faderift | 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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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."

Coupe lands gracefully, wings tucking against her side, and Thranduil dismounts in a similar fluid motion. The griffon eyes Emet-Selch, assessing him, deciding he's not a skeleton as her rider takes a moment to look over the battlements and harbor.

"You are the cultist," he says, recognizing the voice. There may be a little generosity in the tone, little ephemerial quotes around 'cultist', but Thranduil looks him over, assessing, and leads into his question.

"Can you fight?"

Probably the next question will be-- are you afraid of heights?

Edited 2021-11-10 02:05 (UTC)

There's a slight roll of his eyes at 'cultist', but this is neither the time nor place to object to phrasing.

"I can," is all he says in response at first, turning back to look out over the scene below. He gestures as he speaks: "There is some slight thinning of their number to the west which may be assisted, but may also be more under control, comparatively. The east side appears more overrun, thus is therefore riskier and may benefit more from the assistance; everything else, somewhere in-between. I have no doubt any of the buildings would benefit from assistance at the doors, as well."

Somewhere in between fighting and ferrying wounded–

There's a need, for a pile of bones. It's funny because Abby's been kicking them across the Gallows for hours at this point, and now she has to retrieve them. Or, rather, she doesn't have to do anything, but she can do it, she has the energy and she's curious; nobody has had an answer for her all evening regarding the spiky red crystal housed in every set of ribs. She understands that it's lyrium. She doesn't understand why.

Also, it fucks up your skin if you touch it with bare hands. She uses a cloak to wrap up a skeleton for easy transport. It's like putting clothes onto a mannequin.

She dumps the whole lot unceremoniously onto the ground, happy to leave it at the scientific mercy of Emet-Selch. It makes an loud clatter on the stone, and that's so satisfying.

"Happy Satinalia."

Better unwrap it and see what it is!

"Ah, is that-- do be careful, I should like to keep it intact to begin with."

The clattering of bones isn't an unfamiliar sound, to someone from a world with animated skeletons-- he clocks it quickly enough, especially after fighting them off all night. When he kneels, he moves cautiously, the fabric wrapped around his abdomen likely signifying why; he's been at this since it all started, visibly tired by now, but no less focused when he pulls the cloak back to check on its contents.

"Intact enough. Your assistance is appreciated; I'd begun to wonder if any would be saved, in all of this mess."

Abby shrugs a shoulder, wiping her brow. Can't take back something she's already done; it's been hot work, lugging the sack of bones around, and she's mollified when he instantly comes to look. She nudges a bony ankle with the toe of her boot.

"It's missing a couple fingers." On each side, in fact, "But I couldn't find anything better. Once Joan started advising her to kick them to pieces, well...

She crouches down, curious. "What're you going to do with it?"

"Make a study of it," he says, still cautiously looking her delivery over-- careful not to touch any afflicted parts of the corpse. "I do not expect we will have an abundance of intact specimens, and I should like to see what may be gleaned from one of them. Ways in which it is likely to spread throughout the body, where deposits primarily collect..."

Possibly other details as well, depending, but it's all going to hinge on having a closer look later.

Nerd shit, got it, "What are you going to use all of that for?"

It's one thing to want to know, but... there's always some kind of ulterior motive, right. Maybe they could use this sort of thing against Corypheus in future. Harness the power of his own victims against him.

Sounds like a plot out of a book. Still, she watches him, knelt and looking dutifully with eyes rather than hands.

In the Armor of the Dead

emet-selch

(for thranduil)

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busts in late

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