faderift | WE'RE THE BADDIES

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WE'RE THE BADDIES | Log

WHO: Riftwatch + Venatori Guest Stars
WHAT: Riftwatch goes to Ferelden, and stumbles on a Venatori plot. We're also the Venatori.
WHEN: Some time!
WHERE: The island of Alamar
NOTES: Feel free to join this even if you didn't sign up, just throw a bio for your character on the OOC post.

POSTS:

— CRYSTAL POST
— ALAMAR TOWN
— FORT
— SEA CAVES
— HARP
— AFTERMATH

CAST:

— Alais Amphion, Site Coordinator (K2)
— Gregorius Leto, Blight Researcher (Hope)
— Julian Agnelli, Old God Historian (Green Rivers)
— Callinicus Lusko, Gate Researcher (Cass)

— Aurelius Hathaca, Spy (Libby)
— Spuria Tapsenna, Scout (mj)
— Prisca Salvito, Scout (Lor)

— Inpia Agger, Mercenary (Cami)
— Sergius Dalca, Combat Mage (Ammmy)

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Summer is slow to reach Ferelden.

Storms shake the jumble of stilt houses and boats lining Alamar's rocky shores. It's all smoke and seedy inns, a cluster of farmholds that trickle constant wary faces, and covered wagons. This isn't a grim place, but it's not an easy one.

Riftwatch folds in among a dozen other docking boats, the stream of travelers and traders and raiders doing a little for their motley origin. It isn't unusual to spy an elf here, or even the rare Vashoth - but with the attacks on Denerim, suspicion turns to Northerners. The Venatori detachment has been here long enough to blend. They need continue to: A Vint crewman was run out last week less an eye.

Riftwatch is here to meet the local Bann, whose well-documented funding of pirates has set their Marcher allies on edge. He can't be alienated completely, the Inquisition's continued presence in Caer Bronach could use a sponsor.

There are rough streets here, convenient shadows. It's possible to pick off individuals - or lead others into a trap. And of course, someone needs to retrieve Aurelius Hathaca.

Edited 2024-06-17 05:41 (UTC)

The road inland is rough, windblown; the woods pocked with deep streams and deceptive currents. A misstep might swallow the unlucky into caves below.

The fort's rain-soaked, overgrown; a ruin of stone and bramble. Smugglers once held out here. They're gone now - and the locals think better than to question it. If pressed, some point to strange movements, moneyed faces. They try not to know too much.

Inside, the fort's former occupants persist: A name scratched in a wall, some corner that forever reeks of piss -

But there are nicer rooms. Proofed against water, cold, discomfort. Locks and valuables and signs of recent occupation. Living quarters. You might surprise the enemy within.

A board creaks strange under one worn bearskin. Pulling up the trap door leads down into a blast of cold, salt-worn air.

Edited 2024-06-17 05:12 (UTC)

The steps down are claustrophobic. Tight quarters for a skirmish: At any time you could be caught by the bloom of a spell.

Venatori paths mark by lyrium gleam — well-maintained, and as likely to be trapped. Safer to step off them, even when murky water floods a chamber to the chest. Stealth could ask you to swim, or crawl, or stumble up crag.

Urthemiel was sacred to musicians, poets, artists; a history that spiderwebs this place. The walls carve in ropy coils of scale (intestine?), break from Old Imperium to Alamarri style, and back again around a corner. A winged shape blurs between dragon, eagle, dragon,

In the warren of tunnels you might find:

A smooth, dark room, iron cages bolted into rock. Holding cells for former cargo, or future sacrifice. The altar blades along a table are old, ornate, and very sharp.

A screaming statue, wrought in the old Alamarri style. In archaic Trade, the walls write of a terrible, Northern poison. The constellation Bellitanus marks the high ceiling above in magelight. Research equipment stands abandoned, halfway to some obscure reading.

A stinking pool of sulfur, difficult to breathe - and crawling with the corpses of smugglers. The clothes drip off them in yellow rags, bloated by spirits of Rage.

An escape from cave-mouth, with a small boat tied ready in the surf. With the tide this high it's risky. It's a way out.

Sooner or later the fortress above begins to burn, a fire started in the stores. Act fast to salvage research - or to barter for your survival.

Edited 2024-06-17 06:12 (UTC)

There's still work to do. Captains to liase with, agreements to secure, a Bann to appease. But you can bed down here for the night.

The fortress owns a cache of small comforts, many of them strange to a Southern palate: Dried peppers, patched silks, coins marked in coiling dragons, a seasick green liqueur. Digging at crates and letters, you might twist open leverage. The Venatori here had contacts beyond their own.

There are notes to sift through, a trove of half-burned research. It's missing something. If the party identified a Gate, they weren't any closer than you to tracking it down -

Yet.

The Harp can be moved, with a bit of cleverness; a touch of caution (the judicious deployment of cleansing runes). It would be wise not to touch it directly, the black wood crawls with Blight.

Should you even try? There are a dozen places to bury it.

Edited 2024-07-16 08:12 (UTC)

There are reinforcements. Locks, and traps, and hasty glyphs smeared in blood. At the end of them all, only a wide chamber, a woman; eyes wild with fear.

Urthemiel's Harp suspends behind her, floating crooked in columned light. A barrier. Runes score a deep circle into stone around it, cleansing the air in rhymthic pulses of white. Each wave ripples the strings, plucking forth a shivering discordance. Mages will find it sharper still - a needle into the eye of their magic. Holding your focus of a spell is,

Punishing. Easier to time the spaces between, the silence that comes after chord.

"Stay back," That staff is only threatening if you've never seen a mage fight; from her stance, Alais hasn't either. Heat shimmers pull at her free hand, "You don’t know what you’re dealing with."

There’s a crack in her voice. Somewhere inside it: A decision.

On his way to see a man about an ointment (been a long, damp trip) when he spies them. Which is to say, when he runs into them at full fucking force; blind around a corner and straight into Muscles.

"Shit, mate —" He staggers back, not so far as you'd hope. "— There’s dryer places to shack up."

It trails off, distracted from whatever shakedown pitch he’s preparing. Lazar squints between the pair. Some distant torch lights behind his eyes:

"Marco," Close enough. "Fuck’re you doing down here?"

OPEN TO VENATORI

For a while (not long enough) she lingers below, nerves buzzing to match the Harp. Alais doesn’t like to leave it — not with Leto here — but it’s her job to manage this site, not micromanage a single, replaceable ritual component. So she drags herself upstairs.

She can be found sorting through a crate, organizing papers; all the whats and wheres of how to destroy maybe her most promising research lead ever, just in case they’re all murdered by a gang of Southern zealots, and,

She can be found hunched over that crate, hyperventilating into her hands. You know. If you had any professional queries or updates.

CLOSED TO AURELIUS

She's a bad actor. Can’t hide it when she’s angry: All balled fists and arch tongue. So it can’t be a welcome surprise when Alais steps into the doorway, hands folded around the white little scratches of her own nails.

"I think we should talk,"

It isn’t a suggestion.

It's a stance, and a look in the eye, that Barrow has seen more times than he'd like to confront. He holds but doesn't raise his hammer, doesn't move at all, really, because as long as the mage is still herself, there's time to stall.

"You don't have to do this," he calls, coaxing and avuncular. Maker, what is she, twenty? What a kick in the gut.

The phrase this fucking guy nearly comes out of Aurelius's mouth, and it's actually sort of heroic in a way that he doesn't say it. He hasn't lived in the same city as Riftwatch for all these years by panicking at the mere sight of one of the bastards, however, so not only does he not say that, he straightens, regarding Lazar with much the same expression he always does on the rare occasions that they cross paths in the procurement of his services.

It has occurred to him that it's unlikely Riftwatch is somehow less aware than he is of this man's particular proclivities and general cowardice; it's deeply unlikely that his work for 'Markus Osterhaus' would have the far-reaching effects that tying that saltscum pirate would have done. It is, at this point, mostly a private joke to throw him the occasional bone.

He has truly got to get better material. If this gets him killed, he thinks, he fucking deserves it.

“Why am I anywhere?” he drawls, pivoting on the spot to the Marcher accent that he's lived in, an effortless switch at this point even if he'd been speaking with his natural voice to Sergius a moment beforehand. (Here's to hoping the big lug didn't overhear.) “War is a profitable time, Lazar. You'll have to excuse us,”

he'd really like to be excused,

“but I'll keep you in mind, now I know you're here.”

Behind Barrow, Kostos casts a skeptical glance at the back of his head. For the fact it seems—to him, perhaps incorrectly—a bit late for that kind of conversation. For the way he'd have responded to that tone when he was twenty. The glance is brief. Most of his attention is on the woman, most of the rest on his wisps. Four or them, disoriented by the harp. Pained, maybe, if a wisp can be pained. The smallest of them pulls back to Kostos' chest in alarm, and that one he waves back into the Fade during one of the lulls between the waves.

"Just knock her out," is under his breath. Too quiet for the enemy mage to hear, though his expression is plenty eloquent. Maybe too quiet for Barrow to hear, too. Kostos doesn't expect to be listened to regardless. He's only registering his opinion with the universe at large.

It's not so different from tracking down for dinner, except this time her stupid brother isn't waiting at the camp with his glass vials and spinning metal contraptions to say rabbit, again? or that one looks sick or took you long enough—

No one will even know she was doing this until she's reporting back with a kill count. Maybe a fistful of Riftwatch pins, if she can get them, to spill dramatically onto a table as she declares the problem not solved, no, but at least cut in half, and everyone is welcome.

Recklessness of the premise aside, she's careful. She finds the places on the rooftops where taller buildings cast her into even deeper shadow than the night affords on its own, and she's watching for weak ones left unprotected. No one she could mark as a mage, no one who looks capable of pulling her head off her shoulders with their bare hands—unless she's confident she can hit them from a distance and disappear. Her aim could be better, but a handful of her arrows are poison-tipped and might do the job even if she's catching shoulders or livers instead of hearts and arteries.

She would very much like to hit an artery, though. She's trying.

OOC | Open to one thread of actually confronting and fighting/killing her, either after a pursuit or by sneaking up on her. Otherwise open to any number of threads where people are hit or almost hit by arrows and deal with that with other Riftwatch NPCs, even though, like, realistically it could probably only happen once. Who cares.

There are two possible reasons Sergius could be here, based on his looks: muscle or recreation. He's not much of an actor, but he's at least self-aware enough to know that (or has been told it often enough for it to stick). He's definitely terrible at accents, so he keeps his mouth shut.

Instead, he gives the random Riftwatch contact a curt nod. Yes, he too has important things to do. Probably standing behind 'Markus' and looking intimidating, if he's begun as he means to go on.

He’s bought the lie. Unfortunately.

Squinting at Sergius, you can almost see the gears turn behind his eyes. Muscle or recreation, well, work and play don't gotta diverge. Knows for a fact that Oysters don't bother — only bigger gossips than the idle rich are their thieving servants. There’s been plenty on at that estate, to hear the occasional associate tell. If Sergius was stuffing his cock away two seconds prior, he was still paid to be here, and that means there’s a job on.

His arms thrusts out to block the alley mouth.

"‘Course. I'll make sure you get there safe," To that excuse. He isn’t stupid: Little guys can still be plenty dangerous. But Osterhaus hires it out, and Lazar’s not above kicking beau’s ass for an interview. "Northern profits?"

He sure fucking overheard.

"I do,"

There's nothing left – the others are dead as whatever they meant to her. Months of work burn above. In Minrathous, her mother waits for a death notice or a knock from the guard. She’s never going to see civilization again, the barbarians are at the gates, and everything here’s been taken, except: "You can’t have it."

Alais drops, hand drawn sharp across a ring in the floor. Runestones snap from place. The harp shrieks in answer, the ceiling rumbling dust from above. Unstable. Her fingers lift, trailing molten silver from some glove-tight barrier,

And she opens a door.

Her eyes lock on Barrow when it happens. Black dribbles from the crown of her head, down, and her breath catches; gaze cast briefly up. Alais falters, mouth pressing into a little no –

Split for a scream, as skin peels, skull cracks. Hatching. A bony distortion presses from within, gore slithering over rowed incisors. The demon chews itself free. It gurgles, choking on blood; terribly human. Unshakeably else.

The Abomination snatches at a stray wisp, pulls it struggling into new jaws. Joints snap for the meal, a dozen new fingers unspindling from knuckle as the room washes into a terrible grey. Heavy on the air, sluggish to push against. Sorrow,

And the harp strums. Weight lifts in temporary reprieve. Alais reels, then plunges to meet them.

Edited (sorry for dobule edit!!) 2024-07-16 08:21 (UTC)

"No, NO!"

It's the very beginning of the thing, her posture, the blood, and Barrow surges forward-- he can stop it, he can Silence it-- and then his face is flecked with red and he can smell the ozone coming off the creature. He's too late.

The bitch of demons is how they get into one's head; Barrow's hammer is raised, lowered again in the wake of crippling despair, which he knows is just Fade bullshit but is also all too real. He failed, and now another mage is a thing that he has to kill.

Before it can kill him.

His response is delayed, his hammer hefted once more as he gathers his wits back to himself, not in time to avoid a first blow unless Kostos is able to intercede.

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WE'RE THE BADDIES | Log

ALAMAR TOWN

FORT

SEA CAVES

AFTERMATH

THE HARP / ABOMINATION FIGHT | one thread, pls

AURELIUS & SERGIUS | Raising the alarm

ALAIS | Preparations

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picking off (attempts)

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cw body horror

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