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

closed for loki

[coquettish_trees]

Even living a life such as Loki's, there are some things that entirely cross the border into the unexpected; such as catching your wife, her robe slipping fetchingly off one shoulder, in the middle of speaking rather suggestively to a waist-high spider in the corner of the bathing room opposite the door.

"I take it I am to be tied this time, then, mon habile coeur," Alexandrie purrs pleasantly as it waves its forelegs at her in wary curiosity.

[hwaaaitsme]

Loki halts in the doorway, his quill grasped in one hand and his notebook in the other. His wife, a beautiful creature always, is draped coquettishly against the countertop, her favorite sylph robe falling off her shoulder, and making the fondest bedroom eyes at--what appears to be a massive, fade-touched spider.

Its arms are raised in warning and its...well he can't recall what they are called. The bits with the fangs in them. Not quite a mouth. This is why he hated changing into insect shapes. There was venom? Something dripping.

"My dear?" Loki prompts, still frozen in half step, and debates his course of action. He is fast with a knife but the creature is already prepped to attack. He might be faster than it...but it is not his own life he is gambling with.

"Am I interrupting?"

[coquettish_trees]

One night some time ago, allowing a sizable snake to wind its way up her arm, Alexandrie had mused on what she might do were her lover to walk in the room at that very moment.

Ah. The warm suppleness of her shape becomes statue, and her head turns slowly to look over her shoulder at Loki with a wide-eyed and entirely dumbfounded expression of the caliber that, were this to have been a cleverly executed illusory trick on her, would have him smugly glorying for at least a week.

He is as warily paused as she is.

She waits for his mouth to make the tiny pleased twitch of a smile it often will when the desired result has been achieved but he feels like elongating pretense all the same (it doesn't), and then takes in a long shuddering breath through her nose, eyes widening further as another set of legs reaches slowly into view behind him.

[hwaaaitsme]

The spider before him has not shifted its attention though the paling of Alexandrie's face does indicate another problem. There is never just one spider, after all.

"May I suggest you pull back your hair?" Loki suggests quietly, conversationally, in a tone designed to prevent these creatures from becoming agitated. The hand around his quill twitches just slightly and his expression shifts just slightly as he decides what spell to throw. It will be large, quite possibly explosive, and is likely to destroy the room. He would prefer he not set her aflame in the process but he dare not attempt to cast a barrier before casting an attack.

That he has decided to commit to magic rather than weaponry speaks to how concerned he is with ending this very quickly. Timing is key.

[coquettish_trees]

Her chin dips just enough to be called a nod, and she reaches up at a very sedate speed to tie her hair around itself.

"There is," Alexandrie replies in the same manner, "a second one behind you, although I see but three of its legs. Were you to turn now, it should be to your left." The desire to look back at her erstwhile paramour is immense, but she holds it in check and tries to breathe reactivity back into her body instead.

"Am I to go to your left or right?"

[hwaaaitsme]

"Left and low, if you please," Loki requests politely and there is a distinct, ominous sort of gurgling click just behind his right elbow. They are out of time.

He smiles once, a bit exasperatedly, at his wife and, with all of his impressive speed and agility, he moves. His quill and papers are dropped and forgotten the moment they leave his fingers. He brings one hand up, flames already dancing at his fingertips, and the rune springs to life on the marble of their bathing chamber.

The spider hisses and lunges at all once, spitting a torrent of venom. The only saving grace here is that it has decided to spit it at him rather than Alexandrie and that decision, alone, has required a split second of movement. The rune below it explodes the moment Loki is done casting and a curling burst of searing flame fills the air. It scars the floor with its severity and sets the heavy curtains ablaze.

He wastes no time checking if that spider is dead--it is, or it will be in seconds, and instead whips around to his right, flame trailing his fingers as he tries to counter the second creature. Unfortunately he has not seen it and he cannot be as quick as he just was.

[coquettish_trees]

When they had moved on from dagger-work and he had begun to teach her to fight mages, timing had been the very beginnings of it: what was the spell, what was the range, how long the casting. As a result of the intent observation borne from a mixture of prideful scholarship and terrible adoration, she had learned his timings with some precision. It is due to this that in the slender moment between Loki starting his spell and the heat and force of the explosion behind her, Alexandrie picks the perfect time to spring from her position into the long low dive he'd asked of her.

There's little time to be proud of herself, however. The second spider, drawn to her sudden sharp movement, scuttles halfway up the wall far faster than it has any natural right to and issues its own gout of flame, forcing her to awkwardly continue her now scrambling roll with a startled shriek rather than making her planned snatch for the knife she happens to know is tucked into Loki's boot.

At the very least, she's been distraction.

[hwaaaitsme]

Alexandrie dives at precisely the right moment, something he had no doubt she would do, but it draws the beast's attention to her. It scurries up the wall, spitting and vomits flame in their direction and Loki curses as he brings his hand up and changes the spell mid casting.

There is a lurch in the veil around them, uncomfortable and nauseating, as his fire rune becomes a barrier. The spell is brittle and, as the flame hits it, the barrier takes the damage but shatters as it does. Invisible shards of magic burst out into the room, cutting the décor as surely as broken glass would. The curtains, already on fire, are now a waste of tattered, smoldering ribbon.

The spider, unfortunately, has yet to die but the backlash from changing a spell so swiftly stings. Loki recoils and shakes his hand, a split second motion that is reflex as pain creeps down his fingers, but it is not helpful with something this fast.

[coquettish_trees]

Something whizzes past from behind him, then a second and third projectile in quick succession.

Alexandrie had been unarmed, but the tiles of the floor, splintered and flung from where the rune had been ignited, had afforded something at least. Awkwardly weighted as they are, they'd cracked thinly enough to have a wounding edge which is immediately demonstrated as the first slices across a foreleg, and the second weightier shard finds a home buried squarely in the creature's head. The third crashes loud and ineffectual against the wall as the spider tumbles from its perch clicking loudly in distress, instinctively trying to force its body to continue to work around the tile lodged in its brain.

It disgorges flame again, paltry and poorly-aimed compared to its previous blast. The bulk of it curls against the doorframe, but some goes through, and by the high-pitched angry noise somewhere between click and screech, apparently it's lightly singed a third creature.

[hwaaaitsme]

"Lovely," Loki curses quietly and, as the creature flails in its death throes waves his hand back and casts a barrier again. This one is far better formed and washes over the both of them with a cool, electric sensation.

He bends his knees, doesnt kneel presicely, and reaches to take Alexandrie by the forearm. He hoists her upright and keeps her behind him as he conjures a spirit blade in his off hand.

"Be prepared to drop to the floor should there be many."

[coquettish_trees]

Alexandrie hums a wary acknowledgment and, although she now finally brandishes a blade—retrieved from his sleeve on the way to her feet—stays where he'd placed her in his wake.

She has half-a-hundred questions, and asks none of them. Plenty of time to consider the implications of magic spiders once they're no longer a threat.