faderift | [ CLOSED ] THE ANTIVAN CROWS SEND THEIR REGARDS

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[ CLOSED ] THE ANTIVAN CROWS SEND THEIR REGARDS

WHO: Alistair, Araceli Bonaventura, Beleth Ashara, ~~Anders~~ Detlef, Korrin Ataash, Taashath, The Iron Bull, Twisted Fate, an Zevran Arainai. Guest Starring: Samouel, Cyril, and Merrick, Super Special Guest Star: Leliana.
WHAT: The Crows come for the Ombra Nera.
WHEN: Begins Guardian 6
WHERE: Skyhold/Antivan Border/The Road
NOTES: CW/TW FOR: Flesh hommonculi, violent/gruesome content, torture, blood magic, non-consensual drug use, adult content, adult language, reader discretion is advised. Sign up post, original plotting post, hit me on PM or @

thesouthernbelle if you have questions.

It's a normal morning in Thedas until, abruptly, it isn't. The Crows come calling; they are swift, they are certain, they are silent and leave behind but one witness that won't be alive for much longer (or so they assume). Prize in hand they ride North for Antiva.

Subthreads for portions of the plot are yours to tag around in as you like!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Frankly, he's all for getting the hell out. Sticking around to deal with this shit seems like a horrible idea, and he'd rather get Zevran as far from this as possible.

"Here, then. While they mess around with this nonsense," Twisted Fate says, trying to brace his irritability. Really, he's had enough of this -- Crows, monstrosities, and mucking about. The faster they leave, the better.

He moves to Anders' side to assist the other elf.

Limping along by sheer force of will alone, Zevran staggers between Anders, and Fate. The myriad of cuts still sting even after the healing and what he has in his system leaves much of the world a fog. The bloody smear that is the right side of his face angles in Fate's direction, lips moving in an Antivan mumble that is less coherent than he thinks.

Beyond- the shades scream and race for the group, the monstrosity itself? Temporarily stunned and caged by lightening, though that does nothing to stop it's bellowing fury.

Edited 2016-02-04 05:43 (UTC)

"Don't think trapping it's gonna be enough," Bull replies with a grunt, wheeling around to face it. "Go on. Get him out of here."

He'd be willing to take on the thing alone, if he thought no one else was willing. But among their group, he'd be surprised if that were the case. Zevran has help out and someone to tend to his wounds. Bull's no healer.

This thing? He can handle. And there's still a lot of pent-up anger due to be dished out.

"Go," Taas snaps as well. The thing was big enough for two qunari, and he was equally useless in the 'helping a hurt friend' department. He didn't even dare carry the elf, hands feeling too rough, too dangerous to touch him while his adrenaline was high like this and the berserker gnawed on the reins within.

If he could help making sure Zevran got out of there, however? He'd fight side by side with Bull to take this thing down - or at least slow it enough for everyone to escape.

Alistair has his sword and shield at the ready, but he's walking backwards away from the creatures before he's paused to justify it to himself. He'll do that later: three Qunari and one Beleth are more than enough, surely, and he's already wrung-out from the blood mages and not any extra Templarish help against the shades. It makes sense for him to make sure the others' retreat is covered in case there's something more to deal with ahead of them. Later, when he's actually thinking at all, he won't think of this as a selfish decision whatsoever. Right now he isn't thinking, though, and he doesn't offer any explanations or apologies before he tells Detlef and Fate, "I have your backs," and follows them.

Bull and Taas' abilities are of course not in doubt at all; between the two, Korrin's pretty sure that golem doesn't stand a chance. Still, she lingers. If Taas gives into his rage, and he's seemed on the verge of doing so ever since they entered this damned place, he'll need someone to snap him out of it. That's still something she'd trust herself with, not the Qunari who was the reason for that first of many hunting trips.

So she'll ready a Chain Lightning at the shades, and summon her spirit blade if they get any closer.

"...fucking, weird-ass..."

Bull's muttering under his breath as he takes first charge at the golem, axe angling in an upward swing at the fleshy beast. It doesn't look armored, but there's a lot of muscle and pink mass to cut through, and nothing about this is gonna be fun.

Instead, he simply concentrates on drawing its attention, drawing back a step only to plant himself firm. "That's right, over here! You want this?"

Gives anyone who's sticking around a chance to flank, if nothing else.

A lot of muscle, a lot of bone. Beleth's arrow jutting from one of it's many mouths, oozing brackish blood as it strains against the cage binding it. It bellows as Bull's ax strikes it's mark along it's twisted, fleshy belly. The cage stretches and snaps as it staggers free, a meaty fist (one of many) sliding into the cut to grasp at something yanking with the rending of wet flesh. Slippery, hissing entrails roll from the cut in a gnarled tangle, oily in the dim light of torches before it hurls the mass in a wide arc over Bull and whoever else is closest.

The Shades stagger, three stunned at the blow, two wheeling to flank Taas and Bull as they seem the easier targets without magic. Only for a moment are the remainder shaken by the spell before one shrieks words black and binding, a hex flaring to life under Korrin's feet. There is a moment before the spell takes hold in all it's wasting power; while the others shake themselves of her spell and speed along the bloodied ground to lash out with their jagged claws.

The noises, the shrieks and crackling of lightning, the yell from Bull, as well as the whole look of the thing that he'd gotten said this was bad news.

"Andraste's asscheeks. They're not going to follow us out. They're going to fight that thing fully, aren't they."

The tension in his voice isn't due to any dislike or anger. Rather, it's due to worry. He barely knows the people who have hung back, but he can't abandon them. And he can't abandon Zevran either.

"Do you think they have it controlled?" Do either Fate or Alistair know them well enough to say? "If not..." He doesn't know. He's not worn out yet, but he's only done a patchwork job on the most immediate needs Zevran had so they could get him out before they were jumped in the dungeons.

Growling, Taas follows suit easily and goes for the other side of the beast while Bull has its attention. It was almost second nature to fall into line with another warrior like this, and adding a challenge to that, another way to hack out his anger over this shit? he would take it.

The attacking shades makes it less of a clear path, however, and he's forced to strongarm one into the wall, heaving his axe to see if these bastards could be taken down with a normal weapon or not. If not, he's just going to slam it aside and keep going.

Three qunari should be enough, and Beleth has seen what they can do. For a moment, she looks longingly at the direction the others have retreated. Every survival instinct in her, the panic welling up is telling her to run, to keep running until everything is behind her. They don't want to trap this thing, they want to kill it, and Beleth isn't really sure if it's even possible.

But she stays, anyway.

Instead of the golem, she works on the shades. She fires volley after volley of arrows at all the little creepy ass fuckers, trying to clear a path to the golem for the two fighters. A few explosive arrows are used, far enough away from the others to keep them from getting caught in the crossfire.

Shit.

The spray of innards stings like shit, and he can feel the bile burning against his skin. But rather than let that slow him down, Bull spits and hurls himself back at the golem, axe swinging overhead and brought down into the flesh crook of the thing's...shoulder? Close to a shoulder. Likely to contain joints, tendons, weak points.

Obviously gutting it wasn't going to present a problem.

Korrin snarls as she feels that hex weakening her, but she persists as long as Taas is in sight. Beleth's help is greatly appreciated, though, and she'll take advantage any distraction that provides, swinging her glowing spirit blade. At least her barrier's still holding, and will do so as long as she remains active. All she can do is hope that she lasts longer than the hex does.

"...Go." It's rough and ragged, but Zevran shifts his weight more onto Fate than Anders. He squeezes the mage's shoulder once in a weak grip before shoving him back. He is not worth any of their lives, not even a little. He has not the breath or strength to say such, but he can do this. "Go. Keep them alive."

Arrows and ax work well enough on the shades- they burn to the touch and write, staggering and bloodied. Such is the cost of being on this side of the veil. Wounded they press on, driven by rage and pain- those struck with explosive arrows vanish is a cloud of ash and sulfur. Those caught by the edge of Korrin's spirit blade fall back, leaking smoke as a living creature would blood. They circle and strike again until cut down or shot down.

The golem snarls, a wet burble rippling along it's grotesque form in a gelatinous wave; something pops inside it's torso just as something cracks under Bull's blade. It swings a meaty fist around to strike at him as it opens it's many mouths in a pustlent deluge of bile- acidic and explosive in a spray of foul, hissing fluid that smells of rot.

The regular arrows aren't working, and Beleth mutters some various swears in Elvhen that would leave her mother aghast. Time to switch tactics. She pulls out a vial from one of her pouches, and with practiced precision, coats a few arrows in it, and starts shooting those at the shades, poison that will, upon death, cause the person to explode into a poisonous cloud--

At least, until she gets hit with fucking acid.

This is what she gets for not keeping a proper distance, but it's hard to do in these kinds of quarters. Her armor protects her from most of it. But it also shoots up a noxious fume as it eats at the cloth part of her armor, and Beleth is both gagging and trying not to scream in pain as the acid hits her hands. Her bow drops with a clatter as she tries hurriedly to wipe the acid off on her scarf.

"By the--I--Ow--Fuck."

He hates this, and despite Zevran's words he still hesitates until he hears the loud 'fuck' from the group. Life would be so much easier if he could just run and stay running, instead of stopping to help Banns or Wardens or women with very pretty eyes... His mental list goes on as he murmurs an apology to Fate and Alistair and runs back, reinforcing Beleth's broken barrier and hitting the shade nearest her with Winter's Grasp.

"Hands, now." Her bow's on the ground and she's wiping them, so they're the problem. That, and they'll need her archery, so he can justify healing her despite his earlier comment about inability.

Taas just finished hacking the shade down and turned towards the monster when it started to spray bile all over the room. It hit his chest and the side of his face, and while vitaar was a strong 'armor', it didn't really help against that.

It felt like he was on fire... but like last time, that was just what he needed.

Pain makes you angry. Anger makes you stronger. Stronger means you can kill. Berserkers and reavers weren't that different - one got more dangerous while being hurt, the other got more dangerous while hurting.

He roars, rushing forward and swinging that axe high in order to try to shut one of those mouths up permanently.

Bull's closest when the spray hits. He jerks to the side, feels it splash against his shoulder where the leather doesn't quite cover, spraying against his back. And it stings. It stinks. It's agonizing.

And all he does is channel that quivering agony back around again, imparting it right back where it had come from.

A particularly vicious yank pulls the axe free, and just in time to wheel him out of the way as Taas goes flying for the beast's face. Without pausing for an instant, Bull takes a swipe at the back of the golem's knees. The impact vibrates up his arm, but he'll hit it again if it means cutting one of those legs out from under it.

The pain is enough that she doesn't argue about Detlef healing her first. Later on, she'll kick herself about being selfish, but in that moment, her only concern was that she needed to get her hands fixed, to stop the pain. She holds her hands out, watching him worriedly, and trying not to gag, because the smell of burning flesh is everywhere, not just from her.

"Th-Thank you." She says between gritted teeth, looking up at him. "I--If I couldn't use my bow--" But there isn't time for that, so she just looks at the rest of the room instead. Bull and Taas are hit worse than she is, but the healer won't be able to help them until the monster is done with. So she just nods to Detlef, and once she's done healing, with a fully repaired barrier, she reaches and grabs her bow again, while mentally telling herself that staying is, in fact, the definition of insanity.

"If you want to stay here, stay behind me. Save your energy for helping Taas and Iron Bull once they finish that thing." And, gritting her teeth as sensitive, newly healed flesh protests using the bow, she fires one of those poisoned arrows at another shade. Keeping them off of the two fighters would be the best way to help, right now.

And is Korrin ever glad to have a functioning barrier when that acidic spray hits; that combined with the hex would have crippled her efforts. As it is, she grits her teeth at hearing the others' pain, ready to take a moment she can't really afford for a healing mist grenade, but spotting Detlef nearby brings her some relief. Good, he can concentrate on the healing. On the other hand, she will keep focusing on the shades. Every time they strike and weaken her barrier, she'll retaliate with strikes of her own, using her spirit blade to both harm them and strengthen that barrier back to what it should be.

Edited 2016-02-05 00:50 (UTC)

One by one the shades fall, to arrows, to Korrin's blade, crumpling in on themselves in piles of putrid ash and gouts of sulfur. Those struck by Beleth's arrows glow in bright pulses of demonic power before exploding in a cloud of sand and warped fabric. When the one that had cast it is struck down the hex flickers under Korrin's feet- fades, leaving her free of it's wasting influence. One struck with an arrow extends a hand, garbled black speech grating through the air like nails on bone, cuts like blood and a siphon swirl in horrid, dark power through the air to connect it's ashen form and The Iron Bull. The power is sapping, draining, minuscule cuts that bleed spatter their skin as blood and life are siphoned away.

Meaty fists swing down hard, slamming against the ground even as it is staggered- a gaping, spewing mouth silenced of it's bellows by the blade of Taas' ax. It stumbles too it's knees from the assault, and the air around it? Ripples. A sudden miasma of black, entrophic magic roils from it's flesh like a fog, roiling over the muddied ground. Those crows cut down in the fight before twitch and wrench unnaturally, staggering to their feet one by one. Shambling corpses, the lot of them, stagger to those yet engaged in battle, blades at the ready.

"..."

There's really only one word to sum up Beleth's current emotional state.

"GODDAMMIT."

Those might be three words smudged into one, but who's counting?

She'll be firing arrows at the new zombies, at any rate.

"I sincerely, absolutely, do not want to be here," Anders informs Beleth and everyone else but he doesn't leave. He stands behind her and wishes that he could have a near-infinite source of mana. The best help he can give comes after the fight and he knows it. As did she. At least he can pull out his staff and hit things with it, though.

"Frankly," he says as he thwacks the closest corpse in the head, regretting for not the first time that he hadn't let Aveline teach him more about dodging swords, "anyone who wants to be here needs their heads examined."

What's battle without a little snark? Still battle, but lacking the only bit of amusement one can get. If he's fighting, he'll be talking. He'll leave the growling to Taas and the silent fury to Korrin.

This would probably be an excellent time to retreat. Unfortunately, Taas is far too busy pulling his axe out and trying to slam it into another head, just barely dodging a swipe of those meaty hands. He can't hear any warnings and he's lost in the blood rage, shoving his other hand into what must be an eye or something, tearing what he can.

Zombies are just an extra challenge. A deadly challenge.

"I don't want to be here either, trust me!" Korrin's only thought is to keep her friends' heads on their shoulders, if possible.

And it's time to use that code word for Taas' arm cuff, so Korrin does just that while taking advantage of the vanished hex and hence renewal of energy. She closes in on the undead, swinging her blade as Vivienne taught her. Perhaps it's not as polished in application, but Korrin's use of it is vigorous and brutal, not giving the undead any quarter.

Edited 2016-02-05 01:37 (UTC)

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