In the Armor of the Dead

[faderifting]

WHO: Anyone in the Gallows
WHAT: An(other) attack on the Gallows
WHEN: The next night after Satinalia. Enjoy dealing with two weird attacks back to back, now while hungover! Sorry.
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: This is the somewhat belated October mod event, as the theme may indicate. In addition to this open post there are also several open top-levels below with specific tasks PCs can help accomplish. There's also an open crystal catch-all post for event-related chatter. If you have questions, hit us on the Mod Question channel on discord.

Just after dusk, those standing guard duty on the walls will hear an odd rattle and clatter, like debris knocked by waves against the rocks below. Except it grows closer, scraping up the side of the fortress. Rats, maybe? Things do echo oddly here in this tall stone fortress with the sea crashing at its base on all sides, especially on evenings like this where the fog has rolled in across the harbor, catching some sounds and carrying others. By the time this noise is enough for someone to look down over the parapet, it's already too late. A host of dripping corpses has already clawed its way up the walls and now they come over it, pouring up and over the eastern battlements first but the others only moments behind. They come in numbers uncountable, crawling over each other, enveloping the Gallows in a wave of the dead.

Many are skeletal, the rest with the shrunken shrivelled flesh of a mummy still clinging to their bones. A few are dressed in the tattered rags of the long-dead, but many are in armor or finery from ages past or the blood-spattered outfits of everyday Nevarrans. It won't take long to figure out Nevarrans is what they are--surely the still-possessed dead of Nevarra City, old and new, somehow transported from that abandoned capitol to Kirkwall. A year out in the elements instead of in the protection of the Necropolis has not been kind, but the weather is not the only thing that has been working on them. Each and every corpse has red lyrium growing within it, crystals jutting out from bones or erupting through leathery skin, crusting stripes across skulls or adding vicious spikes to limbs.

They tumble down the stairs into the courtyards and flood through the fortress until they meet resistance or doors too heavy to batter down (there are some benefits to living in a prison). The spirits possessing the dead hum with the aggressive intensity that lyrium inspires. They fight viciously, without magic or any great intelligence but a primitive instinct for destruction of any life they encounter and an inhuman lack of fear. Some are armed, with weapons running the gamut from ceremonial swords and halberds to tools and household implements. They will all continue to attack as long as they are mobile, or until the demon within is destroyed. Their rage is indiscriminate but not undirected: anyone caught in the city when it happens can attest that the swarm is confined--for now--to the Gallows only, and any dead driven into the sea at the ferry launch will seek to climb back up rather than turn for other shores. No attempt is made to hold any particular position; they ebb and flow through the complex in constant pursuit of the living.

As Satina rises the temperature drops and the sky clears, the light of the full moon highlighting a merchant ship at anchor not far to the east of Gallows Island, though not so close as to have inspired suspicion. It has been there for at least a day, its position unremarkable in a harbor crowded by traffic too frightened to travel the Waking Sea further. But now a dark mass of lurching movement scrambles over its side into the water and on its deck are two spots of glowing red. A spyglass will make clear the details: a mage on the quarterdeck crowned with a strange helmet of red lyrium, chains of the crystal strung like armor down chest and arms, crusting his staff. On the fo'c'sle a Templar in an identical lyrium helm, armor studded with lyrium and cut to accommodate the crystals that grow out of her arms and shoulders. Their eyes glow red and lips seem to move in unison.

By dawn, the the eluvian the dead arrived through will have been destroyed and their flow halted, and the bomb they delivered into the Gallows disarmed or otherwise neutralized. There will need to be a thorough sweep of the fortress to ensure that all are located and re-killed, and the dead-again will need to be disposed of. The presence of red lyrium in the corpses may require some additional Cleansing of the fortress as well. The morning will also bring news from agents elsewhere in Thedas that Kirkwall was not the only target. A similar attack struck Cumberland, and another was intended for Val Royeaux, but the ship carrying the eluvian was intercepted before entering the harbor by the heavy Orlesian navy presence guarding the capital and instead the dead swarmed over several naval ships before they were destroyed.

Comments

BOAT

[faderifting]

Two things are clear: the dead are coming from the ship, and the ship is not big enough to have held this many. The natural assumption is that there must be an eluvian in the hold delivering them directly from Nevarra City, which means someone needs to go break it. This is complicated by the two red-lyrium-clad enemies who appear to be directing operations from the deck of that ship, and even more by the fact that the ship is sinking.

The mass of raging undead in its hold have somehow pierced the vessel near the waterline, and by now it is reaching a critical state. Water is pouring in belowdecks, sloshing up the stairs, even beginning to slop in through the portholes. But sinking the eluvian won't be enough to stop the enemy continuing to send forces through it, especially forces that don't need to breathe. So the team must venture into the flooding hold to find and smash the mirror. It may already be underwater. Along the way, they may encounter more undead, the host's red lyrium-coated leaders, or any of the other hazards typical of a sinking ship full of random merchant goods.

[ OOC: This should be a single thread and is a free for all--there are no sign-ups required to participate. Precisely which dangers they encounter all the way are up to you. If you're not OOCly interested in RPing about trying to find and destroy the eluvian and just want your character fighting a skeleton underwater, you're free to include that in your own top-level separately. ]

putting this here too why not

[lumelume]

"There's water below the deck! The boat is filling with it!" comes over the crystal, from the strangely-situated form of Mado, formerly a rock dove, now a man in the crow's nest of the merchant vessel.

"We must hurry, or it's all going down!"

BOMB

[faderifting]

Once the attack is well underway and there are distractions aplenty, sharp eyes may spot a group of undead behaving unusually. They don't quite follow the flow of the rest, instead somehow heaving a crate up and over the walls with them and clustering around it as they carry it into the fortress. Somewhere in a corner of the central courtyard they will set it down, lingering nearby but trusting the general commotion to distract from this new addition. Roughly four feet square and otherwise unremarkable, it could be easy to miss.

Investigating will require fighting through some of the dead and breaking open the crate--and whoever does so will trigger a Glyph of Paralysis inscribed on the inside, paralyzing anyone within 2 meters for up to 30 seconds. Inside, the crate is packed with broken chunks of red lyrium, and in the center is some sort of device of clockwork, with an arm attached to a series of metal hammers poised over metal panels inscribed with more glyphs (repulsion and fire mines), and surrounded by glass tubes filled with a viscous liquid. Its workings aren't immediately clear, but its intent isn't so difficult to guess, especially for rifters who've ever seen a dramatic ticking bomb reveal on TV. The mechanism is clicking.

[ OOC: This should be a single thread and is a free for all--there are no sign-ups required to participate. We assume that your characters will succeed in disarming or otherwise neutralizing the device, since otherwise people will die and the Gallows will become uninhabitable! How they go about that is up to you.

We're not engineers, fantasy or otherwise, so we don't have any detailed idea of how this thing should work, just that it's a kind of clockwork mechanism involving powerful glyphs of repulsion and fire mines, designed to fling Antivan fire and sticky burning red lyrium all around. You should assume that it is well-designed and difficult to disarm, with possible fail safes and the need for careful work. It is not something natives will have seen before. Beyond that, make up whatever you need to to make RPing about it fun. ]

[arkitect]

-godsdamnit.

[Muttered more to himself than anything, from whatever vantage point he'd taken up to observe the movements of the dead-- well, such as they are. It isn't like there's much organization to them, or anything to truly be gleaned save for where the fighting is thickest and where they have been somewhat thinned. Emet-Selch, preferring to stay out of the worst of it himself, is in a decent enough position to catch the delivery those undead make into the courtyard... and now it's going to be a matter of getting to it.

Anyone in the area ahead of him might catch a call above the din, his height lending him an advantage in being seen as he gestures and shouts out-]

Clear them out that way!

[-and he gets to work catching up, making his own path in the direction of the mystery crate. He only has a dagger in hand, but offensive magic serves well to prevent him from having to use it until the corpses press too close, his position identifiable by flashes of purple.]

james holden.

[acreage]

[ starters coming below, hmu for plotting. anyone, whether or not we write an encounter during the attack, is welcome to notice he's not entirely himself — more distracted, irritable, brutal with fighting the corpses than is strictly necessary. ]

gabranth.

[acreage]

The night is young.

But the air is already heavy with the clamor of battle: frantic movement, weapons clashing, bones clacking, and the occasional scream. Holden is heading in the wrong direction, for the right reason, or the right direction for the wrong reason, depending on how one wants to look at it. He's running towards the old mage tower; his sword is still in his room, and other weapons besides, though they're either too unreliable or too new to him to be of much use. The thought of staying there, in potential relative safety, doesn't occur to him.

The first corpse he'd seen had almost killed him. It was more mummy than skeleton, leathery flesh old and rotted, glowing red spikes making a mockery of its hands, its knees, its shoulders. He'd frozen; the swipe it'd taken at him with its cudgel that might've taken off his head if he'd stayed that way. If there's a bruise blossoming around his sternum, he's frankly lucky it isn't broken.

He's less lucky now: a cluster of them move between him and the tower door. The good thing is that the door is shut, which makes the building secure — God fucking willing — for the time being. The bad thing, of course, is that he's still out here with them, weaponless.

The worse thing is when one, and then two, and then three look at him, and his heart kicks into overdrive, and his breath seems to trap in his chest. It's not protomolecule. But he blinks, and the dead are everywhere, blue-glowing and scabbing with crystal, blue fireflies dancing in the air, and he blinks, and one levels a spear at his stomach.

derrica.

[acreage]

It's around nightfall, the next day.

The dead are gone, the fortress purified of red lyrium. Everything is, finally, quiet; and it's likely that most of them spent the daylight hours finally getting some sleep after the attacks of the last couple of days. It's possible that Derrica's still asleep, and he's ready to take the stairs back down if so. He's sure she must've spent the morning with the newly wounded, the last night in the battle, and she deserves the rest. He can wait.

But her door's ajar, so he knocks, pokes a head in.

"Derrica?"

tsenka abendroth.

[delphian]

( hmu @ keanuleaves if you'd like infirmary shenanigans. )

richard. & the senior enchanter, in spirit.

[delphian]

After her rescue, and the assurances made by Marcus Rowntree that hers was a legitimate case, it had made sense for Tsenka to spend the earliest days of her time with Riftwatch in the infirmary. At some point, presumably, she'll be allowed out for long enough to discover that a few gifts were left in her designated mailbox for Satinalia; from the sounds of things outside the infirmary doors, that isn't going to be today. She has bathed, and been given something to wear besides bloodied, stolen armor, and been examined by healers—

Rest, and food, and then exercise and some continued observation. It isn't a dungeon. She isn't tied to anything or confined anywhere. If she asks nicely, someone who has time might take her for a walk, and let her sit down if she gets tired or overstimulated. The door to where the infirmary beds are has been barricaded, however, and is locked now; she is perfectly aware why, but dislikes it, still.

Not much she can do about that. But she's not alone here, or probably in disliking it at least a bit, so she swings her feet off her own bed and treks down the length of the room to the other occupant of this part of the infirmary, in a borrowed night-dress and clutching her staff, which she uses to brace herself so she can hop up onto the end of Richard's bed.

(Carefully, not to jostle either of them.)

“I'm Tsenka.” This passes for a greeting, to judge by her expectant elfin face.

Benedict

[altusimperius]

[starters below etc etc]

Infirmary (Edgard, Byerly, anyone else injured/visiting)

[altusimperius]

On the one hand, it's terrible that people close to Benedict were injured in the previous night's attack. On the other hand, it's convenient that two of them are in the same room, which means he can visit them both at once. He brought them coffee.

He's seated in a chair next to Byerly, taking notes on things he needs to deal with in the office in the ambassador's temporary absence, when a violent thudding comes at the door. It's accompanied by shouts of alarm and sounds of violence, which brings Benedict's writing hand to a total standstill as he stares in that direction.

Barrow

[thereneverwas]

[starters below]

let the bodies hit the floor (ota)

[thereneverwas]

Barrow had been on the verge of considering climbing the stairs to put the day out of its misery, but his plans were diverted by the sudden influx of a horde of walking corpses.
Without having all that much time to decide what to do next, he'd used a stray chair to carve a path for himself to the armory, where he keeps his plate and his proper weapons.

It's a half-cocked effort, with how difficult it is to fasten one's own breastplate et al with arthritis and not much time, but when he reappears in the hall of the central tower, it's with his two-handed warhammer. He positions himself at the stairs and swings the hammer widely from side to side, cutting a swathe in the ever-oncoming crowd of dead as they try to make for the higher levels.
Periodically, when he can fit one in, a pillar of light forms in the crowd to stun a few assailants.

Usually with at least a modicum of cheer at even the most stressful times, Barrow is stonefaced with concentration. He just has to hope relief comes.

gwenaëlle baudin.

[elegiaque]

( starters etc, hmu @ keanuleaves )

holden.

[elegiaque]

Hightown is a significant distance from the Gallows—it had been a trek back, late last night, pouring Margaery and herself into a carriage and rolling it onto the platform to be hauled up sheer cliff-face in what's become not unfamiliar routine. Guilfoyle, waiting for them at the other end, ushering them out into the interior courtyard where essentially a silken, cushioned fort had been built and surrounded with braziers to keep out the encroaching chill even as the pavilion remained open. As places to wait out an attack go, there could be worse—

so it's where she's left Margaery behind, likely to be investigated by Raoul and Thomas when they rouse, slipping out of the house and hitching a ride by griffon back to the Gallows before her grandfather can get wind of her intentions. The leap she makes from the back of the creature onto the battlements is enough to have her heart in her throat, but she lands squarely kicking through the skull of somebody's dead ancestor, grinding it into the stone under her foot where she lands and surrounding Jim Holden with the shield that bursts out of her hand unceremoniously.

“You look like I feel,” she says, which can't be a compliment.

[rowancrowned]

He sobered quickly once the light in the courtyard went a hazy red.

Then came the dash up the stairs to the erie, scabbard bouncing against his hip, to the agitated griffins. Saddling Coupe was easy enough, despite the general irritation of the flock, and griffon was far faster than the ferry.

He could have turned back when he saw none of the dead in Kirkwall's harbor. Perhaps he should have. But still, he made for Hightown, for the de Coucy estate, Coupe coming down in a flurry of feathers and her particular high, shrieking cry. It drew attention, a servant peering out a high-floored window, one of the duke's men coming round the corner, hand on the pommel of his sword.

"Tell the duke the Gallows is under attack," he said, in Orlesian. "Red lyrium. The dead."

He did not spare more words, turning to the pile of pillows, because there was Gwenaëlle, safe and whole.

"Are you sober?" he asked.

margaery tyrell

[molineux]

[ although she'll be recuperating / hiding out in hightown for the attack, Margaery will be throwing herself into helping take care of the wounded in the aftermath.
pls feel free to hit me up if you'd like a custom starter, or just come at me with one! c: ]

hi hello.

[poleaxed]

For matters of acquaintance-- it's been a while.

Jone doesn't quite remember the girl's name, except she dripped nobility like a gilt candle. Her mind recalls one other important detail: not Orlesian. Otherwise known as: safe.

An automaton of violence, the aftermath leaves Jone acting on a belated instinct. Nothing left to kill, so it's now time to wait. She was not pierced too horribly, hit too gruesomely, to deserve a bed. Instead, she waits in a corner, legs folded over the floor, and feels what seems like her whole body's stock of blood run down her chin, over her armor, washing everything in red to match her hair.

Which is matted, but that's not important.

Jone's upper lip is split from tooth to nostril, just slightly off center. It will not heal well. Red teeth and gum can be seen in what is tent-opening over an otherwise closed mouth. She won't die of it. But the girl from always-fading memory is unlikely to save anyone's life. It's not so horrible, then, to distract her with a ghastly image, if she'll just get some bloody stitches.

Words are out of the question-- it will all be gurgled nonsense, with her mouth like this. Instead, a hand tacky with dried blood reaches to tap the maiden's shoulder.

Diabhall Minett

[loversinverted]

((Starters below - feel free to ask if you want something special OR just take this as invitation to wildcard!))

Closed to Gabranth

[loversinverted]

After what happened at the Satinalia party, Diabhall had been ready to go back to less excitement. Parties in general have never been his favorite thing, and a truly astounding number of them seem to go awry one way or another for the elf. It's all been enough to remind him that having a sharp mind will likely not be enough here...he's going to need to sharpen his physical skills as well, in case of emergencies.

So when he is alone after working late, putting himself through paces with a rapier and a training dummy outside, he is quite unprepared to have company.

Hearing an approach, he turns towards the nearest source of movement, hoping to ask for a sparring partner...and getting more than he bargained for. The glow of red lyrium jutting out from an ambling corpse reflects in his rosy eyes...his very wide rosy eyes, set in a rapidly paling face.

"...No," he gasps, stepping back once, twice, three times. In spite of himself, his gaze darts around, looking for horns, for a tail on the corpse, his heart pounding in his ears. Fear, white hot and almost alien in its ferocity wells up within him, and his breathing immediately tightens.

"No. No. No. Not now - not NOW-"

Setting his jaw, he attempts to strike out with the rapier still in hand - but his grip is slack and shaky, the point landing between ribs and being easily twisted from his hand. It's no use. He can't hold it together. All he can see is the crystal, glowing and twisting out of the bodies, a mockery of his memory, of his darkest moments -

He backs up again, hands working in panic to summon a staff that will never come, shoulder blades meeting cold stone.

jone | ota.

[poleaxed]

A fight in the Gallows leaves Jone well equipt and prepared. She has her poleaxe at the hand, and new black armor that... look, if you mention it matches Gabranth's, don't you have better things to be doing? There's a war on.

(a.) Jone fights, and she is a terror. Axe swung back and forth, from her mouth she issues howls, battle-cries to match the dead. She has not realized they do not think, do not feel proper fear, or the skeleton jabbing at her with a fork would be in a much different predicament. Moments later it is dissembled, wet bones under foot, and a fork sticks out between the chinks in her armor. Blood drips down its bent handle, and she seems not to notice.

(b.) Always, there are those caught poorly. Bad moments, worse decisions, or just the frailty of luck leave them at the mercy of monsters; Jone makes her way into whatever corridor the dead have overswept the living.

She holds her hand out. A green beam clashes, ugly, with the glowing red, but several skeletons are knocked asunder.

Over the clangor, she yells, "I'm comin' for you!"

Her voice haggard with battle, it could be as much a threat as a promise.

(c. closed to abby) Luck runs out for everyone, given enough time. Jone's strength is finite, and comes in quick surges-- it is not meant to last long and hard on the battle field. Find her body, armor shining black in moonlight, beaten against a cobblestone. Blood pours from her face to match her hair, matted with shame. Her movements are slowed as she prepares to make this her last stand.

(d. wildcard) [hit me im good for it.]

stick insect rescue

[armd]

Its been a long night. Abby is sweaty and tired, there's grime on her face and her hands. She's relatively uninjured but her shoulder is aching, the old bursitis flaring from where she grips and swings her mace. She offers her free hand to Jone to hoist her back up on her feet. Luck doesn't have to run out just yet.

"C'mon," she pants, wipes her face on her arm, "You can't stop, we're not done."

There are skeletons in the room with them yet.

abby a.

[armd]

(starters below; lemme know if you'd like one! she's fighting all over the place and will lend a hand if needed.)

gwen

[armd]

They'll be working overtime in the infirmary, it's almost laughable that either of them thought there might be room. Gwen's injuries are, thankfully, minimal. She's already getting her clothing out the way of them, inspecting broken skin. Abby glances over the tops of many heads and draws her toward a quieter corner where she can sit on a stool.

"You need anything?" She wipes sweat from her eyes with grimy fingertips, blinking in the dull light, "I can probably wiggle through and get it for you."

joselyn smythe.

[obdurata]

( isn't much of a combatant, but will be about for specific scenarios, hmu @ keanuleaves as per )

emet-selch.

[obdurata]

The Gallows is overrun, and the smart thing to do would be to barricade herself somewhere and stay clear out of the way of those who can actually do something about that. For all her new stamina and energy, all the exercise she and Isaac had decided it was probably a good idea for them to start doing, and even the lessons for some idea of what to do with a knife besides pointy bit, other guy—

Some people to take to that sort of thing. Joselyn is perfectly aware that her skill level is at buy time to escape and not rescue a sieged hold. The best possible thing she could do would be find somewhere with a thick door (hardly difficult in the Gallows) and put herself behind it until all this is over.

And she will.

—soon. But first: it would be really useful if they had some of what's overrunning them to study, afterwards.

emet-selch

[arkitect]

[a container for threads, hit me up on discord or probabiliteej if you want anything specific!]

(for thranduil)

[arkitect]

Evenings and nights have ever been his preferred hours, and he intended to just spend these hours on his work-- he's in the library at the beginning of it, sparing some time to hold a conversation or two between tomes he's taking notes on, attention finally drawn by the sounds of something outside.

It's in full swing when he goes to look out, and on sighting what's out there and how many there are... he quickly chooses to retreat. Far better to observe from above than be swarmed below, to get an idea of just what the fuck is happening here and what he needs to do about it-- and so he makes for the stairs, for as high a vantage point in the central tower as he can get.

He stands in silence, at first. Watching, taking it all in, hands gripping the sill of the window he's looking out. It will do nobody any good to simply rush in, so he's here for longer than someone more heroically inclined might be; evaluating, largely. Scanning to see where would be a good or a bad idea to go, where places may be too overrun for a single person's aid to do much good or where the herd may be thinned just enough to gain a foothold. In the midst of it, someone else's approach catches his attention, yellow eyes flicking warily upward just to confirm it's one of their own and they don't have undead now approaching from the sky.

Luckily, it isn't the latter, and he exhales a sigh before he calls out, "You'll have your work cut out for you, from here."

Val de Foncé || ota

[degenere]

In the dark of Satinalia Boxing Day, there is lightning.

For ten minutes.

Here: one of the small courtyards has a mass of the undead occupying it, sloughing across the cobblestones. Then there's the crack of a whip and lightning arcs from head to head, blackening where it touches, turning wisp of brittle dead hair to crisped burning strands. The lighting stalls, confuses; anyone in the area--including Val--has a moment to run in the other direction. Or stand and fight, if they are so inclined.

And, here: a window breaks in the hall, and hands reach blindly through the shards as one of the dead hauls themselves up. Then the whip cracks as Val de Foncé leaps forward to defend. He thrusts the whip forward and electricity surges into the dead's wizened form. The thing shrieks indignantly, but cannot escape.

And, then, here: caught on the stairs, Val strikes out with the whip. Electricity sizzles and crackles and then dies, and Val swears in Orlesian but resists the urge to throw the whip at the crowd of the dead that is swarming up the stairs.

"I," he declares, loudly, to whoever is nearby, "detest this holiday!"


[temporarily armed with this cool prototype just in case ur wondering]

kostos | ota

[exequy]

i. attack

He could be barricaded behind a door; he could be on the walls, helping to repel the new undead clambering over back into the sea. He could be holding barriers for those fighting them off within the fortress. Any number of useful things.

Instead, Kostos is running through one of the stone-covered outdoor passageways, alone save for a trail of wisps behind him. (In a less dire scenario, it would be appropriate to point out they look like ducklings. But this is serious.) Ahead is the door that leads down to the dungeons and storage rooms. It's a clear shot, until it isn't—until a pack of lurching, red-crusted corpses cuts across the path ahead of him, notices him before he can manage to slow and stop and stay still, and turn their attention in mindless unison.

The wisps go ahead of him, spitting fire and ice. But they're wisps. They're weak. Good for a nuisance, but not for destruction. So he stands still, hands flexing, waiting for a moment when making a break for the door won't look so suicidal.

ii. dawn

Every now and then, as the sky turns grey, and they all begin dealing with the damage and debris, there's still the moan and clatter of an undead assailant emerging from some dark place, the requisite shouting and crashing of its prompt dispatching.

That's why Kostos is carrying Keto around in a sling against his chest. She's smaller than a living six year old, shrunken and light from the dehydration, but still long-boned enough for it to be a little awkward. Physically. Obviously it's more than a little awkward, in other ways, for Kostos to be carrying a possessed corpse around like an infant while he carefully sweeps bones into piles, her sightless eyes turned to survey the space ahead of them, into which she occasionally points one bony brown hand and moans inquisitively until he names whatever she's pointing at. Cart. Tree. Skull. Idiot colleague.

If anyone comes close, the look he gives them is wary and preemptively defensive.

ii. dawn.

[tender]

The idiot colleague in question is not deterred by Kostos' expression. Derrica looks visibly exhausted, a nasty scrape rising livid across her jaw, but she still has a sweet smile to turn on Keto and a smaller, more honest one for Kostos.

"Hello, Keto," she says first as she steps around a pile of bones to draw up alongside him. Her staff thocks softly against the stone. "Are you alright?"

A question only theoretically for Keto. Her eyes are on Kostos, watching his expression. He has Keto here with him for a reason, after all.