plot: in the hall of apotheosis

[uniform]

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: In The Hall Of Apotheosis (the gang kills corypheus, pt i)
WHEN: Beginning of 9:51 Haring
WHERE: The Hossberg Wetlands, within the village of Lavendel and the abandoned Grey Warden Cauldron.
NOTES: Plot post here. Opportunities for griffon clues and griffon stealings still open, just comment to the relevant sign-ups and you'll get something. Let's (unsuccessfully) kill a magister, y'all.

IN THE HALL OF APOTHEOSIS

For almost a year, the war against Corypheus has been at a stalemate. The Divine March has kept the bulk of the Tevinter forces from pushing any further south, while Riftwatch themselves have dogged Corypheus' attempts at discovering and opening any further Gates. For the south of Thedas, it's become almost mundane, living against the backdrop of a war where neither party is gaining much ground. It's easy to think—maybe this is just how life is, now. Maybe this is the Maker punishing Tevinter for the hubris it's never seemed to shake, and if allowing the Elder One Tevinter means he can be kept from the south, well. Might as well let him have it.

They don't understand that Corypheus will never be content with Tevinter alone, nor with the north. It's not the country he's after, after all.

Riftwatch's scouts have heard rumblings of troop movements, the possibility of Corypheus moving into the Anderfels alone, with a small retinue of guards and his dragon nowhere in sight. Something about a forgotten Warden fortress, a cauldron hiding silverite secrets—and nearby, a town called Lavendel, likely to be caught in the crossfire if Corypheus were to push his forces further into the Wetlands.

This is Riftwatch's best chance yet to kill Corypheus once and for all. Everyone has a part to play, from the scouts routing a safe path through the bog to the fortress, to the non-combatants working to evacuate Lavendel, to the boots on the ground—or in the sky—hoping to strike the killing blow.

This is it, Riftwatch. Bare your blade, and raise it high—today, the Elder One dies.

I. LAVENDEL

The village of Lavendel rests on a small, relatively dry patch of land in the middle of the Hossberg Wetlands. Surrounded on all sides by bog and Grey Warden ruins, it is quiet, and sleepy, and utterly unaware of how close it is to danger at this very moment.

Riftwatch has taken temporary control of the Grey Hold that abuts the village, thanks to their Grey Warden allies. The ruin serves as a base of operations for this mission, as well as a fall-back point should anything go awry. There's a lot to do to make it suitable, and not a lot of time to do it in: they'll need a triage station, outfitting for field agents, and a command center for the leadership council to work from. It's all hands on deck to get the Hold ready to support what could be Riftwatch's final mission.

The residents of Lavendel are cautious, but they're Anders—they put their trust in the Grey Wardens, and they hate Darkspawn more than they distrust outsiders. What they're more reluctant to accept are any attempts to convince them to evacuate: the villagers, and those working the bog surrounding it, show little willingness to leave their land. Noncombatants of Riftwatch are tasked with trying their best to convince these villagers to get out of Corypheus' path.

While most of the villagers live nearby, there is a physician, Oskar, and his wife, Marta, who live further afield. A team will need to find their cabin and convince them to return to the village, if not to leave the area entirely.

II. THE LOST VILLAGE & THE CASTLE GROUNDS

Southwest of Lavendel, a derelict village moulders. It's been abandoned so long, little evidence of who once inhabited it—or what drove them from it—remains. Aerial reconaissance by griffon and dracolisk confirmed few Venatori in the village, but scouts are still needed to navigate a safe route through to the Cauldron fortress itself, while taking out any Venatori they do find quickly and quietly.

Within the castle grounds, Riftwatch's job gets much more difficult—the forces brought to guard Corypheus are in the process of digging in, Venatori and enthralled Grey Wardens alike working together to prepare for a longer stay within the fortress. They must be killed before they have a chance to sound a warning to their master.

Once Corypheus' forces are taken care of, there are a number of ballistae to aim, load, and man. A destroyed wall in an upper floor of the Cauldron opens to what can only be described as a "dumping ground": a collection of artefacts kept locked away behind bars by the Wardens who once maintained this fortress. Everything there appears dangerous, and some of it might even be alive—but there may be useful items for the agent brave enough to risk taking something.

III. THE MAUSOLEUM & THE BONES

Within the Cauldron, Riftwatch agents see nothing particular of note until they come to a massive room littered with bones. To the untrained eye, the remains might be taken for human, save for the unmistakeable skulls: this room is a mausoleum for hundreds if not thousands of griffons, their bones packed from floor to ceiling in sarcophagi and niches and urns. Closer inspection reveals evidence of blight creeping over many of the bones, though whether they were infected peri-or antemortem is impossible to say.

Beyond the griffon mausoleum lies a long hallway, with imposing double doors on either side marked with dates of no immediately distinguishable pattern: 9:31 Dragon, 5:24 Exalted, 3:25 Towers, 1:95 Divine. At the end of the hall, the largest set of doors also seems to be the oldest, dated 992. its weathered wood emblazoned with the still-gleaming silverite crest of the Wardens. These doors each correspond with the end of a Blight. 992 TE marked the end of the First Blight, when the Old God Dumat, the Dragon of Silence, was finally slain after nearly two centuries spent terrorizing Thedas.

Behind the doors of the First Blight is a cavernous room, dark and forbidding and bare, save for its central feature: a giant raised daïs bathed with moonlight from a grated opening in the ceiling above. Within that pool of moonlight lie the blighted bones of a massive dragon, arranged in a frozen facsimile of life mid-snarl.

Corypheus hovers next to them, looking upon the bones of his once-god, and he does not seem surprised by Riftwatch's presence.

The lord of silence, silenced. There remain no whispers to conduct.

The magister turns to Riftwatch, raising himself into the air. Blighted magic crackles around his clawed hands, and the perpetual snarl on his face deepens with fury.

I will not be so easily defeated! On my command, the heavens will open, and this world will have the god it begs for!

With that, there is nothing more to say. Combat begins.

IV. IT ALL GOES TO SHIT

The battle has been grueling, but there is hope. With all of Riftwatch's might focused on one goal, with Corypheus isolated and alone, with the field of engagement tight and contained—there is a real shot. This might be it.

A piercing roar rocks the very foundations of the Cauldron: Corypheus' dragon has arrived to aid its master. It's now or never—escape to fight another day would be next to impossible at this point, with reinforcements coming and a dragon in the air—

It's now. However it's done, whoever it's done by, Corypheus falls, and for a moment, it seems that this might all truly be over—

Until Warden von Skraedder begins to seize.

The grate over Dumat is ripped from its place with a shriek of torn metal and stone, showering rubble over all below. The Elder One's dragon lands behind Teren, blight dripping from bared fangs. All that stands between Riftwatch and—whatever is happening to Teren are the bones of a dead god.

V. THE ESCAPE

The mission has changed: escape the Cauldron, and return to Kirkwall, by whatever means necessary. The ballistae may provide an advantage, if they can be aimed to Corypheus' dragon quickly enough, but the castle courtyard provides little cover if the dragon were to return the volley. The lost village affords more aerial cover, but Venatori and enthralled Grey Warden reinforcements have arrived since the battle with Corypheus began.

However Riftwatch returns to Lavendel, fighting has broken out there as well. Villagers have taken up arms alongside Riftwatch's noncombatants, fighting Venatori as fiercely as a trained regiment. Everyone falls back to the ruins of the Grey Hold, and it seems this may be the heroic last stand of Riftwatch and the village of Lavendel both—

Until a wolf howl sounds behind them, and a hidden eluvian glows to life in a shadowed corner of the Hold.

©, ©, ©, ©, ©

Comments

Teren OTA

[doneisdone]

I. Lavendel & scouting a route

a.It's been a griffon's age since Teren was this far north, having come to Weisshaupt only once or twice during her tenure as a Warden: a rite of passage, in its way, and a place of utter misery to someone with as little body fat as she has to stave off the cold. It's a little bit comical, the thick fur overcoat she wears atop her Warden blues, as she traipses through Lavendel and avoids the eyes of its denizens like a ragged, standoffish eagle. Periodically her gaze takes on a faraway quality, and she stands as though frozen in place, listening to something no one else can hear.

b.She isn't in town long, intent rather on finding the Cauldron; she's wondered about it for as long as she's been a Warden, going on forty years now, and the desire to finally get Corypheus matches a general curiosity.
Her head high and alert like a hound's, and with a knife in each hand, she leads the way through a system of caves.
"D'you hear that," she says at one point, in a low whisper. She's not imagining it: there are heavy footsteps on the other end of the passage.


II. All Going To Shit (featuring original lyrics by mj)

She'd got him in the eye. The resulting gush as the old fuck crumpled under her had covered Teren in something caught somewhere between blood and ancient ichor, and she-- feeling her own age more than ever-- definitely landed a little too hard on her elbow, feeling it give way with a sickening crack.
It's done, she thinks nonetheless, allotted a few minutes' peace to lie on her back, catch her breath, and listen to the song that's been sung in her mind for the last month or so.

There are no dogs in the deep roads,

With the first jolt, Teren wonders if something is perhaps more wrong than she thought; perhaps she landed funny on some organ or another, perhaps it's failing. She jolts again, spasming on the ground, her mouth opening in alarm to elicit no sound. The others are nearby, she can see them.

dogs are too good for the deep roads,

Something inside her is opening, tearing. There isn't much of her to tear. She coughs blood, her limbs shaking beyond control; mindless of her shattered elbow, Teren tries to roll over, doesn't even scream. Her ears are full of the song, and a strange roaring in the back of her mind,

darkspawn wish they had dogs,

The dragon lands.

in their search for the gods,

She rends. Someone else emerges.

but they don't.

ii.

[portalling]

So much of the room is taken up by those blighted dragon bones, gigantic and sprawling, a gruesome tableau. It would take time to run through them, dodge and weave between those clawed feet, the angle of a limb, a long tail coiling around the daïs; it’s blocking the path to where Teren is.

Good thing, then, that Doctor Strange can just teleport.

He tugs on the Fade, a slight warping of space, and he appears on the other side having Fade-stepped closer to her. Perhaps he should be paying more attention to the fight itself, that animal scream of another dragon arriving, shit, shit,

except that over the past three years, he’s been serving as Head Healer, not Sorcerer Supreme. Remembering what it feels like to heal, rather than harm. Anyone can chip in with the fight, but not everyone can treat a grand mal seizure.

So he hares straight to the fallen warden’s side, where Teren is still seizing, her limbs wracking. He rolls her over so she won’t choke on her tongue, trying to hold her steady. Somewhere behind them, the battle’s still going, and the new dragon is dripping blight on the ground.

“Von Skraedder,” he says, firm. Like when he’d tried to rouse her after her collapse and fever; she’s just a patient again, it’s fine, it’s going to be fine.

“The fight’s not over yet, you old monster. Come on, now—”

Except he’s too late.
Except there’s something inexplicable happening, her body spasming and moving in unnatural ways.
Except he was wrong: it’s not like the fever, no, it’s instead like any patient coding on the operating table, a white hum and a straight line slipping beyond his grasp, the failure he’s been trying to outrun for so long —

She’s already gone.

now I'm over here!!!

[thereneverwas]

"DOC!"

It's rare that Barrow addresses Strange directly, after Everything That Happened, but this seems like a moment to do so: the woman's corpse does not look right, and as it continues to convulse even after she's gone limp-- is she getting back up, or is that a trick of the light?-- it becomes rapidly clear that something is rather amiss. And the healer, being who he is, is right there in the thick of it, about to get... well, whatever happens to people who are next to whatever the fuck is happening.

Barrow lurches forward, not quickly, but at Hurrying-Barrow-Speed, with the intent to wrench Stephen backward and away from the imminent danger.

[portalling]

The Head Healer is tall, and muscled in a lean way, trained by monks— except that the other man now closing the distance and grabbing his arm is so much bigger. A 6’3” brick shithouse, perhaps gone a little to seed but still with the build of a former templar and mercenary. Barrow grabs him. Stephen tries to shake him off, he has a duty and a responsibility here, Teren is still moving,

but there’s something deeply wrong in the movement. The look he throws over his shoulder to Barrow isn’t panicked, but an intent and focused one: all his perspective a narrowed tunnel, with his patient on the other end.

“I don’t know what’s happening to her,” he says to Barrow, despairing. It’s a grim admission; one he hates making, and a sign of how desperate the situation is. The doctor would do anything to avoid showing weakness, a lack of knowledge, a lack of understanding.

III. combat

[doneisdone]

[figured we'd just want one thread? I'll delete if I'm mistaken]

At the sight of the enemy, Teren's first instinct is to dodge away from the party and into the nearest pool of shadows. Her whereabouts remain unknown to the others, but it is safe to assume she's moving to flank their quarry.