[OPEN] FRIGHTENING FESTIVITIES

[heirring]

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: Celebrating a totally 100% legit wedding.
WHEN: Summerday
WHERE: Edlingham Hall, the Vinmark Foothills
NOTES: cw: Spectral Violence and Ghostly Gore; if you don't want to deal with the spooky ghost adventure half of the evening, feel free to say your character went back to Kirkwall early rather than staying the night.

PARTY;

A few hours' journey from Kirkwall, the great old shape of the house known as Edlingham Hall rises up from out of the Vinmark foothills. In the decades (ages?) since it's abandonment, what must have once been a very imposing stone structure built in the mountain's shadow has given way to age and the elements. What remains is unequivocally a ruin, albeit a stunningly elaborate one. It's a place of columns and alcoves, gutted passages and weather worn stairs leading to the skeletal remains of old towers and chambers, with everything turned to varying shades of brown and green and as it's been grown over or into by the surrounding landscape. There's hardly a roof remaining to be found in the whole of the place.

Luckily, this particular party doesn't require one. In what might have once been the titular hall, a series of tables and benches (borrowed from the Gallows, thank you very much) have been set up around a stretch of cracked tiles which has been more or less cleared for dancing and everything has been lit amply by a collection of merrily burning braziers.

Party-goers will be treated to a host of entertainment, included but not limited to: at least one speech (thank you, Provost Stark), a half dozen toasts, a rather impressive spread of Orlesian-styled cuisine (no doubt prepared by someone devastated to be expected to do so under such rugged conditions), quite a bit of rather good wine, music, dancing, and a few more avant garde Rifter-influenced party games including a vaguely wyvern-shaped pinata and some heinous game called Snap-Dragon.

And if none of that sounds like a good time, then there are ruins to explore, discreet alcoves to investigate, and a campground pitched in the ruin's shadow where one might retire early from the party with only a stock level of scorn.

AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT;

An eerie mist begins to stream from the cracked tiles of the dance floor. Riftwatch does not count a fog mage among their midst. Was one perhaps hired? Is this a trick of some science? A peculiar feature of the weather in this region? Such murmurs begin to circulate as the mist continues to thicken, and rise, and sour to a sickly pale yellow. It clashes with the decorations. Its touch seems to wither the impossibly sumptuous meal, curdling cream fillings and souring fine meats.

And then the screaming starts.

In the stone frame of an upper window, see her: a woman, in a long pale gown, with a horrible wound around her neck. Her slippers peep over the sill. Blood begins to drip down her front as her mouth opens, and opens, and opens, until her jaw rests upon her bloody chest.

Guests seated at the table will feel some creature bumping against their legs--something big, and solid, and hot, and hairy. When they pull away in horror, they will find nothing at all beneath the table. But the growling will not stop, nor will the crunching of teeth on bone.

The twisted figure of a man rises from a pile of tumble-down stone. His limbs hang at loose and unnerving angles. One arm has been crushed and droops down too low, brushing at his warped knee. His face is a mask of pain, and his left eye bulges as if ready to burst. Pressure has thrust his circlet of gold low on his brow, cinching his balding head. He shuffles toward the party, reaching with his ruined hands for human flesh. Or perhaps a cup of wine.

A headless body comes running out from the rotting main keep. It is wearing armor but is otherwise without identity. From its stump of a neck sprays a great geyser of blood, spatting party-goers and the ground and the food and whatever else is in its way. Its graying hands are reaching, but without a head, its path is random and monstrous, trampling over anything and anyone without regard. Or it would, if it weren’t spectral.

The ghosts must be stopped. Find the source of the haunting or this marriage will be ruined.

Those not interested in tracking down the source of the haunting will soon discover that the fog which has wreathed Edlingham Hall has become quite impenetrable. Attempting to escape the grounds will result in being impossibly turned around and eventually spit any would-be escapee back into the ruin. Solving the mystery may be optional, but experiencing the haunting by the aforementioned ghosts (and any other thematically appropriately specters your heart might desire for the convenience of creeping out your characters) apparently isn't.

Comments

[kantikoy]

"Anyone with enough skill can kill a dragon." Adrasteia shakes her head. "There's a process called the Joining, when one becomes a Grey Warden, it... changes us, from the inside out."

She smiles. "Well met, Zoya. I hope the party is to your liking."

[novokribirsk]

"You look normal enough to me."

Consideringly, though not probing. She's curious, of course, but hardly wants to drag anything out of this woman that she isn't interested in telling. Least of all at a wedding, how gauche. She'd nearly said you look human enough, then had remembered herself; small blessings.

"I've seen worse." She's seen better, too, but it's hard to compare stiff royal balls to the wedding of a beaming couple. Even if she isn't much of a fan of weddings. "But considering what I've heard about how long you had to pull this off, I doubt anyone could've done better."

[kantikoy]

Well there are the ears, which are long and pointed and definitely not human, but the tips of which are hidden beneath looping braids atop Adrasteia's head; it's probably for the best she hadn't said you look human enough because then the Grey Warden might have laughed in her face before she thought better of it.

"It's mostly a matter of the blood," she says, in a reassuring tone. She's changed, but she's no abomination. "No children, a shorter life span than some." A gesture; what can you do?

Adrasteia does smile at the slight compliment; she'll take what she can get. "I'm very fortunate in that the Lady de Foncé has good friends willing to help with an event like this, or I'm not certain I could have pulled it off."

[novokribirsk]

"And you volunteered for it?"

She doesn't, actually, sound concerned; nor even disapproving. Whatever a matter of the blood means — and frankly, it's not like she knows any so-called Warden enough to care — she can respect the profession. She might have done something similar herself, in another life.

Any further comments regarding the wedding are on pause, for now.

[kantikoy]

"I made a choice to go through with the Joining." Which is different, in her mind, then volunteering. "I didn't feel there were many other options for me at the time, beyond a drawn-out illness followed by death. And while death is always an option," a shrug, "it is not the option I chose that day."

A smile, and a shrug. It's the way of things and she's clearly not too broken up about it. "Besides I feel I've done... good, for others, as a Warden, and not wasted my time."