[OTA] A Cave, A Qunari, and Truthlessness

[roseandthorns]

WHO: Character(s)
WHAT: A Qunari arrives through a portal, armed with only a broken spear. With her, came ten demons.
WHEN: Now? Now. Yeah, now.
WHERE: A deep underground cavern near the Storm Coast, away from the sun.
NOTES: Blood/gore, violence, self-harm (minor).

...And from it came eleven demons. Ten of what one would expect from the expanse of the Fade. Fear and Hunger, Rage burning. The green glow of the Rift illuminated the eleventh.

A demon in all Covaltan respects. Too tall, too strong and too fast to be human. Twisted spires of horns rose from her scalp, and red tattoos glimmered almost black in the green light across her pale flesh. Her jaw was set, her expression neutral.

But her eyes were wild. Feral. She clutched the sharpened, shattered haft of a spear, now cut down to be the size of a quarterstaff and a chunk of faceted, carved onyx glimmered around her throat. Her clothes were stained with dirt and grime, and blood that was not her own. Underneath all the detritus, all the collected stains on her honor, one could barely notice the bright blues and silvers of a soldier's uniform.

But none that would be found on any Thedan map. She hissed out a slow breath, falling into a routine form, a close-quarters stance meant to fend off several attackers.

It won't work. This is meant for a spear. You hold a stick against Fey. No cold iron, not even a cut length of blackthorn to banish ghosts and goblins. You'll die here. The voice in her mind chimed in sardonically. She grit her teeth, shaking her head.

No, I will not. I have not been permitted to die. And I will not allow it to be in this place of sulphur and darkness where the sun cannot bless my remains. If I am not allowed to die, that leaves only one course of action. These name-devoured BEASTS must be slain. She replied to that voice of doubt.

"Come then, Feylings. Let me show you the resolve of Covalte." She rushed in, spinning the length of splintered wood around her large hands with a deftness not belied by her stature. A demon came in, claws long and body rail-thin. It reeked of ketogenesis, of a body eating itself when no food remained. She growled, shifting her right shoulder to intercept the slicing fingers instead of her throat. Blood pooled down her sleeve, creating rosy blossoms across the stained uniform. More dishonor to her name...

No. I have no name to dishonor. Not anymore. If they see me as a beast, then at least I'll fight as one! The roar ripped from her throat with an untamed ferocity. All that hate, all that anger, all that pain from the last four years released in a constant burning intensity.

She was an overstoked furnace, metal glowing white-hot.
She was an overclocked engine, burning through fuel with little regard.
She was a screaming sinkhole, greedily tearing at the land and feet around her to fill the growing void that she had become.

She, she was a demon now. At least, to these other demons, that's what she would evoke. The training, the rigid structure of her Lucite Silver Army training slipped away like water through cupped fingers, leaving only the silt and stones of pain and frustration. She clenched that feeling and pushed onward.

A kick to the spear-haft to send it spinning into a burning chest, a wide and dangerous punch to send a skinny, clawed thing reeling. She slammed into them, again. Again. Again. They were hard as a mountain, but she was angry as a storm.

And eventually, they wore each other down. One fell first, his throat split by the shaft that stuck clean through. His burning flesh immolated the wood, leaving naught but ash. Truthless merely laughed, a sickening chuckle of admittance but not acceptance. Surely, she would die.

But not before she took every one of them down with her. She wiped a hand across her face, trying to keep the flow of blood from reaching her eyes and blinding her. Nine remained, and she was already bleeding quite heavily. But it made her feel faster. Feel stronger. Her body's fight or flight response activated at large.

And Truthless had no wings.

Her hand touched the horns and she stopped. The curious, large fingers curled around them experimentally, giving them a tug. And the laugh returned. She WAS a demon! The proof was right here, she was the monster they all thought she was. Her hands gripped the horns, sliding as close to the base of her skull as she could, and she screamed. In rage. In defiance. In the simple act of making her voice heard, at least one more time before these darkest of curtains closed on what had once been a proud, respectful life.

And.

She broke them off. With a sickening lance of pain through her head, through her brain, down her spine that threatened to collapse her legs, the horns shattered. Blood and marrow coated her fingers, but the horns were slightly grooved. A good grip, she thought sardonically. She flipped her own horns around, holding them as twin daggers of the most grim variety, and she rushed back in. The next to fall was one of the Hungry ones, twin horn-daggers plunged into its vacant eyes. Then another burning one, its heat singed and scarred her hands, crusting fresh blood into blackened carbon across her arms and chest. The next...

She stumbled, dropping to a knee.

No. No. I can't be at my limit. There's more to do. More to kill.

The seven remaining figures began to circle her, slowly approaching like carrion to a wounded hunter species. She tried to keep her eyes on all of them, but blood and sweat streamed into her vision, adding a hazy red filter that stung her eyes. A lash of claws, a burning fist. She shuddered, barely enduring.

And then the tallest one, a rail-thin body covered in viscous green tendrils reached for her. Its jaw fell into its chest and it burbled at her. It reeked of Fear. Of helplessness. It reached for her throat, its hand far stronger than one would assume for a being as thin as it was.

And as it did, she gave one last surge. One last push. Her muscles protested. Her body, drained of blood and stamina, screamed at her to stop. To let it end. To accept.

Her hands gripped at its elbow and shoulder, and she tore its arm off at the joint, turning it about and shoving it down the gaping gullet of the foul fucking thing.

"Hah... Hah... Make that... Four..." She was out of stamina, and the beasts knew it. Soon, they would begin to descend again.

Comments

[notathreat]

The gates are unstable.

It makes it harder to respond to the ARRIVED system, harder to get where they need to be with sufficient troops and support.

Flight is consistently the fastest option now, or agents already on the field, and thankfully Ellie is doing courier duties near the coast when the alert comes through of an impending rift.

Which means an impending Rifter.

Great timing, new kid.

Ellie leans forward to bury both of her gloved hands into Artichoke's feathers, and turns the enormous griffon back towards the location indicated. As they fly overland, the pine trees, the rocky mountainside, the break of the coast, Ellie doesn't hear a thing. There are no signs of battle -- but her anchor is starting to ache anyway.

It takes a second to hit her.

Fuck. The caves.

Cursing under her breath, Ellie leans forward to urge Artie to speed, and flies towards the water, where the caves open up, and from this angle it's unmissable. The wide mouth is perfect as a perch, and Ellie urges Artie onward, into the slick, salty rock entrance. His claws scramble briefly on the stone before finding purchase, and Ellie slides down from his back, beckoning him with her. He clicks his beak, agitated, and follows closely.

The sounds of battle, the screams, are loud and ringing, seeming to come from all directions. The world opens up into a cavernous underground chamber, a bleeding rift hovering over an impromptu battlefield and washing it in sickly green light.

Multiple corpses litter the ground, and in the center of it there is a large, muscled woman. Bloodied and with jerking, rough, desperate movements that say she's running out of steam.

But still dangerous. Still very, very dangerous.

"Hey, motherfucker!" she calls, pulling back on her bowstring. Eluvia glimmers a faint green, and Ellie's eyes burn to gold. The arrow glows, then zips with uncanny accuracy into the shadowy-hooded eye socket of the shade bearing down on the newcomer.

It jerks back with a scream, an unearthly howl, and Ellie's already pulling another arrow.

Artie doesn't go rushing into the fray, but he knows all about defending his person. He shrieks into the face of a Horror, squaring up, and when it launches itself at him he meets it in kind, all slashing beak, ripping claws, and heavy muscles.

This is insane. Just how many demons came through with her?

[roseandthorns]

The woman... Demon... Truthless's head looks up, her eyes confused. She sees a figure, a woman roughly her age with a bow.

"Hey, motherfucker!" Ah, so that is what they're called. Not Fey. She will remember this name. She tries to stand, to hold out a shaky hand that still grips her own horn in its grasp.

"Away! They are dangero--" She watches as the new figure drops one of these Motherfuckers in quick succession, and her... Friend? Compatriot? Mount? Tears into another. She forces herself to her feet, unable to fight, but able to still move. She pushes closer to the new woman. Have to be closer. It doesn't work with distance. Damnable archers. One of the Motherfuckers manages to get close to the new woman, slipping in a burning hand to course flames across her torso.

But Truthless roars again. The flames hit, sinking into the flesh...

But it's not the new woman's flesh that burns. In the same spot, as if she'd been standing in front of her as a shield, Truthless's torso ignites in blisters, reddening skin that quickly chars to black at the edges. An angry burn. She falls to her knee again, but at least now, now she's within distance. She still had some of that internal reserve left, that unknown source that let her stand and take the damage others should take.

But her body was far more damaged than she could ever recall. The spirit was strong, but the flesh was falling apart. "Run. I will... Slow them. Escape, and seal the cavern."

[thereneverwas]

The second griffon arrives rather more slowly than the first, as its burden is both far heavier than Artie's and is clinging to it with the sort of death grip that would restrict anyone's movement. It alights, and Barrow opens his eyes, stiffly sliding off and hurrying toward the fray as he unclasps the two-handed hammer from his back.

"Not how it works," he calls patiently to the newcomer, greeting a demon (sorry, Motherfucker) from behind with a heavy swing that crumples it from the shoulderblades in.

[roseandthorns]

The woman was in no place to disagree. "They... Will kill with no hesitation! You are not permitted to die! Not here!" The growl of a Lieutenant in her gravelly voice. It was as much a command as a promise. She tried to raise herself up again, but her legs buckled.

"I am... Fine. I can stand. I can stand." It didn't take a mastermind to tell she was lying. It was, by all means, almost miraculous that she hadn't passed out yet. One hand clung to the fresh burn across her ribs. Another Motherfucker came up, aiming a set of bared teeth at the newcomer...

Until a wide leg tripped it, sending it sprawling to the waterlogged, blood-soaked cavern floors.

"But... Until then... Perhaps I could use some help."

[notathreat]

The already incredibly wounded woman pushes in front of Ellie before she can react, taking a blow meant for her, a searing burn that goes deep.

She doesn't even cry out.

"Shit-" Ellie grinds it out, baring her teeth. And thankfully, Barrow comes in, caving the creature's chest in, dropping it.

"Barrow, she's bleeding bad. Stay down," Ellie insists, stepping closer to the stranger's body, practically standing over her. She's skinny, a wiry young woman in leather armor, freckles and dark hair, but she stands like she's a predator, like nothing could possibly put her down.

Ellie fires another arrow into the last demon up, followed by a second, and it screams, writhing, dissipating.

The rift looks like it's bleeding as much as Truthless is, twisting in the air, dripping light.

"You still with us?" Ellie asks, going to one knee, bowstring pulled tight and trained on the rift. "Because we have to close this thing. You got a glowing shard anywhere on you?"

[notathreat]

A searing burn carves itself across Ellie's flesh... or should have.

Somehow, it isn't there. There's no pain, no damage, just the ghost of the heat, the burn.

She doesn't immediately realize what happened- but then a searing light carves across the new person's chest, exactly where it would have taken Ellie.

She drops to one knee in Ellie's stead. She doesn't even cry out.

"Shit-" Ellie grinds it out, baring her teeth. And thankfully, Barrow comes in, caving the creature's chest in, dropping it.

"Barrow, she's bleeding bad. Stay down," Ellie insists, stepping closer to the stranger's body, practically standing over her. She's skinny, a wiry young woman in leather armor, freckles and dark hair, but she stands like she's a predator, like nothing could possibly put her down.

Ellie fires another arrow into the last demon up, followed by a second, and it screams, writhing, dissipating.

The rift looks like it's bleeding as much as Truthless is, twisting in the air, dripping light.

"You still with us?" Ellie asks, going to one knee, bowstring pulled tight and trained on the rift. "Because we have to close this thing. You got a glowing shard anywhere on you?"

[roseandthorns]

I am down. But I am not dead. While there is even a drop of blood in these veins, I will fight...

She wants to speak, but words fail her. She looks up to the wiry young woman.

Sejunna would be so proud of this one.

And nods. She raises her right hand, a glowing shard on the back of it. Nailmarks indicate she had already tried, and failed to remove it, to burrow below it, to get it out of her flesh, to no avail.

"Orders?" She said plainly, voice hoarse with effort.

[notathreat]

Ellie looks to Barrow to be sure that he's ready, nodding when she catches his eye. With him to guard them, this should be easy.

She tries not to think about how nothing is ever easy.

"The people who come through the Fade Rifts have this mark," she explain, raising her voice to be heard over the weirdly deep pressure of not-sound that the rift is making. She reaches up to pull off her archery glove.

Her anchor is in the palm of her left hand, crackling with the same bleeding, sickly green energy as the rift. Her hand is as whipcord as the rest of her, long slender fingers, bony wrist-

The last two fingers, the ring finger and the pinky, are shorn clean off at the last joint to her palm. By the scars, the injury is several years old.

"Do what I do, okay? Put it up like this. Now will it to pull closed."

What happens next is probably terrifying. An arch of that green, bleeding lightning crashes into Ellie, like it's arching into her hand -- but she bears her teeth, bears down on it. It doesn't exactly hurt, but it's still like- trying to control the rudder of a huge ship. She only has so much strength. But once she builds the momentum in the direction she wants it to go, it starts to turn. She starts to draw the rift shut.

And if Truthless does as she does, the same will happen to her. Ellie will help her, they'll do it together, but the first time is always a fucking trip.

[thereneverwas]

Demon Duty is a big part of why Barrow is ever at these things, seeing as he doesn't have what it takes to close the Rifts himself, and he hardly needs to be signaled twice. He plants himself like a bulwark before the women, fanning this way and that to ward off and injure approaching demons, keeping them at bay but never going for the kill unless they're close enough to risk the time it would take.

He's confident enough in Ellie that he doesn't add to her instructions, mutely going about his task and hoping for the best.

[roseandthorns]

"On your honor, Huntress."

The woman nods grimly to the large man, the stalwart shield of the group. She normally fills that role in small strike teams back in Covalte, but this time, her aegis had been shattered. She looks to the glowing sliver on the back of her hand, then to the rift, now connected by green flames to the nimble huntress's hand.

It was growing jagged, crystalline. It was closing. But not fast enough, not before more of those Motherfuckers might get out. She lifts her hand, knuckles facing the ominous rift...

And she feels it make a connection. A breach. A skein of flaming green energy connects her to this thing, this ominous void in the cave, this Place Between Places...

And it begins to pull. She takes a step forward, almost yanked by the newly-bridged connection. It feels like a woolen sweater unraveling. A fish hook piercing her hand, up into her arm, into the core of what it means to be her, and the rift is pulling it undone. She plants her foot, a look of anger, a look of hate.

A look of defiance.

And she wills herself to not lose. To pull back, to reform. The burning energy seems to switch polarities, no longer unknitting her but sewing the rift shut. Causing it to burst into erratic patterns of unnatural rock and stone, to shake and tremble. She looks to the Huntress and the Shield. If this was to be her last order, at least these two would survive.

And she pulls once more, with the Huntress. She doesn't get the pleasure of seeing whether she succeeds or not, whether the rift explodes closed or yawns open further as her knees buckle. She drops, first to her knees, then to all fours, and then flat, her face in the muck and mire of this forgotten place far from light.

And for once, she is happy to have followed an order.

[notathreat]

Ellie's been called many things before, but she's never gotten a title from a stranger. She's never had a stranger supernaturally pull Ellie's wounds onto her, and take them for herself.

Ellie would've been helping her anyway. But this brand new person-

Even with the respite given from Barrow guarding the both of them, they're not clear enough for her to have room to tend to the woman's wounds, which they are running out of time to do.

Instead, the rift.

It's difficult to close a rift on one's own, and this is what Ellie assumes she'll have to do here. It's the trade-off that comes with having Barrow here- she'll have to do this part with a new person, or alone.

The woman who fell through the rift, bleeding, burned, barely able to stand -- Ellie doesn't count on her being able to do this. Ellie expects to do the heavy lifting, and likely should, given her condition.

She doesn't count on the rifter woman with the bleeding skull to surge upwards and push immediately back with her anchor. Enough that Ellie is able to seal the pushed-closed portal with worryingly little difficulty. The rift explodes over them, the remaining demons glowing, screaming, writhing in the light before all of them explode.

And the woman falls.

"Shit-" Ellie drops Eluvia with a clatter, hitting her knees next to the woman and digging into her pack for healing potions.

"Barrow- can you turn her over? I can't lift-" she gestures at her. Qunari. Fucking enormous.

[thereneverwas]

Bracing himself, eyes closed against the bright light, as the Rift and all its denizens explode, Barrow takes a beat to puff out a weary breath before responding to Ellie.

He crouches, gripping the Qunari by the side of her arm to try and turn her, frowning. "She'll have to go on your bird," he observes-- his can barely carry only him, let alone two of them. "D'you have any way of securing her?"

later

[laruetheday]

Clarisse does not spend a lot of her time in the infirmary. She's certainly nowhere close to being even doctor-adjacent, so hanging out there feels a little bit like she's pretending to be good at something she's not, but—she's used to pushing through uncomfortable feelings until they go away, and this is going to be no different.

She hopes.

Anyway, she's there, ostensibly volunteering, but the place is empty so she's actually just tossing a rolled up bandage from hand to hand and reminding herself that she can't just steal elfroot to smoke it.

A noise from the doorway has her glancing up sharply, and when she sees the woman standing there, her mouth drops open a little. Oh, shit.

Re: later

[roseandthorns]

Clarisse would see a woman who should not be standing. Covered in various bandages, most of which still wept small amounts of blood across their white linen gauze, stands Truthless at full height. Seven feet and two inches, she would seem taller if her horns hadn't been snapped off. The tower of a woman didn't smile. Whether that was from pain or displeasure was hard to read.

"Apologies, Oathbearer. I was finishing my morning training." She speaks with a slight lisp, the left side of her jaw still painfully swollen. A few missing teeth, some cracked molars. She gives a salute, willing her body to stop shaking. "I have not been cleared for field duty, but the healers and chirurgeons have not strictly forbade exercise." There's a light playfulness in her voice, a precocious teen who found a loophole.

[laruetheday]

"Okay, well... I'm strictly forbidding it now." She technically doesn't have the authority to do that, but Clarisse is doing it anyway, because what the hell?

She gestures for the woman to take a seat on the nearest bed before her legs collapse underneath her, and walks over to take a better look at her. She's pretty fucked up; Clarisse almost doesn't know where to start.

"You're reopening all these wounds every time you push too hard."

Look, Clarisse gets it. If she doesn't train every day she gets antsy and sulks around. But this woman isn't doing herself any favors right now by forcing herself through whatever insane training regimen she clearly has going on.

[roseandthorns]

"On your honor. It is forbidden." And just like that, she sat exactly where indicated by the woman. "I apologize, Healer." It was simple, inelegant and highly formal. She sat down on the indicated bench and raised her arms as if used to being inspected.

She was. Truthless were treated like pack animals. It was common for us to be inspected. She brushed the errant thought away and looked straight ahead.

"I will save you time. Incisions across the left bicep and right tricep, gouges across both shoulders, nerve damage to the left wrist including partial, hopefully temporary numbness in the digitus minimus and digitus anularis on left hand. Three missing teeth, two cracked molars. Heavy burning across the abdomen. Two broken horns, concussion. No new wounds since last encounter with the Motherfuckers."

[laruetheday]

Motherfuckers... okay.

"I'm not a healer," Clarisse hastens to tell her, just so there's no confusion. Last thing she needs is a malpractice lawsuit in her future. "I just help out."

She's looking Truthless over as she lists her injuries, biting her bottom lip in thought. She can handle this. Well... some of this.

"I can fix the stitches you ripped and give you something to help with the pain. You can some back and grab some later if you need more, even if no one's here. You don't need to ask." Because she's getting the vibe that if she thinks she has to, the woman won't.

"I can't do anything about your teeth or your horns," Clarisse adds. "That's way above my paygrade."