player plot: catharsis makes me free

[aberratic]

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: Making Heroes of the Veilguard Riftwatch
WHEN: Mid-Cloudreach (April)
WHERE: Riftwatch's dwarven outpost beneath the southeastern reaches of Ferelden
NOTES: OOC post here. TW for spiders and various forms of backstory drama, I'll add anything warned for in top levels!

catharsis makes me free, for i do not prefer to be a prisoner.

For the past few weeks, Riftwatch's dwarven outpost on the outskirts of Fereldan has been experiencing an influx of creepy-crawlies. It started in Guardian with a higher-than-usual number of spiders scuttling about—not entirely unexpected in an underground living area, but notable for sheer volume. Then, in Wintermarch, a deepstalker was caught trying to make off with a nug, and it was only after it was dealt with that anyone noticed—there used to be more nugs down here, didn't there? Investigating some of the unused homes revealed holes dug up from the floors, the presumptive source of the intruder... and perhaps others. Deepstalkers are pack animals, after all.

To deal with these infestations, a greater number of Riftwatch agents than usual have been assigned to man the outpost. For the past few days, members of Riftwatch have been filling in holes in the floor, killing spiders (those are too big to be normal spiders, aren't they? Have they always been that big??), and searching for any other cracks in the walls a deepstalker might wiggle its way through. It's tedious, somewhat heebie-jeebie-fying work, and everyone will need a long bath after to make sure there are no spiders on them, no really, I swear I felt something crawling on my neck—but it's been more or less uneventful.

Which makes it a surprise when, the morning of their last day in the outpost, a number of agents can't be roused from sleep.

I. WAKING UP IN THE MORNING

For the agents who do wake up, they'd be forgiven for being a bit freaked out. Any reaction is understandable when your friends and coworkers can't be roused from sleep by any means you can conjure—not touch, not loud noises, not magic, not pain—and figuring out what to do about it may not come quickly. Someone's gotta tell the Division Heads, probably—hope none of them have fallen asleep too—and maybe somebody should stand watch over the sleeping agents... But no one in Riftwatch would steal from their unconscious coworkers, right?

II. DREAM A LITTLE DREAM

For those asleep, this might be a good chance to describe the memory they're facing without any observers or outside interference to alter it in any way—or you could start it in media res, I'm not your boss.


III. SPIDERS AND DEEPSTALKERS OH MY

The spiders and deepstalkers show up at the same time, and immediately start trying to stake their claims to the outpost. On the spider side, they range in size from a large cat to a particularly well-fed druffalo, with mom being biggest—she's young, and on the smaller side for a breeding female of her species, but she's got a lot of ambition. Ways to deal with the spiders aside from actively fighting them include burning and tearing down webs and destroying egg sacs—though doing either may turn into a fight if the agents doing so are caught. The deepstalkers are the size they should be, but there are approximately a million of them, and the matriarch is crafty: she rarely shows herself and seems almost to have a grasp of strategy in this war. Non-violent ways to deal with the deepstalkers include filling in holes and destroying egg nests, though the matriarch dislikes that as much as the spiders do. The two groups do not get along and will fight each other as eagerly as they'll fight Riftwatch—maybe that could be turned to the organization's advantage?

IV. CONFRONTING CATHARSIS

When the "delegation" to confront the spirit keeping the agents asleep find it, they will find that it...isn't a very scary spirit at all. Catharsis looks and sounds for all the world like a friendly old man, and it's as stubborn as one to boot. It has places to be, you know! There's not very many spirits of Catharsis around, and it's one of the oldest—it's needed in so many places, but it decided to help here because boy, do you all need it. It's happy to let the sleeping agents wake up... once they've untangled the knot it's helping them work on, and not a moment before! That would mean it hadn't helped, and it's here to help! What do you mean this isn't helping, of course it is.

© tessisamess

Comments

[wythersake]

He's too young to look so serious; he's just the right age. Thirteen, maybe, on the cusp of maturity and all that asks. Old enough to know the stakes,

(He's ready with the bow. Every time, he's ready.)

Young enough to think them surmountable. Isaac's hand steals out along the tables and counters, searching for protection, a brace against what's certain to come. The boy's a certain navigator, in a maze of house that's never had this many rooms before. A mansion might stretch between them and the sliding doors.

There are other footsteps now, a stalking pattern to their own. Close. His fingers close on a fire poker. Careful to lift it without scraping brick, rattling steel. Careful. Quiet. He steps behind Lev,

And the board snaps with a crack.

[armd]

"Fuck," Lev says.

The word seems to hang in the air for a second and Abby lunges to the side. The sound of a gun cocking is unmistakeable, one cold tick — her hand presses Lev's spine. "Glass door. Go."

He does. He's quick and when he ducks down he becomes an even smaller target than he already is. Abby doesn't watch him leave but smoothly draws a handgun from the holster at the back of her trousers without needing to check the clip.

Apparently there's three. Well, there's three of them, too.

The garage door screams upward. The boxes stacked in there make a bottleneck and Abby beats the first Rattler there, firing between the gap into the meat of a thigh. A louder curse splits the air, and a body thrashes loose to get to her side—

All hell breaks loose.

[wythersake]

The gun means nothing, mind skating blank over the impression of danger. She fires.

One crack, then another — impossibly loud — and the dream turns from memory, expands. When Lev finds the backyard, it slopes up some unknown ridge. Not Seattle: Where blackberry should root, spindleweed tangles instead.

Isaac falters, back to the door. His grip is sweaty on the iron. This isn't his first ambush, but he's afraid, he's always so goddamn afraid.

(At the top of that ridge, he's holding a woman's guts in. At the top of that ridge, a knight crests the hill, bow nocked — no, sword drawn —)

It doesn't end. This won't end, and he doesn't want to see the bottom of those stairs, can't stand to do this again and again. He lifts the iron high above a skull, and swings.

One crack. Another.

[armd]

It always happens fast. Abby slips in blood and has to throw her leg out to save herself from going down; the jolt ricochets up her knee. She curses. An arrow splits the air over her shoulder and punches into the man that had been reaching for her through the gap, takes him to the ground. Abby's braid hits the side of a box when she whips around, dragging her leg forward. "Lev—"

Their companion is hitting a man toward the floor on their right.

Abby steps around his high swing and cracks the Rattler in the shin with her shoe, taking a leg out from underneath him. He slams his face into the cracked wooden board.

Lev slips out the door. Outside it's hot. The sun is harsh where it gets through the trees. Abby can see him backing away up the hill when she chances a look, a determined little figure with an arrow in his bow and one eye squinted shut — she can't see him now but she's seen him enough times before to know what he's doing, how he does it. When she looks back somebody has yanked the body of the man she felled back through the gap in the garage.

"What the fuck," somebody else bites out, hard and angry.

"Hey," Abby says, a step backward, her palm lighting on Isaac's arm for a second to pull his attention just enough. "We need to get the fuck out of here—"