faderift | [OPEN] FRIGHTENING FESTIVITIES

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[OPEN] FRIGHTENING FESTIVITIES

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.

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With escape from the Hall blocked by the impenetrable fog, it's up to intrepid ghost hunters to find the source of the haunting. The ruin is home to a fantastic variety of spectral manifestations taking on the gory shapes, sounds, and gruesome deaths of the ruin's long string of previous occupants. And while the projections themselves are intangible, there is something very real lurking in the ruin alongside the party goers. What begins as relatively minor poltergeist activity - a brazier falling over, decorative streamers coming unpinned - intensifies as any self-elected ghost hunting parties begin to move in the "right" direction.

Eventually, using the tried and true "you're getting warmer" in proportion to the intensity of the haunting technique, a group will stumble upon an overgrown passage cut into the very stones which make up the ruin's foundation. This passage will lead to an underground crypt populated by a host of statues depicting the denizens of the Hall (including what must have been a beloved hunting dog). Each statue has an urn balanced in its upturned hands (or between its front paws).

The oldest statue is wearing a very real ancient battle helm matching what remains of a particular headless ghost's armor. The old Tevene helm has been spellbound with a spirit which has, over many many ages, become just powerful enough to get inventive. The crypt will need to be infiltrated, various ceremonial swords made into projectiles dodged, and the helm will have to be destroyed or dispossessed to end the haunting.

((ooc: one group thread, no tag order, chaos reigns. Start wherever you feel compelled but give folks time to pile in before getting to the crypt and solving The Mystery. Feel free to make up reasons for your character to come in late or leave early as the spirit(s) compels you.))

Edited 2021-05-01 22:38 (UTC)

party;

At every wedding Wysteria has ever been to, the newly minted husband and wife sit at some remove and are expected to reign over the party in its entirety like a miniature lord and lady of some importance. But candidly, she has always been of the opinion that it seemed quite dull not to be able to enjoy your very own party and so Wysteria has judiciously neglected to mention anything about that particular Kalvadan tradition to anyone who had asked after them during the event's planning stages.

Wysteria—in her best rose-colored dress and faintly clinking from the collection of copper coins tacked decoratively along the hems, draped in strands of what must be borrowed pearls—lasts in her ceremonial post at the head table for only an hour or two. During that time, she is game enough to weather various toasts and speeches, accepting congratulations and handshakes and whatever wishes (well- or otherwise) which might come her way.

But once the wine has had a little time to flow, Wysteria cheerfully contrives to be whisked off to the dance floor by any willing partner, or insinuates herself into enthusiastic conversation—("I imagine it is very like the Crossroads, in a sense. It is the Fade, and the places where Rifters comes from as the destinations one might reach through the eluvians. Only rather than passing literally through the mirror, only the Rifter's reflection travels through it. A copy, as it were.") ("If you were Queen Anora, what sort of suitor would you wish for?") ("Were it not prohibitively expensive to experiment with, I might wish to explore the utility of a sort of...lyrium lacquer as a way of temporaily boosting enchantments.")—with anyone (un)fortunate enough to be drawn into her orbit.

ghost adventures;

The first piercing scream curdles along the length and depth of the hall. The music shrieks to a halt. Dancers pause mid-stride. From where she has retired once more to her seat of the head table and was a moment ago neck deep in an perfectly enjoyable argument-slash-debate over some passage out of a recently published treatise dissecting The Canticle of Benedictions Through a Wartime Lens, Wysteria loudly barks out a thoroughly displeased:

"Why must this always happen?"

And then the night goes thoroughly to shit.

wildcard;

You know. Whatever.

Edited 2021-05-01 21:55 (UTC)

Because it's a wedding, Jone didn't bother bringing arms or armor. Her intention was to scrub herself clean and drink and dance. And she does-- looking cleaner than usual, hair carefully pulled back in a neat braid, Jone is content on the dance floor. In the lulls between songs, (a) she's only interested in pulling more in, grabbing the hand of passers by. "C'mon, this song's just grand."

Of course, it can't be a normal wedding, no. There have to be ghosts. (b) Seeing a headless knight approach, Jone screams and throws an instinctual punch. Her arm clangs on dirty metal. "Fuck!"

But she seems to be rallying for another strike, holding a nearby chair as a weapon.

Later, she can be found quite scuffed up and dirty, (c) trying to corner a dead woman, all over with blood. In her sword hand is a lit torch, and the other hand is using a dinner plate as a shield.

Desperate times, you know.

i. party
[ Byerly is drunk, and he is playing the fiddle magnificently. Absolutely magnificently. No matter what you think about the man, he is a talented musician, able not just to play a reel or a ballad or, hell, improvise something at a moment's notice, but to sometimes even do so while participating in the dancing himself. As long as the steps are familiar, he can skip them lithely, participating in a gavotte or a quadrille without missing more than a note here and there. ]

Hey! [ He cries at the end of a song, and then throws back a glass of wine in two gulps. ]

ii. ghost
[ By the time the ghosts show up, Byerly is properly shitfaced. And so his reaction to this spookiness, this truly terrifying monstrousness, is to grin and laugh, and say confidingly to his neighbor: ]

You know, I feel a bit like this is a metaphor.

iii. wildcard
[ you know how it goes. ]

party

You'd never know that attending wasn't Zoya's idea. She wears her long hair in an elegant twist, woven with a ribbon of midnight blue. Her dress is the same color, shimmering silk that flatters her figure. Her only jewelry is a silver bracelet at her wrist, studded with bone. It's possible that she's blown whatever cash she received from Riftwatch, so far, on this dress and having a kefta made. But she has priorities.

She doesn't particularly give a damn about the bride or groom, but she applauds politely at the right times, listens to speeches without (much) comment, drinks in time with toasts. (The wine, at least, is nice.)

During the dinner she may frown at some delicacy or other, but pride keeps her from asking what a particular dish is supposed to be. Still, her hesitation may be noticeable before she tries some new food or other. She doesn't immediately move to stand when the night turns to dancing, but she does watch, and she may consider invitations.

Surprisingly, she's keen on Snap-Dragon. Pomdrakon she calls it, and reaches for burning raisins without fear, eats them with relish.

Eventually, she seeks some time alone — and may be found passing through erstwhile hallways and alcoves of Edlingham Hall, considering a staircase, or a flaking, faded painting half grown over with ivy. Or maybe she notices someone else looking around, and her voice rings out jarringly above the faint ebb of the party:

"Don't touch that door. Unless you enjoy pieces of architecture smashing your skull."

spooks

Saints, she knew coming here was a bad idea. She might not have guessed that there would be hideous ghosts, it's true, but it's the principle of the thing. What matters is: she was right.

She'd attempted to clear the fog, at first, instinctively raising her arms to summon a gust of wind that had done absolutely nothing but knock over a table and shatter a particularly expensive-looking vase of flowers.

She can be found facing down the headless body, her arms outstretched, curls falling out of her coiffure, and a look of pure disgust on her face. She snaps,

"Can't you do that without making a mess?"

Again: priorities. What is she supposed to do, run around with a dead man's blood in her hair and splashed across her dress? Revolting. But she's unafraid, moves with easy grace as she summons, truthfully much more comfortable surrounded by shambling ghosts than she had been during the festivities.

wildcard

[ you know what to do ]

Hey! [is echoed by the drummer, whose shirt came off a long time ago-- never mind why-- and he's a grinning mess of sweat and curly hair as he shakes his hands out to ease the soreness from hours of keeping the beat.]

Edited 2021-05-01 22:33 (UTC)

Well played.

[ By is breathless; he wipes a sheen of sweat off his forehead. ]

I didn't know you had this much talent.

There's much you don't know about me, amico! [Spoken cheerfully, as Mado rises to stretch his back.]

You, too, are amazing! An athlete as well as a musician.

Beth's tired and merry--and sober, for that matter--when everything goes to hell. It's a familiar kind of fear at the back of her neck, seeing the dead shamble forward from the darkened parts of the ruins.

I did this, is her first thought. They're here because of me.

She still has her knife on her, even though it's a party. (It's not like she has anything fancy to wear, anyway. She did the best she could, but who's going to be that dressed up on a camping trip?) And right about now, it comes in handy. Scurrying around, stabbing things where she has to, trying to figure out who to talk to in the chaos--at least she's prepared.

She doesn't hesitate when she sees an unbelievably tall woman brandishing a torch at a walker. (They probably aren't walkers. But they act like them--) Marching up to the dead woman, Beth grabs her by one shoulder and stabs her in the temple, right where her jaw and her skull join.

The ghost woman screams, and Jone takes the advantage, rushing forward to press the flame into her bloody torso. Pulling back, she watches the flames lick up lace finery, moving around wet blood like a painters pattern.

"Strewth," Jone murmurs, "don't think she were invited."

She maneuvers herself between the flaming ghost and the human girl without thinking.

The bloodied woman hardly reacts to someone trying to push a blade into her brain, and it might be the most reassuring thing Beth's ever seen. That's not what a walker would do--a walker would be a pile of rags and rot at her feet.

Unless they're different here.

"What are they?" she asks, voice low in hopes of keeping more attention from coming their way. The fire consuming this one is already likely to make them come, like moths to a flame.

Jone still has her arms up, stance as sure as if it were carved from stone. Her faith in her ability to survive this is close to unshakable.

Dying like this would just be too fucking stupid.

"No expert, me," she says, "demons, most like. Always fucking demons, these days. Hey, nice work with the knife."

"Thanks." She edges out from behind the woman, who doesn't exactly look like she dressed for a party, either--though that might just be due to the sudden infestation of dead. There's hesitance in her voice as she asks, "Does stuff like this happen a lot?"

This is the first time she's left the Gallows since she arrived. Things aren't going exactly how she'd imagined.

"Things just like this? No."

Jone stands a little straighter, but she still has her arms out, ready with weapon and shield should the need arise.

"Things as fucking daft as this? Yeah, more'n I'd like."

PARTY:

Why.

Why is he here?

Silas is here because he was invited. The entirety of Riftwatch was invited.

He’s notable on the celebration’s outskirts only for his stillness, at odds with lively dancing and raisin-snatching while he watches the glitter of Wysteria’s dress while she whirls, raucous laughter over splashes of burning brandy, and so on. He has a drink in hand to blend, and is finely dressed in a dark blue jacket with copper buttons, no open evidence of any knives on his person.

Having obviously learned from past experiences, he is well back enough to avoid being snatched directly onto the dance floor while he’s busy skulking.

ALCOVE:

Caught out one too many times, or simply left to his own devices, he eventually retreats into a darkened alcove to smoke. The music is muffled from here, fiddle and all, traces of conversation and laughter harder to hear.

He raises the match before it goes out, lifting long shadows across mossy stone and flows of ivy trailing upward. After a time, Thot appears atop the edge of a crumbling wall to keep a lookout, black on black in the dark.

It’s not quite midnight yet, but who’s keeping track on a night like this?

[ Adrasteia was in the middle of eating a cream puff, when the fog rolls in. She tries casting it away, but chalks up her inability on the fact that she's had... quite a lot of wine for her small stature.

And then she has to immediately spit out the cream puff into a napkin, pulling a face. ] Eugh.

[ (It's a wedding, and supposed to be a celebration. She's been here since the wee hours setting up for this event. If anyone has a problem with the Morale Officer being drunk, they can take it up with her when she's sober.)

In the moment between that and her spotting the nearest specter, Byerly's words catch up to her wine-soaked brain, and she looks up at him with a frown. ]

For the marriage?

[ Wysteria has just started shouting. ]

early arrivals & setting up;

It's barely sunup when Adrasteia, in a green and cream dress (Riftwatch colors! kind of) arrives at Edlingham Hall along with several wagons of borrowed Gallows furniture, braziers, and party decorations.

She's busy for the next few hours running around, lifting things with her small but strong arms, listening as Pierre, Madame d'Asgard's personal chef, yells about the time constraints, the lack of amenities, and how it is frankly quite insane to expect him to pull a party of this size out of a ruin in the mountains, a few servants, and one mage.

Adrasteia nods along, understandingly, as she winds streamers around pieces of pillars and stuffing the (slightly misshapen) Wyvern pinata full of small wrapped candies and treats. There's also an open bottle of wine next to her that Pierre declared was not up to snuff for cooking; she may be taking sips from a glass of it.

It may be early, but this promises to be a long day.

Feel free to interrupt her as she busybodies around, or to have ridden up into the mountains with her; she won't have turned away assistance.

the party underway;

The bottle of wine that Pierre had 'gifted' her has long since been finished, and Adrasteia has not stopped drinking as people began arriving from Riftwatch in droves. She welcomes most of the arrivals in person, in the earlier part of the day, and thanks them for coming, pointing out where the food and games are.

Once people are eating, and dancing, she stops with the greetings and decides to enjoy herself, which means occasionally sampling the food, or putting out a brazier that got knocked over (by the wind?), rehanging streamers, or simply coming up to someone and asking "Would you like to dance?"

She won't be too put out if you say no.

a haunting we will go;

Adrasteia is good and drunk, come midnight, and she frowns at the fog rolling in, peering at the sky first before sweeping an arm to try and cast the fog away.

It doesn't work, and that just has her frowning more deeply.

Then the food turns bad and several specters show up and Adrasteia literally throws her hands in the air. "What is going on?"

"Hold on."

Adrasteia blinks at Wysteria seriously as she runs through her mind what the other woman just said, and then runs it through again in order to be sure she heard right.

"You think that the Rifters here are just... reflections of their real selves?"

"Oh, you came!"

Adrasteia spotted Richard earlier but there were too many people between the two of them for her to say anything; she didn't want to scream towards him across the 'room', as it were, so she's pleasantly surprised to have found him again after he disappeared earlier.

She looks up and spots Thot and smiles before turning that same smile on to Richard.

"Would you be interested in dancing with me?"

"It's veal," comes the unprompted answer to the unasked question. The elven woman who has spoken up Zoya may have noticed welcoming people earlier as they came in, or listening to the complaints of the head chef for this little shindig. "It's not bad, actually. I think you should try it."

Presuming she eats meat, which... well. Adrasteia doesn't know anyone who doesn't, so that'd be new.

party

Despite some misgivings — that were not shared by her companions for the event — Madame de Cedoux arrives for the Poppell-de Fonce nuptials in the company of Julius, Marcus, and (most importantly) Vysvolod, who looks to have been groomed as well as given a violet ribbon to wear in place of his usual collar. It is violet, matched to the vibrant royal hue of the velvet riding habit that Petrana is wearing; a colour that quite probably no one present has ever seen her wear, and of a fashion just distinct enough it might be correctly deduced to be, as she is, Lamorran. It is, if not the finest thing she now owns, certainly more than fine enough to fit Wysteria's brief for an elegant juxtaposition with nature: the outfit is complete with matching gloves and hat, the latter tilted fashionably over curls pinned elaborately enough someone was probably paid for their trouble and the high collar covering her usual adornment of jet. She has a small, neat pair of amethyst earrings with drop pearls, and it would be fair to say she's pushed the boat out on this one.

While it is her inclination to hover near her companions, partly of preference and partly because she isn't entirely sure that unleashing Marcus on a wedding is the cleverest thing she's ever done, it is possible to catch Petrana apart from them (if not, generally, from her dog: he is a frankly enormous wolfhound who will be inspecting all approaches) as she is quite possibly not actually capable of attending any sort of gathering without making a game attempt to mingle, network, and manage.

She always seems to have a drink; she is almost never seen drinking it.

haunting

( i'm going to tag out for this, but please feel free to wildcard me or hmu for something specific. )

“I think of it more as divergence — I would not wish to imply of either of ourselves that we are, in some fashion, lesser than what we left behind us, and it is a difficult enough thing for some to stomach,”

not her, granted; it is freeing if sometimes complicating the way that she thinks of herself, her history, and her relationship to what she knows followed after it.

Wysteria's attention pivots over her cup of wine and readily recenters on Adrasteia.

"Yes, precisely. —Well, more or leas. Copies, perhaps, if that tern if preferable. For evidence suggests that our presence here in Thedas doesn't preclude our continued lives there in the place from which we came. Somewhere on the other side of the Fade, the person I was is going about her business as if no part of her had ever passed elsewhere."

"Oh, yes! Certainly that is my exact notion, Madame de Cedoux!" Wysteria, with a cup of wine in one hand and her skirts carefully controlled with the other, seems quite pleased to have Petrana at the edge of the conversation at all, to say nothing of novelties such as agreement.

"Naturally it would be preferable to think of ourselves as distinct individuals more that merely the vision of the person who might have projected us. But for the sake of illustrating the argument to others—I have found the metaphor quite apt."

“I had said to our former Provost,” there is no trace of her opinion of the man in it, trace warmth for Wysteria and genuine interest in the conversation that they're having, “the Fade is simply a place that is typically touched by minds and not by hands. Obviously, the experiences of both the Inquisition and of Riftwatch do indicate that that is not the only means by which the Fade may be accessed, but when we speak of its nature.”

She uses her own cup to gesture, illustrative; it is a gracefully done thing, and the wine is never in any danger of spilling.

“We were all dreaming, after all. Sleeping, at least. I believe he took something of an informal poll — but his findings were remarkably consistent. And my own experiences do lend themselves in support.”

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[OPEN] FRIGHTENING FESTIVITIES

GHOSTBUSTERS;

wysteria | ota

jone | ota.

Byerly, ota

zoya | ota

i

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c.

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dick | ota

ii

adrasteia | ota

enthusiastic conversation

alcove;

party @ the dinner table;

petrana de cedoux | open

enthusiastic conversation.

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