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.

---

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

[swordproof]

It seems sensible enough as a tactic for something planned. Take their elephants so they cannot use them, kill the rider and claim them for the Inquisition. The problem is, of course, that they are in the midst of battle with dozens of soldiers from each side around them, with a woman who can shoot a bow well but has not in some time and another who has wounded her hand. Six has seen the odds stacked cruelly before, but -

She sets her shoulders, grasps her bow, lifts herself to stand tall and high. This is a battle that must be won. This is a fight that must be a victory for their Inquisition. There is no way for them to fail, and she touches her fingers to the amulet of Sarenrae before she nods her head.

"I can aim for the spearman," Six glances up, watching, intent. "If I take him, can you climb the ropes?"

[shri]

"Definitely."

She's breathing hard, getting herself ready for it. "I am going to charge, you just keep shooting at them, it'll provide me cover. When I am on its side," When, not if that sort of arrogance is probably going to damn her, one day. "follow me up. You distract for me, I distract for you."

A simple plan, a direct one, and one that has to be bitten out quickly, they in battle after all. When someone gets too close and she has to turn her horse a circle, just to keep moving, not to make the shot easier for any other archer.

[swordproof]

"I will do what I can."

It is not a complicated plan and Six is well accustomed to working alongside one another person: it had been her nature for years. To protect one person and then deflect, to work as a pair - that she knows well. It is not a dangerous thing to her, even as she readies her bow and looks up at the heavy weight of the elephant before them.

That might be more danger.

"Go. I will take him." And she draws the bow back, eyes narrowing as she focusses her aim.

[shri]

Perhaps it is not that she trusts Six implicitly, but she certainly finds her utterly reliable when it comes to combat. That she trusts she will not falter here and now in their plan.

So Lakshmi nods to her, stiff and sharp, as she turns the horse under her in a quick circle to beginning to get the momentum under her that she'd need to launch herself. A firm kick in Bansari's side. The shout of her voice as she lifts her sword high and takes off.

It's not a smooth ride towards the beast, having to lower her sword - may as well use the momentum for what it was worth as she lines up a foot soldier in her sights, swinging it low. It doesn't quite decapitate him, but his neck is split open, spray blood like a faucet, guttering and then stilling as he collapses. Swinging her one long strike through, and Lakshmi neither looks back nor slows for the work of it.

Her target still in front of, weaving and ducking around people in the field. Her knees digging in hard to her mount's sides.