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

[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.