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

[molineux]

It takes longer for Margaery to settle; Jone is remarkably still and quiet for the pain she must be suffering, and it only makes Margaery more careful about how she goes about cleaning and preparing to stitch.

"Tell me if you need a break or anything," she says, rather lamely, as she's noticed the congealed blood on Jone's armor - a clear cut sign that her friend has been enduring this injury far longer than she's probably realized. "I'm- going to do my best."

Her fingers aren't gentle in the way they pin down Jone's upper lip, her eyes flickering up to Jone's every so often as she alternates washing it clean and threading a needle through the split with the other hand. It's slow work, but not for lack of effort on her part; because there's already a lot of blood flow in this particular area, healing will be easier for Jone's body to handle. On the flip side, it also means she needs to get this right in one so Jone doesn't end up with an obvious, folded lip.

"I knew a knight who suffered an injury like this once, back home. He was an old man by the time I knew him, but I'd always play with the giant scar across his palm and ask him to tell me the story. He always changed the story of how he got that wound, but the healing process would always be the same: that he took sap off of the trees in the woods and glued it shut himself. I never could figure out if he was playing me or not, but it definitely made for a good story."

[poleaxed]

Jone knows better than to shake her head. She moves her wrist instead, a clean cut through the air: negative. She hasn't met pain yet she can't stand.

She can't laugh, can't smile at Margaery's kind words. The Lady is doing far more than anyone would expect for someone of Jone's caliber, and there aren't words for how much she appreciates that. For all of Jone's distrust and confusion at the great and the grand, she will never stop wanting their warmth and approval.

It's just how she was made.

She sets her hand on Margaery's knee instead, knowing the fabric's already blood-smeared but feeling guilty regardless, and tries to pat her comfortingly. A quiet thanks.

Surely both of them know now isn't the time for a come-on.

[molineux]

The touch to her knee makes Margaery smile, briefly. Her concentration is much too embedded in her work to properly appreciate Jone's cooperation, but the gratitude is there, lined in the way she does her best to be fast and gentle. Closing up a wound like this isn't quite like sewing golden roses but -

"You trained me a few times, when I first came here," she says softly, as she tugs the thread tighter, wipes away the blood that leaks, on repeat. "I always very much appreciated that, as I couldn't have been the best pupil, but you were always encouraging. And easily humored, no matter how often I tried to sneak an attack on you."

The stitching itself doesn't take too long. It's the constant wiping and disinfecting that slows the process, but when Margaery cuts the thread to knot it up, she looks grimly satisfied. The black stitches make Jone look almost worse for wear, but it sits evenly on her gum and teeth, with all indicators that it can heal into nothing more than a scar in a few months.

"You need to be careful in your movements when you're eating, drinking, speaking - rinse your mouth out with salt water after every meal, and come back here if you notice any fever or swelling that persists for more than a day or two. This is especially imperative the first few weeks, Jone. Promise me you'll be careful?"

[poleaxed]

She wants to dissuade the poor girl. Only doing my job. You were a better student than you think. All the kind, gentle words she wouldn't normally bother with anyway, but maybe the pain, having no current recourse in violence, is making her sentimental. Or maybe once again she took another hard hit to the head. Hard to remember. She doesn't even recall, entirely, when she got the fucking swipe to her lip. Doesn't speak the best of her facilities, but you can't heal the inside bits. It's why the outside's so important.

Appearances, you know.

Jone gives a thumbs up-- not really that inspiring, but speaking and nodding are out. She knows there's a special language of the hands for those without hearing, but she hasn't a clue how it works, and this is the first time in her life she's regretted that.

A pat to the shoulder-- carefully placed as not to jostle Margaery's elbow and put off her stitching-- will have to do.

[molineux]

A real smile touches on Margaery's face, as she's evidently pleased to see that Jone's taking her words to heart.

"I'm going to apply a paste now, to keep the possibility of infection low and encourage clotting. Please be sure to elevate your head at all times, even when you're sleeping. It'll be uncomfortable, but it'll quicken your healing. And avoid water, for a few days."

She doesn't particularly like giving an endless amount of instructions - even if she was arguably meant to do so as a queen - but it's the least she can do to bring the sound of Jone's laughter back to the Gallows as quickly as possible.

When she draws back, she swallows again, ignoring the terribly dry quality of her mouth. "I'm glad you're okay."

[poleaxed]

So Jone will be drunk for the next few days? She realizes that had been the plan regardless, but at least now she has the excuse of taking the stuff medicinally.

She nods at Margaery's comment, giving a shrug somewhere between humble and confident. A sentence is measured out, and spoken entirely with tongue and teeth, lip barely moving. "Dead can't kill me."

It does mean the me is more of a be, but she assumes Margaery will understand.