MOD EVENT ↠ CREEPY CRAWLERS

[faderifting]

WHO: Everybody
WHAT: Weird shit comes to Kirkwall Riftwatch earns its keep
WHEN: August 20-22
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: OOC post! Random creature generator! CW: creepy crawly animals and the combating thereof.

I. KIRKWALL

The first Fade-touched creatures are small—they must be—because the first signs that something has gone wrong aren't swarms of oversized pests stomping through the streets, but a half-day of unexplained fires in Lowtown and Darktown, splotches of mysterious ice on the walls despite the heat, and the sudden simultaneous electrocution deaths of two dock workers standing knee-deep in water.

Rumors that mages must be to blame don't have an opportunity to get louder than whispers, fortunately, before the first pack of double-sized, fire spitting nugs is startled out of hiding and runs through the city, squeaking wildly and singeing walls.

By nightfall, it's become an invasion: rats, nugs, bats, deepstalkers, some oversized, some aggressive, all exhibiting unusual abilities. The City Guard—already overworked due to the traditional rash of crimes that often accompanies a heatwave combined with the caffeine-related unrest—does its best, but by morning the pests have reached Hightown and begun scorching curtains and leaving trails of poison slime through gardens and the Provisional Viscount sends a formal request for aid to the Gallows. It has a seal and everything.

II. DARKER THAN DARKTOWN

The old mines that Kirkwall was built around and on top of are only heavily populated near the surface. Beneath Darktown's shanties and encampments, the mining shafts narrow into passages too cramped to easily live in, twisting away from any natural sources of light and down into the black rock until not even dwarven and elven eyes can discern anything in the dark. At first, it seems cooler underground, as one would expect. But the air stagnates and the humidity rises and at times it seems that the deeper one gets, the hotter it is.

The tunnels aren't entirely deserted. Signs of activity litter the paths, along with skeletons—some animal, but also some human, dwarven, or elven—and detritus, discarded rags and broken pottery, and a whole collection of dolls made of bundled twigs. The smugglers and reclusive Darktown denizens who travel this deep are difficult to come across in person, and prone to attacking first if cornered by anyone too clean and official-looking, but now and then they can be seen disappearing around corners or heard whispering from side passages.

Navigating the mining shafts is fairly straightforward, most of the time. Widening passages and upward inclines are the way out; narrowing passages and downward inclines are the way in. If fire and glow stones fail, sending crystals cast a faint light that's enough to keep anyone from being completely blind in the depths. But there are still passages that turn back on themselves, downward tunnels boarded over with bridges that have begun to rot, tunnels half-flooded with Maker-knows-what, steep drops—and the occasional stampede of Fade-touched creatures, more and more frequent closer to the rift.

Close enough, the jet-black stone walls begin to reflect green light, and then the tunnels open up into a wide open space full of damp, briney cool air. And demons.

III. THE RIFT

It's just a rift: the usual split of churning green, so bright in the dark that it's nearly blinding, hanging over standing water in the center of a wide-open chamber, patrolled by the usual demons.

But once they're dispensed with, and the rift closed, the chamber is something more unusual. The standing water is salty—coming in from the sea, at least in part, never deeper than the knees (or waist, maybe, on a dwarf) but populated with a few small fish, and the stone around it is covered with deep mushroom, ghoul's beard, and a few sprigs of rare felandaris. Beneath the overgrowth, there are signs of architecture, dwarven columns and crumbling statues of dragons in the Tevinter style.

Beneath the water, the floor is carved with a design not unlike a glyph, and also not unlike the pattern of Kirkwall's streets. The Veil is so thin that a sneeze could have torn it open.

Comments

yngvi ota

[filthydipper]

closed to matthias
Maybe Yngvi could have said something but there are two people here and what good would it have done, realistically speaking, to have shouted? Because the outcome would still be the same (this is the argument he's playing in his head, a little puppet either hand which is how all good head arguments go) but noisier. Probably. It'd still be one dwarf and one mage child - how do you age a human anyway that's just an inconvenience - who'd gone arse over tit all the way down but someone could play the righteous victim. You don't do that with a mage about unless they're apostate for life and chill about the whole scene.

Anyway there's a ghastly stink to most noses which is the scent of home because you get accustomed to it and so long as it's not Orzammar eau de Darkspawn then sure Yngvi will take that any day of the week thank you good sir.

"I used to live down here you know, well not here-here but Darktown is Darktown, I'll find us a way." Someone will be the adult, the bigger man. (He is the shorter man. He is used to being shorter than the children but even mountains will be hewn to dust in time.) Then something-- yeah something touched him, that wasn't a drip. "Just a reminder, I've got dwarf eyes, I can see down here. So. Yeah. Just--" He'd point but he's trying to get a sense of where they even are and what that smell is.

darktown
No he's not--

Look right fine he's sort of slacking on the job but here's the awkward thing when your family actually does live where the job is and they want to know what's going and why they should bugger off when they could move in. (And really, sort of hard to argue that the Carta might be hard up in these times, resentful as they already are of the Riftwatch-formerly-known-as-Inquisition.)

"Just-- piss off somewhere else. And stop looting things until everything trying not to bite you in the arse isn't dead, why is that difficult?" Which is all hissed in the tired tone of a boy trying to explain to the old that no it doesn't work that way stop demanding things of me old people just please get it done and leave me be.


wildcard
[do you need a dwarf who knows their way around all of kirkwall? do you need an artificer? or do you have some other reason for requiring a dwarf?]

darktown.

[saam]

Eshal hasn't seen much of dwarves in her life. For the logical reason-- she hasn't been in places or jobs where dwarves tend to show up-- and practical ones-- being over six foot means you just kind of miss them. For whatever reason, it makes this exchange interesting. Is this how things always are between dwarves?

She makes no attempt to hide the fact that she's watching. Leaning against her spear (the walls are too damned dirty), her eyes flash curiously. When the dwarf seems finished with his conversation, she lets out a low whistle. "Official Riftwatch business, huh?"

[filthydipper]

One day thanks to certain folk (Thranduil and Wren the worst offenders in his private circle of three trusted folks) a dwarf is going to snap his head clean off and some terrible dwarven prophecy will come true, one all about those who live whole lives never knowing the Stone as a head rolls clear away to gaze up at the unforgiving empty skies that are being torn asunder--

But this is Darktown so that's not going to come to pass, not today Orzammar harbingers but Yngvi will absolutely almost trip over his own feet as a cousin (not a cousin but a cousin the way dwarves and Carta count cousins which is an unknowable metric to most folks) sees a chance, takes it, darting off with a lewd gesture his way.

"You swine," he mutters, almost proud because well we've all been that cousin haven't we? "Yes, official Riftwatch business serah you'll forgive me not bringing the papers down here but that's on account of them being pilfered for blatant forgery in days to come and that sort of finery wouldn't last, it'd shrivel up and run."

Probably. Maybe. He wouldn't know but he'd wager it'd try.

Anyway-- "How d'you fit down here, you didn't break anything load-bearing we're in enough trouble as is mate."

[saam]

She cracks a smile, sharp and uneven, and a sound emanates from the back of her throat that could be a laugh. "Don't worry, Luck. Won't let the whole place fall in on you. That'd be... downright rude."

Anyone this cheeky in these dire circumstances is worth tolerating. She turns, taking the spear along with her. "You know these tunnels? Could use a tour..."

[filthydipper]

"Luck?" Honestly it's for the best that no one's around to catch wind of that else Yngvi'd never hear the end of it over family dinners. "But all right cheers, I mean it'd come down on you first but who wants to go back to any sort of stone?"

(It's not The Stone but stone is stone, really, what's the difference?)

After another look up and down, Yngvi shrugs since why not it's not like he was getting anywhere was he and there's probably going to be work they run into. Or runs into them. "Know these tunnels? Look at me, course I know 'em, d'you not know how dwarves come about up on the surface, I know the merchants don't like it being put about but how could I not know these tunnels, come on, this way. I've got--" A thieves lantern, produced from a pocket just to help since most folks don't see just as well and it's heavy enough to serve as weaponry anyway. "How d'you end up down here, shouldn't you be spinning that all dramatic enough to put the mages to shame taking down bats in Hightown?"

[saam]

"I have this fantasy about not dying in a hail of rubble. Call me a romantic, I know."

But she listens, faintly amused. Do all dwarves ramble like this, or is it just him? Fun to listen to, either way.

"What, you want me to assume? Fucking rude, that is." As though it's not clear from her tone she couldn't give a fuck about rudeness. She shrugs and marches on, boots squishing through mud. "I don't have to show off to be impressive. Or do magic."

A wink. Not really flirtatious so much as... knowing? Friendly? Obnoxious?

[filthydipper]

"Epics and ballads and other bardly shit," what do bards actually do except cause problems - do they even do the writing bit? He'll need to find out one day. "That's what they'll compose about dying under the open sky, it's why dwarves don't got that."

Probably. He thinks. Orzammar is unlikely to tell him much but there's all that Shaperate nonsense that he gets to scoff at because oh look at them who even cares?

This is-- Yngvi makes a face, looks her up and down again which is going to be a mistake because she's taller than Wren who was in his estimation where anyone not Qunari or rifter capped the scales when it came to tall women. "Everyone assumes with dwarves it's part of the package, it's not even rude to assume you're just s'posed to." Actually it's rude, he appreciates it and he's smiling even if he doesn't want to because this is weird to not have someone just go with the worst when it comes to him specifically. "You just have to show up to be impressive I think, probably the tallest in the room does that or-- the spear? Not many folk with spears these days. More a two-handed axes and swords place. Or swords and shields. Where d'you even get spears? Thought the mages stole them when they got them bladed sticks."

He rolls his eyes before leading the way because good, someone else with no magic is what he's in the mood for today too many mages don't spoil the broth they can't even light the fire to cook the broth with evaporating it.

[saam]

"Kont-aar," she says, looking at her spear with gentle affection. It's her soul. It's her whole being. It's who she is.

It's a bloody spear. She's thought about the deep meaning behind that a few times, but it's all trash.

"Spears're big in Kont-aar. If you've heard of it. Not a lot of dwarves up there. Never met one before now. Well- not really. I've seen a few, talked to 'em, y'know, but no conversations."

[filthydipper]

"That's up in Rivain, yeah?" Yngvi turns to check and-- Right well some people get attached to things, for instance he loves twenty nugs, a cat that looks like a skinned sausage, a murderous goose, and a horse that's far too big for a runt of a dwarf.

Everyone has their thing don't they?

"Aren't spears big by-- oh right, gotcha, the Qun thing." Yngvi leads on, swings the lantern enough to make sure there's no one lurking or he absolutely will report them today on grounds of being pricks. "Well we drown so that'd probably be why I mean how would we get to Rivain? Tricky. Could always catapult but that's a calculated risk. So spears are a whole...thing. Like Qun-thing. Doubt dwarves'd do much business in Kont-aar if it's got the Qun it got rough for a bit when they were here all that time. What's it like up there? Worth leaving to end up in the literal shitpit?"

[saam]

Eshal smiles down at him, a little magnanimous, a little deep. Like a strong drink, bitter and sweet all at once, but for different reasons. "Every reason is a good reason to leave."

And then it's gone, replaced by the usual flippant sharpness, not caring one whit about having to crouch a little to keep from knocking her head into the fucking ceiling. "Your lot have the right of it, then. I mean, Rivain's good for trade, generally, but it's all full of the magical shite you sound soooo fond of. And you get farther north, you get into Qun territory. They don't do money."

[filthydipper]

"True enough." Unfortunately there's not the usual rabble down here to cover the strain, not entirely; darkness swallows many sins but not that.

Anyway, sometimes someone says something, just tosses it out casually - and it's their right and all, people can say what they want, some more than others - that she might as well have taken that spear and swept the legs out from under him as he turns, painfully slow, just to let his head catch up to the words. "They don't--" And logically, right, Yngvi did know this. He was here for the Qunari washing up. Here for them parking themselves in the docks. Here up until they set the city on fire when he took his leave with the rest of the company and never looked back until the Inquisition but it's one thing to know and another to know.

Like that lesson finally getting smacked into the back of your head that final time.

"How does it even work, not doing money? How d'you even live if you don't do money? Mages, fine, that's them and they've not the sense any sort of god gave a goat half the time bet they can't start a fire without some sort of meeting and waving their hands but you need money. To buy things. To live. That's scarier than the weapons and we used to run into them out on the Wounded Coast sometimes on the scenic route home and them was some big lads, real rowdy rough boys."

[saam]

"Nobody buys things. Everybody's got rations for food and clothes and all the shite they need, you give it if you need it, it's all-" she grunts, shakes her head. "It's bloody complicated. I couldn't explain it all if I tried."

[filthydipper]

"I think all of my fathers, and mothers, and right fine everyone you meet down here who you might even think, in passing, could possibly be related to me? I think they'd go back to Orzammar's tender mercies than rationing." Said as if it's a dirty word.

Because it is. And these are the ones who might take over all Thedas one day? Yngvi better be dead first.

"So, what d'you want to see down here? What's the essential Darktown experience for you because we can't take it all in on a oner." That'd just be bad business, obviously.

[saam]

"No family in the Qun, neither," Eshal says, voice grim. She knows it'll just open another can of worms. She just can't help herself.

She looks down at Yngvi and pokes him with the blunt end of her spear.

"C'mon, I'm not a tourist." What an insult. "There's shit down here that needs its arse kicked. At least."

[filthydipper]

"I could get behind that, I mean, you saw them just there. S'more trouble than it's worth nearly all the time unless you get one who does have your back solid." And where is that one? Not down here and in the midden that's for sure.

Sunning himself in Antiva from the last letter, the git.

"Actually, keep an eye for deepstalkers, they've had whole packs of the buggers all of over and they'll jump, all at once. Some of them spit." Which is about when something goes lurching ahead, an unsteady gait about it because it's front-heavy.

On closer - enhance his eyes - inspection that's actually a sideways scuttle.

"Why's there a crab down here?" He asks, turning to Eshal to gesture frantically with a great flapping of sleeves because look, are you in fact seeing what he is seeing. Crabs. In Darktown.

[saam]

"Those're the ones who squeak like kitt- what?"

Things where things should be. Bad sign. Magic sign. Same thing... Almost. Almost. Don't be so stupidly Qunari.

So she reaches with her spear to stab the crab. "Vashedan little-" Wrenching the creature into the light, yes, a crab. She's grateful Yngvi said its name aloud; she wouldn't remember the word in Trade.

She smiles. "You hungry?"

The thing is twitching and dripping mud, glowing faintly. Hopefully there aren't more (there probably are).

[filthydipper]

Note to self: check to see if Saucisse is defective because Saucisse has never sounded like a deepstalker. Surely a hairless cat should sound even more deepstalker-y?

"Kirkwall crab is the tastiest crab." Probably not, who knows what it ate. Or who. More likely a who down here what wildlife is there when everyone is eating the wildlife?

(He would know.)

"Wonder if some of the trap stuff could cook that thing up--" One way to find it is, of course, to have to just lob one, in the direction of eyestalks poking round the corner, a warm friendly glow that erupts violently, his ears ringing for a moment.

[inkindled]

"So if you can see, find us a way out," Matthias grumbles, in the murky dark.

It's not wholly dark. There's a sort of light about, and eventually, his eyes will likely adjust. If you stay in a deep cave long enough, that happens. He's heard about it. But it is still up-an-arse dark, and the smell is horrible, bad enough that Matthias genuinely thought he might sick all over himself. It was sheer force of will that kept him from doing so. No bloody way he'll show weakness to this fellow. Not after all the lambasting of how spoiled mages are.

So instead, Matthias has pulled the front of his shirt over his nose, up over the top bit of his worn leather armor. His voice is rather muffled as a result, and it's hard going, breathing through the fabric, but there's nothing to be done about that. The stench is hardly dampened but a little. Better than tasting shit in the air.

Spattered in Maker-knows-what filth, he's got his staff in his hand already. Not broken by the fall, by some miracle. Matthias uses its end to poke at the ground before him. Suspiciously squashy, no firm cobblestones. Bugger.

"This isn't Darktown Darktown, is it. Not the town-bit of it, I mean. This is... the bloody sewer."

[filthydipper]

"You know," Yngvi clears his throat and regrets it instantly because the thing about leaving for a decade with change to spare is that you breathe the fresh air and the fragrance is catching the back of his throat, thick and cloying when he swallows. "Folk pay good coin for tours down here. Fancy folks with little bundles of herbs up the snout, titles and deeds to their names. Used to be a trend for a bit."

He's buggered if he can remember the name for it but young dwarves and the Carta are nothing if not enterprising when it comes to anything and everything they might turn their hand to where coin is involved.

One axe in hand, Yngvi turns just enough to sort of look Matthias' way, trying for the sort of looks his lady gives but his lady has never been down here and his lady is also far better dressed than he ever is so it falls flat. "Darktown is Darktown, who d'you think owns it and excavates and opens it up? Mind you don't fall through, bit hard to judge depth without lanterns."

Which he does have but that'd be blinding and there's probably weird old Tevinter shit lurking, he grew up with those stories and no thank you. It's hard enough to mind where he's going as is with whatever that noise is over his sloshing footsteps (dwarven boots, great for not losing toes, shite for everything else under the sun) and heavy mouth breathing. "Hopefully nothing's behind us, I mean we'd probably know, right? Unless it's deepstalkers. Deepstalkers in Kirkwall they'll never get rid of 'em."

[inkindled]

Matthias waits until Yngvi is definitely focused forward before he risks a look over his shoulder. The dark behind them is proper dark. Dark darkness, thick like a curtain to be parted--only if he reached out to try that, something might reach back. His shirt slips off of his mouth a little, and he hastily tugs it back into place to protect his lungs from sewage air, and turns forward again to face whatever unknown they're walking into, instead of the unknown that might be following.

"'Course those were posh folks," he says, scornfully, "putting herbs up their nose so they can walk about in shit." Actual shit. "That's just the sort of stupid thing they'd be into, that lot. Why don't you have herbs with you?"

He prods at the ground in front of him again. If Yngvi's walked it, it ought to be all right to walk on. But maybe he's got some sort of secret dwarf path he's taking, and if Matthias steps anywhere else, he'll fall further down into worse shit. Not a chance he's willing to take.

[filthydipper]

There are a lot of answers Yngvi could give that range from the truth to outright lies to the vast gulf between the two where they overlap enough that Yngvi's not even sure at this point what's true and what's not. Hazards of growing up in the Carta that no one warns you about until you piss off for ten years and change then come home again.

His foot sinks deeper with a wet sucking sound, right down past the ankle and he curses quietly. Thanks things he doesn't think'll hear him all the way down here that he's not wearing elf boots and guddles about to get it free even if that just dredges up an even more offensive odour with it, the festering of older smells that had been somewhat protected until now. "It's not authentic if the dwarf's got herbs up his nose is it? That's what they want." Does that sound bland, the recitation of a student who's been told to just learn it right this time. "I've got twenty nugs anyway, if I've got herbs I'm feeding them to my nugs, special treats are better in their bellies than up my nose."

Up ahead there's a clicking sound. And a bristling, coarse hairs rubbed the wrong way against one another as a rot festers. Not just rot but a greasiness. Thick and oily, the ground beginning to shimmer, the walls not only wet but slimy with whatever it is as the noise builds, some sort of light faint if it's not a trick. All sorts of ghost stories down in the dark that Kirkwall likes to forget about.

[inkindled]

"Nugs don't eat herbs," Matthias says, in petulant connection. Like he knows what nugs eat. But it's never herbs, is it--but then again, maybe it's better if posh people's nose herbs get fed to nugs and then vomited up again, later.

He's got to shut up with any further commentary because the smell suddenly gets, impossibly, worse, and with a noise of horror, Matthias begins to try to hold his breath. That means first sucking in a great lungful of air, which means he's got the horrible smell in his mouth, but that doesn't really count, does it, that's--

What the shit is that. That noise. Matthias actually stops walking, his hand tight on his staff. He makes a noise of nose-plugged urgency. Mrghfk!: what is that? And Yngvi had better know, because if he doesn't know... well, then, Maker's balls.

i haven't played this game in like two years i don't remember what colours spells are

[filthydipper]

"A nug'd chew your arm off for some elfroot." Or whatever's in mabari crunch which is the sort of mistake you make only the once when you leave a handful of them in your coat pocket in reach of them and wonder how all your caltrops spill out when you go to fill said pocket up come morning.

Yngvi's about to say something as he shakes off a boot he will be burning later, he will be salting and burning and tossing the ashes into the waters of Kirkwall because that's all that can be done in this case when light dazzles him.

He's a dwarf, it's dark and he's used to it so the light is bright. Also green.

And moving fast.

"Shit duck duck duck!" Because that's a spell and how many eyes do pride demons have because those are eyes lurking now there's more light hurtling.

the best part about fantasy is, we can make up the color of magic

[inkindled]

Shit, is a thought Matthias has, right before instinct takes over. This is what he's for. Well--not this, precisely, there was never any sewer or dwarf going on about nugs--but there was the sizzle and smell of magic and the flash of a spell and, yeah, demons, once or twice--mostly men and women, but demons aren't unheard of--

All of which is to say that Matthias has his staff in hand when he ducks. And he ducks right away, without pause for thought or hesitation, because it's a dead man that doesn't duck when he's told to. The floor is soft and rotten, smells like shit. Matthias knocks the front bit of his staff against it anyways, ignoring the squelch. The hair on the back of his neck tingles as the barrier gleams into being--under their feet, and up. He can't do more than the basics with this sort of magic--offense, not defense--but everyone learned, they had to learn. When a barrier might be all that stands between you and getting cut in bloody half, you learn.

He stands again the moment the spell has cleared them, ready to fight. The eyes lurch out of the darkness: a body shaped like a spiked barrel, two stumping legs, a head like an overlarge spiny gourd that scrapes along the ceiling of the sewer tunnel. Its mouth splits open, displaying a sickly purple tongue, spittle and teeth, a maw. It roars.

Matthias hits it with fire, and it roars again, angry, and sweeps an arm out toward them, blunt and brutal enough that it could topple them like ninepins--

[filthydipper]

If the magic ends up making the smell worse (honestly that's a long shot, there's a point where you just stop smelling it because it becomes you until you start scrubbing it off then you just burn all the clothes and set fire to the bathwater instead of tossing that out) then Yngvi doesn't care too much. Just cares about skirting himself out of the way in a narrow space as his brain catches up.

"Tits. Why do spiders got so many bits on 'em? Who gave 'em the right?"

But that's by the by as he gets a small axe in one hand, a small glowing trap in the other and hurls the trap as he chops for a leg. The carapace is always tougher than he expects. Because no, giant spiders don't do anyone the decency of being squishy like the little ones and it jolts up his arm even going for the joint as he did.