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Entry tags:
- ! open,
- abby,
- alexandrie d'asgard,
- bastien,
- benedict quintus artemaeus,
- byerly rutyer,
- derrica,
- ellie,
- gwenaëlle baudin,
- james flint,
- john silver,
- julius,
- loki,
- matthias,
- obeisance barrow,
- petrana de cedoux,
- tiffany hart,
- { astarion },
- { dante sparda },
- { emet-selch },
- { james holden },
- { jone },
- { sidony veranas },
- { sylvie },
- { tony stark }
open | holiday spirits
WHO: Whoever, plus some spirits.
WHAT: Everyone spends an evening regretting the past. So basically a normal night.
WHEN: Wintermarch 5-6
WHERE: A castle in the mountains north of Kirkwall
NOTES: OOC post including less vague/pretentious haunting mechanic descriptions. Fantasy violence and swearing and so on are assumed, but please use content warnings in your subject lines for things like explicit gore or sex, slavery content, body horror, etc., if you go any of those routes.
WHAT: Everyone spends an evening regretting the past. So basically a normal night.
WHEN: Wintermarch 5-6
WHERE: A castle in the mountains north of Kirkwall
NOTES: OOC post including less vague/pretentious haunting mechanic descriptions. Fantasy violence and swearing and so on are assumed, but please use content warnings in your subject lines for things like explicit gore or sex, slavery content, body horror, etc., if you go any of those routes.
THE CASTLE
Their convenient shelter from the unexpected blizzard that whips up around them in the mountain pass isn't too convenient. Anyone with a reasonable detailed map will find it marked there; reaching its clifftop location requires a slight detour. When they approach, it has no warm ethereal glow or suspiciously welcoming lit torches. The windows stay dark. The portcullis is raised just high enough to be ducked under, but the heavy doors of the keep don't swing open to welcome them.
The only immediate sign that something is amiss is the thorough, all-encompassing emptiness of the place, and it might take some investigation before that begins to feel strange. The fortress' abandonment seems recent and abrupt: ample firewood has been cut and stacked for the winter, nothing has been done to protect the furniture or strip the beds, the kitchen is fully stocked and even has some perishables that do not seem close to perishing, the stables are equipped to comfortably keep any animals along for the journey, and a chess board before the hearth in the (humble) grand hall seems to have been left mid-game. But there are no messages, no bodies, no footsteps dimpling the crunchy layer of old snow accumulated in the bailey beneath the fresh snowfall.
As they search, the castle's visitors may begin to find signs that the castle hasn't been entirely abandoned. It begins with whispers emanating from the dark ends of corridors, voices they recognize and others they don't, or faces both familiar and unfamiliar flashing in still water or window panes when firelight hits right, or forms moving on the edge of vision but vanishing before they can be looked at directly.
By the time this becomes worrisome enough to drive anyone back out of the castle, the portcullis has fallen shut and won't budge. Neither will any other doors to the outside. The windows won't break; doors won't give way even to makeshift battering rams. The only walls that can be climbed or reached by stairs face out over a deep ravine. It might be a survivable climb, if the wind and weather allowed, but it would not be a survivable fall.
THE SPIRITS
--so back inside, then.
The keep is built like the Gallows' towers, square and tall, and it won't take long for Riftwatch to notice that whatever is wrong is more wrong the higher they climb. The whispers and glimpses on the lowest floor become voices and lingering shadowy figures on the second. Someone might turn and find their hand briefly held by an unfamiliar man's, warm and real for the moment it takes him to say, "Come with me." Or behind them, a woman's shocked and seething voice says, "What are you doing?" Or maybe it's a hand they do know and a voice saying something they've heard before.
As people venture to the higher floors--whether intrepidly seeking the source or involuntarily herded onward by spirits--these moments will begin to last and linger and repeat. And those who don't dare venture higher won't be exempt, confronted by stronger spirits that emerge like ants from a kicked hive as the upper floors are disturbed.
As they approach the uppermost floor, reality will begin to slip away from them. They may find themselves lost in a maze of rooms, even though that shouldn't be possible in so few square feet, and ultimately enveloped in comforting worlds where they didn't do that thing they regret and that, like dreams, feel real until they suddenly don't--until something is too unbelievable, until someone interrupts, or until a demon is holding them under the water of the warm bath they were tempted into, shoving them off a balcony, or whispering into their ears and minds, let me in and you can keep it.
The hauntings will continue until
THE END
When it ends, it ends abruptly. Weaker spirits vanish; stronger ones retreat into the dark. The lesser demons on the upper floors linger, and some may put up a last-ditch physical fight, but without their superior, they've lost most of their mental pull and emotional sway. The castle has changed, too. Its abandonment no longer looks so recent. The food and firewood is gone, along with any sense of warmth or satiety anyone used them to acquire earlier. There is dust where none was before, mildew and rot, and a few scattered, unfortunate skeletons.
The sun is not quite up, the sky a faintly luminescent grey. But the weather is survivable, though it will be slower travel than it would have been without the fresh snow. The doors will open, and the portcullis will raise. Everyone can set off on their cold, hours-long journey back to the city. Talking about their feelings or avoiding eye contact the entire time: the choice is theirs.
no subject
You, what? Astarion has proven to be a pleasing companion, and Byerly likes him well. But does he even like Byerly? By has revealed the truth of his duplicity to the elf, and no one fucking likes a spy, so it doesn't seem likely. And, true, they have found a neat little alliance in finding a home for the newly-freed, and they've sparred and flirted in a lovely little way, but...
But no one likes seeing this. No one likes dealing with all this filth, this grotesque grimy mess of a life. So why would Astarion?
"It's all so vulgar," By says. "You can't want to know."
no subject
Not all of it stands as lingering traces of Cazador's touch: his long-cast shadow, and all the demands two centuries spent at his side had truly cost, furrowing fresh habits like riverbeds. At times, Astarion's chaos lives in defiance of that purpose. Pleasantness. Other times, of course, it's as though the notion itself comes so naturally to the elf one might actually believe he'd chosen it. To live through comfort. His. His companion's. His enemies', too.
But he's still a person somewhere underneath it all.
And a person can want so much more than just pleasantness.
"I've seen enough wretchedness to make grown men weep, darling." His hold pinches slightly. Gloved thumb pressing just along the rise of Byerly's knuckles, squeezing.
"You won't drive me away."
no subject
The ghosts have been listening, it seems; as Byerly continues to hesitate, the spirit impersonating his father speaks mockingly.
"He's a little pervert, is what he's done. He went after his own sister."
"I didn't - " Byerly chokes, even as the ghost of Nadine cries, "He didn't - " But the old man continues heedlessly:
"This was the first good thing that boy ever did. He left." Byerly is shaking his head, denying it, and his father goes on - "What, don't like the fact that you made me happy? Then stay now. Spite me. Go on." (And there's perhaps something reminiscent of Cazador's voice in that taunt, in the knowledge that no matter what happens, there's no breaking free. Not truly.)
no subject
But even as the air itself chills. Even as he swears he can smell the familiar rot of stale blood, his hold on Byerly bites, white-knuckled and sharp.
"Listen to me. They're nothing. Old scraps of memory trying to keep you here until you turn into one of them, too." Because there's no room for anything else. No space for doubt, not a drop spared for logic that might poison already wounded resolve.
"What about Bastien? What about your work?"
Not just Riftwatch's is the implication, given how he presses the word across the tip of his tongue.
"Who cares about spite or shame when everything else is better where you are."
no subject
"Work?" says his father mockingly, teeth bared. They're long and sharp, vampiric. "This feckless fool?"
Another voice from the corner. "He'll disappoint you." By looks up, draws in a breath. Looking back at him is a new ghost: a lean elf, bruise across his cheek, dressed in a servant's livery. By remembers that face so well: Thomas, who'd served in the household of Lord Athelwyn, whom Byerly had bedded as a young man. Who had stolen food from his lord to feed Byerly, who'd been caught, who'd been beaten for his soft heart. Whom Byerly had run away from, never spoken to again, the guilt too fierce and too sickening.
And beside Thomas, another: Andres, the husband of Sophia Teresa. Byerly's first murder. The man he'd been fooled into killing. Andres speaks, says, "He just wants to feel like a hero, Astarion. Don't trust it."
no subject
Cazador always thrived on hope.
It was his favorite sport. His persistent vice. Slackening the leash enough to let his quarry hang itself before it realized what was happening.
For the first time since arriving in Thedas, nausea boils in Astarion’s throat. What if this was all just a game? What if none of it is real? All Cazador needed to do was whisper in his ear— tell him to dream up a world rife with freedom and companionship— and he’d do it without realizing. Obediently encapsulate himself in an illusion as if it were reality. Never knowing the truth until he’s told to wake up.
And just like that his bravado is gone. Not an ebbing process, but quick— like ripping a hangnail loose. His tongue is to the roof of his mouth, his shoulders hunched low, neck tipped forward like a beaten dog. He clings to the man at his side still, and he eyes the figures before them, and he—
“Who are they.” He whispers. Wanting a name. A story. Something.
Tell him, Byerly. Tell him they’re your memories. That they’re not one of the countless hundreds of unsuspecting souls that Astarion had seduced and fed to his master over the years. Nameless and faceless and utterly forgotten.
no subject
The sudden desperation is a shock. The sudden fear. To this point, Astarion had been so steady, so caring. To have him tilt so suddenly into terror is enough that Byerly nearly goes with him, nearly falls down into that abyss as well. Feels like he's starting to slide.
"It's - " Does he recognize them? Are these faces different for Astarion? Or are they the same, and in some improbable turn of events, it turns out that Astarion has known some of the people Byerly has fucked over? No - No, he wouldn't be asking who they are in that case.
"That's - " Byerly says, then swallows hard. A new face out of the mist, and Byerly looks to that one, hoping this story will be less grotesque and pathetic, but - it's not. "That's...Bann Peter, of Ram's Head Hill." He drops his gaze slightly. He could leave it there, but something impels him to keep going - that grim face, pale and bloody. "I - It was an early assignment, when I'd just started. He'd been intransigent, blocking the passage of an agreement to rebuild a part of Denerim, so I went in. Found his elven lover, found his bastard child. Normally it would be a simple thing, leverage against them, but he felt himself humiliated. Grew reckless. He - "
By takes a breath. "It turned out well for the Queen. His heir was a young man. Votes as he's told, now."
His eyes swing over to Astarion. Does this help? Is it enough?