player plot: the horror of sarrux's pass

[aberratic]

WHO: Caius, Gwen, Hermione, Jayce, Ness, Siorus, Stephen, Vanya (sumptus, elegiaque, reparo, pathlit, aberratic, wildered, portalling, wearyallalone)
WHAT: The Horrors Cometh
WHEN: Beginning of Harvestmere (October)
WHERE: Sarrux's Pass, outside Wycome
NOTES: OOC post here. TWs for body horror, NPC death, ghost town/apocalypse vibes, children in upsetting situations, and general horror stuff.

Characters

CAIUS

GWENAËLLE

HERMIONE

JAYCE

NESS

SIORUS

STEPHEN

VANYA

The residents of Sarrux's Pass, a small village tucked into the mountains of the Free Marches, have long held that their settlement used to be a bustling trade city where dwarves were as plentiful as humans and they had constant contact between the surface and the Deep Roads. These were assumed by the surrounding cities to be nothing more than fanciful legends for decades, but any long-time resident swore it was the truth, lost to time and "monsters in the deep."

Residents were finally vindicated a few months ago when an earthquake caused a landslide in the surrounding mountains, revealing a long-lost outlet from the Deep Roads. At first, residents of the pass were apprehensive, all too aware of the dangers posed by such an opening, but the longer they went without Darkspawn spilling from the entrance, the more eager they became to investigate.

Eventually, the bravest among them began to enter the Roads, in search of ore and artifacts. They were vindicated again, finding both, and Sarrux's Pass quickly became a magnet for treasure hunters, Lords of Fortune, historians, archaeologists, and anyone in search of a quick buck. Even in the face of the Venatori invasion of the Marches, the promise of fame and riches drew handfuls of people seeking their fortunes to the Pass. News from the area was steady, and filled with discoveries and success stories—as well as the brawls, backstabbing, and even the occasional murder that comes with any good gold rush town.

It's been a few months since the reveal of the Deep Roads entrance. News from Sarrux's Pass has slowed to a trickle, then a drip, and now, in the past weeks, nothing. The last message to make it out of the village three weeks ago said simply: "We weren't just right about the dwarves." The parchment was stained with an unidentifiable liquid—not water, not blood—which smelled of the sea.

Riftwatch has been tasked with investigating the village, with three goals: find out what happened to the residents, recover whatever valuables they can from the Deep Roads, and, if necessary, close the entrance again. There may be Venatori in the area, or Darkspawn, or territorial prospectors—without contact with the village, there's no way of knowing what Riftwatch may discover. © tessisamess

Comments

[portalling]

It is so terribly humiliating, to experience an emotion. This insensible emotion getting the better of his cold logic, raw animal instinct propelling him against the barrier instead, and then humiliating to be physically hauled back by someone stronger, like a child throwing a tantrum and having to be picked up, moved away —

his arm thrashes on autopilot, elbow colliding with Jayce’s face, before the pressure tightens and tightens and there’s that sensible voice, Cut it out,

and the man finally pauses. Breath ragged, heaving, staring down that door which the others disappeared through. Just barely missing them. Door slamming in their face. He sags in Jayce’s arms (too many arms, too many hands), fire still pulsing at his fingertips, not banishing it just yet. An eyeball still blinks in the palm of his hand, also narrowed into a scowl; there’s another at the neck of his shirt, and presumably others beneath his clothes, his body still warped by proximity in the room.

(And for a moment he thinks he knows exactly how people get possessed by Rage demons, the anger sinking through all the crevices and nooks and crannies of your mind, reaching and grasping for more.)

His blood is running hot. Never put your heart anywhere someone else can get at it, and this is why.

“We need to get through,” Stephen says, immediately.

[pathlit]

Though his teeth clatter together from the impact of Strange's elbow, Jayce refuses to release him until he stills, then sags. He waits a beat longer to be sure, then slowly unhooks his arms from the doctor, so as to not let him stumble backward.

The other arms, phantoms weaving in and out of existence, continue to grasp and claw. Jayce does stagger back more quickly, then, frantically sweeping at his chest, as if the mutations could be brushed off like dust. (They can't, and don't.)

"No shit," he spits, tasting blood. Harried, afraid, increasingly disturbed and smarting in his cheek, Jayce's filter is gone. "Just-- save your magic for the monsters."

[portalling]

He doesn’t look back or apologise for thrashing and hitting Jayce; odds are he might not even realise he did it. The fire at Strange’s fingertips finally goes out, but he’s still practically steaming, breath heaving, adrenaline throbbing in his skull and making him dizzy. He runs his hands along the massive door, ineffectually searching for a seam, for a crack, for leverage. Perhaps outwardly quieter, but certainly not calm.

“A large enough burst of telekinesis could probably do it,” he says, mind spinning, heart-sick, more quick and impatient than ever, “but Siorus and Caius were the only native mages in our group. I don’t think Granger and I can—”

The two rifter mages were capable, but their metaphorical hands were tied in new and unusual ways that the locals weren’t. Their magic was warped, pressed into smaller shape.

The tentacle uncurling from his arm coils, thrashes, lashing like an upset cat’s tail.

“We need a bulldozer,” he mutters, fixated.

[pathlit]

The arms sprouting out of his chest, ghastly greens and purples of slender, elongated proportions, weave around his shoulders and arms as Jayce continues to strike and claw at them in return. As one such arm snakes around his neck, he says through gritted teeth, "The charges--"

Ripping the arm away, he uses his other hand to blindly grab a fistful of lyrium charges from the pack at his hip and thrusts them out for Strange to take. One of the phantom arms swipes at the charges, nearly knocking them out of his hold; another hand clenches around his elbow and shoves down, seemingly trying to prevent the exchange.

[portalling]

Strange looks at Jayce, his own expression oddly shuttered and empty. Just half an hour ago, he would have been far more fascinated by those extra arms and would’ve had more humour about it; might have cracked a joke about the opposite of helping hands or the usefulness of multiple limbs with opposable thumbs.

How quickly your life tumbles. A second’s inattention at the wheel. The road slippery with rain.

But he seems to snap back to attention, both hands and tentacles reaching for and taking the charges as Jayce holds them out, and he gives the other man an approving nod. Unlike Jayce’s phantom arms, every natural and unnatural limb of Stephen’s grasps for the charges. He then turns back to the door, and starts targeting those cracks, the place where hinges might be, scoping out spots to place them. Mining equipment, which the other man knows better. Explosions, which the other man certainly has some recent experience with —

“How do we set them off?” he asks, brisk and brusque and business-like.