhhhh--"

She gestures toward her own head, with one hand, flicking her fingers briskly to simulate a blood spurt.

Oh. It is that bad, then. At least from what Jester's saying. Tessa is still only partially comprehending this as adrenaline courses through her, but she does finally take notice of something in the peripheral vision of her right eye. She turns her head. It turns with her. She sucks in a breath.

"Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my fucking God!" Cue freak out. "Is there an arrow in my head?" Her hand reaches up, entirely forgetting the thing about not removing objects from a wound, but the second her fingers touch the shaft of the arrow she jerks away from her own hand and cries out in pain.

"Heal me, heal me, heal me!"

"Okay, okay, okay," Jester says, hurriedly, as she raises her hands to fend off any sudden grabs for the arrow. "Okay, I will heal you! Just, ummm, like--sit down, or something, okay--"

She leaves the arrow alone, still, and grabs instead for Tessa's arm to guide her, or help her sit down, or something. Shit.

"Ohhh, man. This is crazy, you know? I have never talked to anyone while they had an arrow in their head." Wait, no. Don't call attention to it. Right, right right-- "Okay, just hold still. I am going to help. Do you know about the Traveler?"

Tessa's butt hits the ground immediately like a child being told they'll get candy if they sit quietly. She just wants this thing out of her and the pain to stop.

"No," she answers, and as she does her vision starts to swim. It's more than just blood loss now. The arrow was tipped with poison and it's entered her bloodstream, running through her to destroy her from the inside out.

"Can it help?" Because she's not sure if the Traveler is a person or a thing, but Jester must be bringing it up because it has something to do with healing, right?

"Oh, totally, yes. He can help. We-ell--I mean, he taught me everything I know, you know? All of my spells and stuff, and he teaches me new ones. Well, he hasn't, in awhile. But he does. He is a god, and he is so cool and handsome--"

She's pushing her sleeves up as she's talking, trying very hard to sound normal. Tessa seems a little out of it--probably because she has a freaking arrow in her head--so just, like, noise, will probably help. She can't really heal around the arrow. It has to come out.

"--and funny, he thinks of the best pranks, and he looks really neat, he wears this cool cloak, and--"

One, two, THREE, and on three, Jester grabs the arrow and yanks it out, and in the same movement, slaps her free hand over the wound and deploys a deft Cure Wounds. There's a glow of magic beneath her palm, and a warmth that will spread from that point of origin. Also, there's blood on her palm.

"Ew," she says, interrupting herself.

It's hard to pay attention to all this, especially when it makes it through the fog in her brain and she realizes that Jester's basically got the hots for this Traveler guy. But it helps because Tessa isn't really paying attention when Jester pulls the arrow from her head. She lets out a gasp as her body jerks forward but it's a relief to have that gone.

"Thanks," she says, trying to remember the phrase I owe you one, but finding she can't grasp onto it.

"I'm all... whooshy." She means dizzy. Can't find that word either.

"Really? That's a new one."

Jester is wiping the palm of her hand on her cloak. It's all dirty and bloody and messed up anyways, so she might as well. Tessa gets her attention again pretty quick, and she looks her up and down with a frown.

"You look okay, for someone who just got hit in the head with an arrow. But..." She leans forward, staring into her eyes with--well, narrowed eyes. But she can still see okay. "Are you going to fall over? Because you shouldn't. There is a rock behind you."

"I don't wanna," she says, trying to blink the dizziness away. But now it's combined with an uncomfortable feeling spreading through her body. It feels sort of like pins and needles — like a body part is asleep — but also like there are itches she can't scratch. Tessa's no expert in getting shot in the head with arrows, but she thinks this isn't normal. Unless it hit her brain and her brain fluid's all leaking out?

"I'm all weird." Tessa doesn't know how to describe it, which probably doesn't help Jester much. "Feel weird inside. Like poking. Being poked. It's kinda hurty. Um..." She wavers a little and stares down at her hands. Either her eyes are bobbing in her skull or her hands are shaking now. Probably the latter.

"Oooh." Jester, listening to these symptoms, winces. She leans down to look Tessa more closely in the face. Like a true professional healer, she waves her hand in front of Tessa, trying to see if her eyes will track the movement. "You look fuzzy. Your eyes look fuzzy. You look normal, except you have blood and stuff on your face."

So what is it? What's up? Jester squints, thoughtfully. Weird inside, after an arrow... Oh.

"Oh, my gosh, Tessa..." With dawning horror, she covers her mouth. "You might be poisoned."

Tessa squints as air is fanned in her face from Jester's waving hand. That feels weird too. Everything is just... not right anymore. "Fuzzy. Yeah." A shudder runs through her. Then another. Suddenly her whole body is shaking and she can't force herself to stop.

"I... what? Poison?" Her vision is swimming now and she hunches forward from the shaking feeling and how it seems like she's going to fall over. "Like I'm gonna barf or I'm gonna die?" She sucks in a labored breath.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

MOD PLOT ↠ BLAZING LIKE STAR-SHINE

main battle

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