faderift | RESCUE, ROAST, RECONNAISSANCE

The chill of the air in Kirkwall seems to follow the rescue party as they head north through the Vimmark Mountains - or perhaps it is just the sense of urgency that has caused the feeling to sink under the skin and linger there. The journey takes you all through the mountain paths and up to where the land meets forest further north into the Free Marches.

From within the trees, you can hear a handful of voices at some distance. It's difficult to discern from here but it is a sign that you all may be getting close.

Edited 2021-10-18 04:59 (UTC)

It's normal for Marcus to be quiet on any kind of journey out, even if among friends, let alone more mixed company. Businesslike, sure, short verbal exchanges unless a nod or a shrug will do, but normally with at least some quiet element of enjoying himself, even in the worst of circumstances. Like even after all these years, it's still enough to breathe in deeply and taste forest or ocean, or look up and see sky.

None of that, this journey. Impatient with wrong turns, anxious to get moving, to move faster. Silent like a closed fist, rather than a rock.

He's worn his staff up on his back these last few hours, bowing him a little forwards in his saddle as he urges his horse along over mountain paths. The pin that denotes him as a part of Riftwatch is snagged in the collar of his cloak, but he's wearing his own set of armor rather than their new uniforms, layers of leather and fur, buckles and chain. Nothing very Circle-like about it.

Then, voice on the wind, and his posture straightens, alert. "Hold," he says to the group, quiet, maybe more indicative by the way he pulls his horse to a stop.

Edited 2021-10-18 06:44 (UTC)

Unlike Marcus, Glimmer has opted into the uniform for the first time out and about. For one thing, it's pretty comfortable. For another that cloak is coming in handy as chill autumn weather settles over the Free Marches and they wind through the mountains. She has her hood pulled up and is sunk down into the saddle, trying to trap as much warmth near herself as she can. At least her horse is a big ol' heater herself. Her staff is kept slung at the side of the horse in a sort-of scabbard--easy to retrieve in a pinch. She's made some small-talk with the others, but now she's lapsed into a comfortable silence. When Marcus pulls up, she hurriedly does the same and glances back along the line of horses, one hand raised.

"Marcus?"

Never one to turn down free clothes, Matthias is also wearing his uniform, his armor strapped over it. It was very early out from Kirkwall that he'd self-consciously begun to wish very much that he was wearing anything but his uniform, something more normal and less conspicuous, like Marcus. He'd taken to surreptitiously folding and tugging and turning inside-out whatever pieces he could easily maneuver whilst riding a horse and keeping alert, magic and obligation and purpose crackling close under his skin.

On the bright side, he is quite warm. He's just struggling with the thick fold of the cape as Marcus' quiet command filters back. Immediately Matthias drops his hand to grasp his staff instead. He pulls his horse up behind Glimmer, his eyes flicking around them, attention snapped sharp and posture alert.

He manages, somehow, not to say anything. A true feat for him.

The uniform registered to Abby as a fancy option of dress and therefore she isn't wearing it out somewhere she's likely to instantly muddy or tear it; the Forces pin has been clipped haphazardly to the neck of her shirt, close to her collarbone. She is a little cold, but she is finally used to the weight of her armor, and sword at her side, so. Everything evens out.

And she's happy to bring up the rear and probably best suited for it, having spent her life up until this point listening out intently for any sudden disturbance. She knows how to tune idle chatter out, not that there's much of it. The mood is tense, and almost somber as the horses wind their way through the forest, and Abby sits straight-back in her saddle, jostled gently from side-to-side by their steady pace.

She has the feeling they're all waiting for something to happen.

It does. She pulls up at the sound of voices, her head lifting, eyes darting immediately to Marcus at the head of pack. There's a handful of separate voices filtering through the trees toward them: they may be evenly matched.

Ahead of them—

the sound of about half a dozen Venatori, combing through the trees and underbrush nearby the still smoldering campfire that Tsenka and Myron had abandoned in haste, an effort probably doomed to failure to try getting the drop on people there is no hope of securing much element of surprise with. Tsenka's staff is stolen, an ill-fit, and she has a matter of weeks of freedom under her belt—

but what's she going to do, not try?

Pressed flat against the trunk of a tree, clutching her staff in her hands, she judges the distance of footsteps to be too close for comfort and casts up a brief prayer that Marcus had rolled out of his bed and onto a horse when she spins out from behind it and casts a shattering veilstrike directly at the mages who were about to find her, sending them flying into their fellows and giving up on any pretense that hiding is a solution.

For posterity: Derrica is not wearing her uniform.

But she acts the moment the concussive blast of Tsenka's conjuring splits the quiet. Her grip on her staff shifts, heavy focus drawing through the air above her and summoning a burst of light, drawing barriers up over their party.

Marcus hasn't instructed them, hasn't said how they should proceed, but this is a logical first step: a layer of protection against them and whatever is waiting for them ahead.

From where they are, it's impossible to discern things like accent, the content of conversation, but—numbers, which tells them something of those other things. A search party. At the prompt of his name from Glimmer, Marcus spends a second between deciding whether they ought to orchestrate an ambush or simply charge in—

And the decision is made when there is a flash of magic up the incline, through the trees.

For a second, his vision swims with the brilliant shock of the defensive magic that Derrica casts, gleaming off metal, the sheen in horse hide, and it seems to spur him into action. With a sharp kick, Marcus drives his horse forwards, loose earth and stone tumbling beneath hooves that both race and climb up the short crest of mountainy path. One hand grips the reins and the other reaches back for his staff, tugging it free, an invisible draw of the Fade coalescing around its bladed point as he leads the way.

Through the trees, old things with branches that grow high up the trunk, they'll see them, a scattering of robes, armor, swords, staves. Getting to their feet, the ones wielding weapons closing in on something, others drawing backwards, the flicker of glyphs in the air.

Marcus reacts. He drags his staff around alongside, a muscled effort like he's slicing the blade through something thick and cloying rather than empty air, and a crack opens up through the ground from a few paces in front of his horse, veining off towards charging zealots. Fire and ropes of lava leap from fissure, and he isn't looking to see if it does damage as well as disruption as he dismounts, landing from a leap.

Glimmer is dragging her own staff from where it hands at her horse's side and swinging herself off the animal in hurried motion as everything seems to happen at once. Derrica is throwing up a barrier--which means she doesn't have to worry about doing that herself. Marcus is charging off and she hurries after him, resisting the urge to simply teleport to his side--she needs to preserve herself for when it might really be needed. Staff in one hand she takes position to Marcus' left, peering through the tangled trees and undergrowth. She catches a glimpse of a man with a sword and raises a hand, firing off a blast of bright pink-and-white energy. She isn't sure she hit her target, but at least it's likely to draw their attention off their other targets, right?

"There--!" She calls out, conjuring another burst of light and using it as a sort of pointer, blasting in the direction of the oncoming enemy.

From behind his own tree for cover, he sees shades of pink and white amongst the more usual colors of orange and yellow play across where the light passes through the trees - and at first, is alarmed by such unfamiliar colors in combat. When he hears a voice that isn't Tsenka or their pursuers, the realization lands that such colors must be unfamiliar for a reason and with it comes a measure of relief. He and his fellow escapee had been outnumbered before, but perhaps - depending on the number that has come - they would be evenly matched now for a proper defense.

He's an academic - he hasn't had to do much actual fighting in some time. Leave the violence to those who prefer it and all that unless absolutely necessary.

Taking the approach of others as a window of opportunity, he steps out from cover to focus a crackling build of magic through his staff towards one of the zealots nearby. With their attention turned away from him, he casts a bolt of chain lightning to one, arcing to the next one closest to them before fizzling out. From the distance, he can be seen as a figure in a worn and modest-looking cloak with more luxurious layers of clothing peeking out from underneath (he refused to change into something less so without suitable replacement, and he deemed nothing they came across in escape as suitable).

Matthias is happy to have lept free of his horse, always more comfortable with his boots on earth than on any other surface. The forest has split open now, and the crackle of magic is singing all around them, pink and glowing orange and the burst of unfamiliar veilstrike out there like a beacon--plus the shimmer of Derrica's barrier which he can feel, still, like the way your hair stands up with static after you pull on a wool robe only better and less cloying.

There is danger here but it's all very right, too. This is what he's meant to be doing. Not fighting other mages but fighting. As lighting crackles to life among the enemy, Matthias slams his staff down and then out, a full body shove that carves the end into the dirt. A whump of hot air goes out between the trees, an invisible seam that splits and erupts into a curved wall of fire, a wall meant to herd forward the ones that were drawing back.

Matthias runs after the push of his magic, chases it toward the fight and that figure what sparked that lightning. He has to keep him in view. Friendly fire is only funny when you're in a party with a templar or two.

Abby, the odd one out, not a spark of magic to her name, heralds the rear.

She too dismounts from her house, perhaps ungainly, but nobody is paying any attention to her anyway. She hides her stumble in the undergrowth, and pushes forward with Matthias as he clears a path toward people that she can hit with her sword, her knuckles, anything to be of assistance.

Somebody is raising their hand: a mage with a book in the other, the spine actually free from his palm and floating, but Abby doesn't care about that. She draws her sword and brings the fight up close, breaking his attention, ruining his spell. It's difficult to keep the rest of the scramble in her periphery, but she's aware of at least one figure that is fighting on their side from the middle of the field, so she keeps her back to that direction, figuring somebody will watch it for her.

The sudden appearance of aid comes as such sweet relief—the uniforms some of them are wearing: less, unfamiliar, nothing she'd seen in the dreams she'd dragged her hands through on their way to this point—and the explosion of lava into proceedings makes it clear to her even before she's managed to clock Marcus himself that he has come, and brought help, and possibly

just maybe

she may not be about to die.

So that's a relief. As willing as she'd been to fight to the last if it were going to be, Tsenka is not an idiot; these people are well-rested and well-equipped, two things she is very much not, and upon grasping the concept that rescue is at hand she spins her staff to smash it into the face of the Venatori nearest her (not Myron), timing it with an elemental blast of ice that buys her some space to make a beeline for,

“Kevin,” incredulous, and caught so off-guard by this stupid horse's unlikely survival that she's near tears when she gets close enough to grasp his bridle and huddle, exhausted, behind Derrica's barriers.

Their newly acquired charge is something for Marcus to sort out, surely. Derrica's passing acknowledgement is simply a brief look back to Marcus before she lights out after Matthias.

Matthias has been to war and he is very capable and Derrica would still like to be close enough on hand to have him in her periphery. (Him and Abby, both on the edges of her awareness) It doesn't distract from the leaping crack of lightening she yanks down from the sky to strike the burly Imperial soldier right before Derrica brings her stave to his jaw in a sickening crunch that sends him crumpling into a singed tangle on the ground.

"Are we leaving?" feels like a pertinent question, aimed for Marcus. Are they fighting this to the very end, or are they taking their newly acquired fellows and retreating?

The bladed staff Marcus is holding hits the ground, freeing his hands to reach down, grasping soiled Grey Warden armor, not an insignificant amount of loose hair strands caught up in the fist he makes around Tsenka's cloak. No time to think or react or even laugh for her rapturous appreciation of reuniting with his horse,

only pulling her off her feet and into the saddle. She is bird-boned, brittle, lighter than he remembers, and for a moment this is sort of an embrace, the tangled loop of his arms, her skull bumping his chin—

But then Marcus drops down off the other side, landed two-footed on the earth, and collecting up his staff. An open-palmed slap to Kevin's flank gets him moving, clocking Derrica's words. "Not yet," is the simple answer, as is his next action, which is to bring his staff around and send a ripple through the earth that drags stone out from some deeper core, jagged rock wreathed in flame and smoke that he sends crashing into a well-armored zealot that had been rushing to defend the Venatori mage at Abby's mercy.

As he wades in deeper, at his feet is the electrified body of one of the zealots—still alive, but only barely. Marcus turns his staff and with the same careless precision of a butcher, carves the bladed end through the meat of the man's neck and shoulder, smoke rising. Marcus looks up, trying to identify the source of that specific assault, spying Myron across the way.

Edited 2021-11-08 09:54 (UTC)

Glimmer darts forward a little further, edging out of the protective barrier as she tries to get an angle on one of the Venatori mages. Her staff is aimed and another blast of light and energy is set off. It misses, sadly, but does succeed in blasting a significant chunk of a tree nearby the enemy, which does do a reasonable job of distracting them. She ducks away as they try to return the favor and narrowly misses a blast of flame--the heat feels hungry and fierce against the autumn air.

Readying herself for another go, she steps back out from behind her chosen tree and gasps as it feels like someone takes a stave and slams it against her side. She staggers a bit, adrenalin coursing through her, and leans against her staff before her good sense tells her to drop lower to the ground so she doesn't make so good a target. She lsumps to sit against a tree and hisses as she realizes there's an arrow sticking out of her padded coat. She moves to grab at it and pauses, wincing in pain as the arrow head scrapes against the rib it's stuck against.

"ShiiiiIIIIT--!" Glimmer lets out a pained, angry profanity. "They got me."

Why did I say that? That sounds so stupid. Who actually says 'they got me?' Her train of thought babbles at her inanely. Get up. Get back to the horses. She uses her staff to push herself back to her feet and stumbles back in the direction of the others, firing a few energy blasts back the way she's come to discourage any further offensive arrows from the marksman.

Matthias never strays too far from the barrier's edge, darting out to fire off a spell or deliver a smack with his staff, then leaping back again to take quick refuge. He's conscious of Abby as well and sticks nearly as close to her--though she does seem capable, for all that she's not got any magic. The others are farther away but he's aware of them too, sparks on his periphery. The rumble of Marcus' spell and the rocks that spit up from the ground. The shock of Derrica's lightning. He can hear their voices, but the whooshing of his blood in his ears and the pulse of his adrenaline drowns out the specifics. He doesn't need to hear anything. If they draw back, he'll draw back. Until then, he'll stay where he is, directing the fire.

Glimmer's cry does get his attention. Quickly he clocks what's happened; quickly he sends a thin tributary of flames after her. The seam billows into a curtain meant to consume other arrows that might follow behind her as she retreats.

Her lightning is still crackling the air, the chunk of bark and wood landed heavy where it had fallen from the tree. With a shove of his hand, Matthias sucks threads of heat from it, embers that spark before they lift into new flames. He shoves that toward one of the armored zealots and the fire hits like a punch, heating the metal of the armor like a cookfire to a pan. The zealot's shriek makes Matthias grin a little. He doesn't know to look for Myron. He's busy.

The sounds of chaos around her filter in and out but Glimmer's high, angry note rings very clearly over the top like wounded birdsong. Abby recognises the voice and foolishly turns her head. She's lucky that Marcus took out the zealot coming toward her; the mage, flat on his back, has either been knocked out cold or died. Abby whirls back to double tap him anyway, delivering a rough twist of her sword through his chest. The look on her face is calm, and grim.

They're winning, she thinks. The magic is difficult for her to parse. She's most aware of Matthias flanking her, which is comforting, because he is doing something with light and heat that she would never like to be on the receiving end of.

A horse whinnies in the middle distance. Somebody is screaming, loud, and long, and terrible. Myron is a bright point of difference dotted in-between people wearing similar clothing and armor, and Abby pushes in his direction, dodging blasts of magic as best she can. One dings solidly off of her armor and staggers her, making her sink a knee down into the mud with a grunt of surprise.

"Behind you," flung at Myron haphazardly, as a mage steps deliberately into range, raising an arm–

Edited (rogue s) 2021-12-02 03:24 (UTC)

RESCUE, ROAST, RECONNAISSANCE

RESCUE

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i heard there was Violence occurring.

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