faderift | In the Armor of the Dead

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In the Armor of the Dead

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.

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keanuleaves )

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.

Edited 2021-11-07 06:15 (UTC)

He should be more surprised to see her — whether the abrupt entrance from the sky, the unanticipated assist, or wait, so are we on speaking terms? Instead he only misses maybe a beat, safe enough within her barrier, before a blast of energy comes from his own shard to send a few undead invaders tumbling down the Gallows' walls.

This might as well happen. It's a less unwelcome surprise than the attack.

He looks raw in a way that's rare. James Holden usually folds away his emotions to be safe harbor in a storm, but tonight it's more like he's been cut open and left to bleed. He may be shaking; he may not be; it's hard to tell. There's something unfocused in the way he looks at her, not all here, halfway mired in the horror of memory. If this is how Gwenaëlle feels, she's wearing it better.

"Is there anyone else with you?"

Should he be expecting any other flying leaps onto the battlements? Less a deliberate dismissal of her comment, under the circumstances, than a white-knuckled cling to composure.

“It's you, me and the dead.”

Gwenaëlle feels—

hungover, mostly, more sluggish than she'd like from that and from sleeping little and poorly, less because of where she'd done it than because of the events preceding. She'd wanted to be more alert than not, and after as much wine as she'd already had to drink, it had been a push in the first place. And on closer inspection, that is clearly not actually how he feels, but it's no less familiar for that.

The words she mutters are Orlesian, but he probably doesn't need to understand the words to get the gist of them, or at least the sentiment. At least they're not the only two people trying to close a rift.

(She's sort of friends with Stark. She suspects he couldn't actually stand anything else, which is—fair enough, actually.)

She shoulders her bow, gloved and anchored hand in front of her and her free hand closing around his forearm. “Where are you?”

Where is he?

That's the question, isn't it. And the answer should be obvious: here in the Gallows, and here in Kirkwall, and here in Thedas, the same as he has been for a year now. The same as he will be until he vanishes or dies. And he's had so much time to acclimate to Thedas, to recognize that his life is here now and that his old life is over. It wasn't easy, but it was growing familiar.

There was a time when he was deeply afraid, every day, after Eros. That he'd just barely escaped with his life, but it would keep following him until it'd claimed every survivor. It took Miller. It almost took Earth. It followed him to Ilus, even, wearing Miller's face, speaking of a hundred thousand screaming souls. They'd found peace, finally. He'd helped with that. It was time and even more galactic crises and some kind of closure.

Except he's here in the Gallows, and here in Kirkwall, and here in Thedas, and he hasn't gotten away. Because here he is, with the dead, and with what is too much like the protomolecule. The anchor in his hand, also the wrong color, a known piece of Fade, still itches at his mind. He's had this nightmare more times than he can count. The point of contact, at least, makes it easier to focus on her. Whole and alive and human.

"I've seen this before," comes harshly, on just this side of unrestrained terror. It feels like so long ago that he was talking Margaery down from something not so different.

Gwenaëlle thinks, but does not yet say, fuck.

“You weren't in Nevarra, so you mean something else, so you haven't,” she says, keeping a harsh leash on her own fear in a way that in any other moment where Jim had a full grip on his own faculties would likely be familiar. “Look at me. Listen to me. Tell me where you are right now.”

This might not work.

What's she going to do, not try. If she lets him rush glassy-eyed into combat and get himself killed—she wouldn't even have to explain it to Amos. Amos is gone.

She'd know.

His first, kneejerk, response is something like, Apparently, on Eros, because apparently, I never left Eros,

and it's been so long since it's hit him this hard, and that may feel a little like failure later.

He looks at her.

Really tries, eyes focusing on her: Gwenaëlle, armed to the teeth, piratical clothes that means she's ready for a fight, native of this world. One of the first people to explain things to him about the Fade, the Veil, the nature of rifters.

He listens to her.

The accent so different from anything he'd ever really known back home, the mention of Nevarra, the making it sound like whatever is going on is truly some Theodosian brand bullshit. The thought is a thin hope, one that's hard to believe, but once it enters his mind it's at least there. He reaches out, momentarily, to grasp her forearm — a combination of literal steadying himself, of confirmation of her presence. He wouldn't make the presumption under normal circumstances; but these aren't normal circumstances.

"The Gallows," comes slowly at first. He breathes in, like he's forgotten how to. And then, with more confidence, "The Gallows. I'm here." Fuck.

Gwenaëlle pats his hand on her arm.

“Got it in one.” That's a positive sign, something presently in short supply. She'll take it. “We are in the Gallows. The ghost of someone's past is here to haunt us, but not yours, and we are about to die if you react to the thing in your head instead of the thing in front of you.”

She takes his hand and presses it over her heart, covered by layers of sleekly armored leather, lets him feel the beat and the (at this point: impressive) steadiness of her breath, and says, not unkindly, “I bought us a little time. You have about thirty more seconds before I have to let go and I'm not going to leave you here to die, but it would be fantastic if you could focus. I'll find you somewhere afterwards if you need.”

To close a door and scream behind it; to talk about this, or not. But they are on the battlements, and thirty seconds was probably generous.

Her relative calm helps; the rhythm of her breathing is something to approximate, if not match. Maybe it's strange that the severity of their circumstances helps more. But setting aside his fears to deal with a crisis, where people's lives are at stake, comes something like second nature. They are on the battlements, and the Gallows is under attack for the second time in two days, and thirty seconds will have to be enough. Can be more than enough. Whatever comes after, comes after.

He swallows. Nods. And when he's able to meet her eyes, he says,

"I'm good. I'm good; I'm here. Let's do this."

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.

Edited 2021-11-08 00:52 (UTC)

By the time Thranduil speaks, his entrance has drawn more than enough attention and Gwenaëlle has slept lightly and poorly enough that he does not see her in the pile of pillows when he looks to it—she is already on her feet and moving by the time he asks to receive the terse answer of,

“No. Wait here.”

He did as he was told, attending to Coupe instead, checking her harness and bridle in the spare moments he had while Gwenaëlle armed and armored herself. Someone had the sense to bring her water, for which he was glad. Thranduil kept looking in the direction from which he had come, as if he could see through the walls.

Checking his own armor and sword ate only a few minutes, and he was almost relieved when Gwenaëlle returned, remounting Coupe and watching Gwenaëlle as she did the same, refraining from offering even a gloved hand unless asked for. Then they were launched skyward as Coupe took off again, barely half an hour from when she had touched down.

Returning not in her uniform but in the piratical rogue leathers that have become familiar—with the addition of new thigh-holsters for her blades worked in floral tooling delicate enough she could likely wear them bare-legged as mock lingerie, gartered to a slim matching belt, briefly glimpsed between the swirl of her long coat and then if he glances back once she's settled astride the griffon behind him.

Armed with the glaive that Stark had built for her and her bow loosed, she boosts herself up and backwards with her back to Thranduil's (a poor angle for him to help her with, so she doesn't ask), a brief slap to his thigh before they launch into the air to signal her readiness. He can feel her tense against his back, her quiver of arrows (not the new, poisoned ones that Ellie had gifted her—she heard the dead, she's not wasting them) hard between them.

“What do you know?” is brisk. Businesslike.

Coupe knew the way; knew with basic animal certainty from the moment that she sensed the red lyrium that something was wrong, so a light hand on the bridle went a long way as she made for the harbor and the Gallows beyond.

"Red lyrium," he repeated, staccato sentences the wind could not cut away. "Waterlogged corpses, but not dead by drowning. The clothing was foreign. There are dozens of them. I went for the griffons when the alarm was called."

He stopped speaking when they drew over the harbor, and Coupe brought them low at a cue from him. The Kirkwall docks were empty of the dead or panic, which only set his frown deeper.

"Keep to the glaive," he suggested. "They will grab for the coat, anything loose."

Gwenaëlle's knees press into the griffon as she braces herself, booted feet against the back of Thranduil's calves as she rises very slightly, bringing her bow up and sighting along it as they approach the Gallows' walls. Sounds familiar. She makes a noise that could be taken for assent, but what she says is,

“Get me near the battlements,” and then, “above, but not directly,”

which sounds like probably there's some kind of plan, although whether or not it's going to be one he'd like to hear about in advance is another story entirely.

He did not confirm anymore than she did, but there was a shift in his riding, a tighter hold on the reins, a change in his posture, and Coupe's alertness narrowing.

He did as she requested, making some adjustments-- chiefly, a height that wouldn't involve certain death, or even likely death, and Coupe at about a quarter of her speed gliding, and then the very hardest part: not saying anything.

There will be time after they have won.

Her bow has no string.

Her bow has a string when it matters. She nocks an arrow into place, sights, and fires—picks off her targets strategically, firing arrows that trail ice and land with enough force to interrupt the stream of dead up and over the parapet. Here one dragging down his fellows from beneath, here another clearing her a path at the top. A blast from her glaive smashes a group of them partially into dust, tumbling bones and red lyrium into the sea, which

seems like it's probably bad, but if they live they can worry about it. She adjusts her grip on her bow and grips Thranduil's shoulder behind her, using him—“Steady,”—to brace herself as she brings her feet up underneath her and prepares to jump. From where they are now she can see Holden, presumably being insufferably brave, and she says,

“Merci,” as she launches herself from Coupe's back in an acrobatic arc, angling heel down so it connects with a sickening crunch to the skull of some rotted Nevarran husk when she lands. The glow of her anchor-shield makes it impossible to make out, from the distance he's at, what happens next.

Edited 2021-11-08 05:47 (UTC)

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In the Armor of the Dead

gwenaëlle baudin.

holden.

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