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allthisshitisweird2016-11-22 07:37 pm
faderifting) wrote in allthisshitisweird2016-11-22 07:37 pm
Entry tags:
TEST DRIVE MEME!
fur: matted. belly: empty. claws: out.
i am forcibly removed from the hinterlands
Maybe the Inquisition sent you, maybe you came seeking the Inquisition. Maybe you fell out of a rift into this world last week and are still just trying to find your feet. However it happened, early fall finds you in the Hinterlands. Tucked between Ferelden's massive Lake Calenhad and the icy Frostback Mountains, the Hinterlands are a hilly region covered in patchy forests and small farms trying to eke out a living between the boulders. Though somewhat remote, the area is rich with game and minerals and home to Redcliffe, a bustling town on a busy trade route.
The Inquisition has set up several camps and sent personnel to try to restore order to the region, unwilling to let it slip into chaos. There's a lot to be done, some of it straightforward killing bad things, some of it weird and nebulous morale-building.
I. DRUFFY
How did you come to be here, trying to guide this druffalo across this river? You may have been ordered to -- even if it's beneath your talents, sometimes something just needs to get done and you're the only one there. Or maybe you passed the bereft farmer himself and were moved by his sadness to seek out his lost druffalo on your own. Or perhaps you were on another mission entirely when you came across the beast, beset by wolves, and made the very good guess that she belonged at the nearby farms instead of out in the wild. The end result of all three is that you are here, with a druffalo, trying to cross a river. And above that river is a rift. And you're about to learn that a druffalo is entirely capable of mowing down demons singlehoofedly. Maybe you can even ride her into battle.
II. CROSSROADS
In the year since the Inquisition's formation, the Crossroads have changed. Most of the refugees from the Mage/Templar War have moved on--if not back home, to new places--and there's been some progress rebuilding the homes and fortresses ruined by the war. Very few people are still living in caves. But rather than quieting down, the Crossroads have begun to bustle. Between the Inquisition's locally stationed forces and the increasing number of travelers and merchants now that the roads are safer, there's enough business to support a tavern with a few rooms for rent, and the Crossroads are becoming a trading post in their own right rather than a dot of houses on the path to Redcliffe--a great place to stop for a drink, to buy basic weaponry, or to unload all of the bear skins you've collected.
III. BEARS
You have turned the wrong corner, forded the wrong stream, crested the wrong hill, entered the wrong cave. Maybe you are far from camp. Maybe you are in camp. Whatever has happened, wherever you are: you are being chased by bears. Did you provoke the bears? Are they huge? Babies? Fade-touched? Mage-controlled? What are they chasing you away from? What are they chasing you into? What do you plan to make out of their hide if you kill them? What do you think they'll craft out of your hide if they kill you?
IV. CRYSTALS
Members and trusted agents of the Inquisition are given access to one of the Inquisition's stores of ancient, mysterious sending crystals, allowing them to communicate instantaneously by voice. It's magic. And a magical excuse to ask everyone what their favorite constellation is in the middle of the night.
Or to call for help because you've been treed by bears.
Either way.
V. MISCELLANEOUS
Choose your own adventure! Hunt game, kill demons, gather herbs, track bandits, haggle over the price of armor, fall off a deceptively tall rock, get lost circling the same hill ten times trying to find a way up to the weird glowing skull on a stick you can see is up there, climb trees or abandoned towers, rummage around in empty homes, run from a dragon, cry over how cute that fennec fox you just shot was, set up camp and chat around the fire, knock yourself out (figuratively, or even literally if that's more your speed)-- the Hinterlands are your Frostback Mountain oyster.
UNKINDLED | DS3
Gaultier's torch fell, and clattered to the stone-cobbled path, scattering sparks. His sword fell too, clanging badly against the rock, against his armor. The tatters of his cloak whipped in a fell wind, and the green light behind him cast its sickly pallor against the sharp edges of his gauntlets.
It crackled and ripped and tore behind him, perhaps a dozen feet from the ground he'd landed upon. Stunned, he rolled to his back, body and the steel that caged it both complaining.
He stared up at it, prone with horror, gauntlets raised to guard his face from the fell light. A few more crackling rents, reality bending around the light, and he wasn't alone -- long, needly fingers prying through the rips in the fade, a Demon used the tear in the veil to begin prying through.
Gaultier wasn't fool enough to think its misshapen body and skull-seeming face were friendly. Shouting an alarmed cry for help, he scrabbled for his pitted sword.
II. WILDCARD
[ Whatever you like! Gaultier could easily be mistaken for a rogue templar; he often goes around in full plate. He will be wandering the wilderness alone searching for civilization, seemingly without supplies or aid of any kind. ]
arrival
A hoarse shout, a sword raised and flickering with white, an armored figure shoving in front of its own. Wren gets in a few early slashes (of little use — this one, it's made of stronger stuff), just buying time for the stranger to find his purchase.
A knight, Though the flashes from the corner of her eyes don't bear any standard she can recognize. A knight, and yet,
The demon emerges fully, delicate legs extending like a fine lady from her bath.
"Your arm!" Is he marked? She can't say, needs her focus on the beast before them, can only hope he hears her above the roar of the rift, the thick numbness of shock. "Does it glow?"
no subject
A lady knight, he thought in wonderment, body moving towards the threat as if of its own accord. It made his heart swell with memory of Anri, and he turned his blade in his hand, striking for the place he had seen her sword bite. Hoping against hope it would represent some manner of weak point against the unfamiliar creature.
He struck again before he processed her question, only with a start noticing the wreath of green about his hand. Some fell pyromancy? A stranger magic of Vinheim? The bones of his hands clenched tighter, and fear-borne panic stirred in him.
"Aye, sir! Has it cursed me?! What do I do??" The words were desperate, and he fought to drag the monster's attention away, to expose its flank(?) to one clearly more familiar with the sight of it.
no subject
The terror demon screams, gibbering from its slackened mouth. It's impossible to fully place the sound — at once a shriek and something else altogether, whatever noise might compel a given man to panic.
When Wren hears it, it sounds like singing.
Her teeth grit against the urge to run. White light flashes, as she rips at the thing again. The blade rebounds from the thick armor of its side, seems to cleave between something other than flesh: There's a ripple through the air, and like the noise before, the demon is at once itself and something darker. Half a shadow, slipped from the shape of Gaultier's personal fears.
"Do not falter! Break its legs, or aim for the belly!" Softer tissue there, but the man's sword is heavy, they may yet be able to batter their way through its chitin. "But first — the light!"
forgive me for the long post!
The scream cut through the air like a knife. It was still a scream to Gaultier's ears, not of wroth but of agony, soft and full-throated and feminine.
But fear had long been his friend; and fear of failure had been more motivating for him these long years than any fool's frail hope. Underneath his gauntlets, the bones of his hands clenched so hard they ached, and teeth grit, and in a muttered rush he begged it to burn him through so long as it might work at all. It crackled, flashed pale light -- and the creature was upon him.
In a strange double-vision, he saw the shadow of the monster. But closer, so bright and stark that everything else around it seemed a dream, he saw realized the shape of a fear that made him suck in a breath of shock.
"Do not falter! Break its legs, or aim for the belly!" the stranger warned, but his sword had slackened a little in his grip. Even his raised fist lowered, fingers beginning to splay like one meaning to beg forgiveness. But the demon had no need of forgiveness, and rose one of its many spindle-pointed legs, punching it through the place where his breastplate failed to cover the soft skin above his hip. It was a forceful blow, and cracked through his body, and the back of his armor.
Its many other segmented arms clicked on the knight's armor as they gripped him close as a meal, awful mouth opening wide.
Whatever the creature expected, it was not that its prey keep moving. The terrible wound shed no blood, and shocked from the reverie of fear, Gaultier levered the point of his sword up underneath cloth-covered joints in the chitin on its chest, grunting with effort as he pushed the blade through and through until it came out the creature's back with a grating sound. It wailed and screeched and its insectoid limbs scrabbled on armor for enough purchase to tear, awful hands flying for his face as if it might try to rend it off.
"Cleave off its head!" He called, bearing the assault to twist his sword and make the creature squirm, given up on the green light. Now the reverie of fear was broken, he might well have seemed... very queerly unperturbed to have been gripped close as a lover by a gibbering horror.
man you know i love that teal deer it’s all good ❤
Not immediately, but soon, with a blow like that. Whatever he’s doing now, it’s on borrowed time. The nearest healers are an hour’s ride away — he’ll bleed out before they ever get there.
Something in her chest clenches in tight misery, tries to seize her legs to run. But Wren wasn't trained to flee. As she plants her stance (they can yet finish this, the stranger’s sacrifice may not be wasted) to assess the scene there’s still a chance, there's,
There’s no blood at all.
He has the opening: She doesn’t pause to think. The blow’s heavy, her blade's sharp. One, two and the demon's neck shears, thick tentacles flopping about as its fallen skull. The form of it twists before her eyes, a flash of dark hair and twisted armor, and it’s gone. Flesh dissolves into shuddering light, matter drawn away into ichor and the Fade.
Above them the Rift still pulses. It won’t be long until something else makes its way through. It won’t be long either until this man’s body catches up with his mind, and remembers its agony. (There’s no blood — but she can’t trust her perceptions just yet). Wren kicks clear of the little pile, stoops to throw an arm around Gaultier's shoulders.
“Quickly,” As intent as before, and full of a new solemnity. It would be a mistake to sheathe her blade now, but she can gesture with the hilt. “Raise the green light towards it. A Rift — feel it calling to you? Now cast that tie aside.”
A shardbearer would handle this better, she’s certain. What she’s gleaned of these matters has been necessarily secondhand. Few are eager to speak of such things, their language forever elliptical when they do. Some matters defy clear explanation.
❤ ❤ ❤
As it vanishes, he's dropped back to his feet, and lurches, readying his sword for another foe from the sickly-sallow green light above (How to kill it how to stop it?) when Wren's looping her arm over his shoulders and guiding him. He doesn't ask questions now, with adrenaline and the fight still animating him.
Lifts his glowing hand towards the image of the rift, while it cast watery light and shade across them both. It was mesmerizing to look upon, he decided then. Like the light of the bonfire when it roared high, like the light of an embered lord.
“Raise the green light towards it. A Rift — feel it calling to you? Now cast that tie aside,” the knightess told him. His dry lips opened to ask why. If it was calling him, shouldn't he go? Was this some perversion of the Flame, like the Pontiff's evil sorcery?
But the horror had come from it too, and he was a link in the short chain of command they had made. He thought of breaking armor and the many rows of statue-knights leading to Lothric Castle, all gladly kneeling to cut their own throats on their blades.
The light crackled, grew brighter... and seemed to eat itself, vanishing in an inward, sucking motion. He sagged where he stood, and flexed his empty hand in its gauntlet.
"I am in your debt," he said at last. Quiet but emphatic. "What was it that we saw?"
no subject
"Terror. A small demon, but a bitter one. You did well."
Her grip tightens, prepared to hold him upright as he sags, but there’s no need. It’s not the boneless flop of a wounded man, instead,
"Come sit," There’s a log not far, half-buried in the midwinter slush. “Easy. That was a hard blow.”
One she has no idea how he's standing through. She wants to tell him that he owes her nothing, that the people of these hills will know the service he's done — but those are dying words, panicking words, and it doesn’t ever pay to start up with nonsense like that.
Wren doesn't believe in miracles. But if he’s lasted this long, they may get lucky yet.
"There’s an Inquisition camp, not far. They can send word to the town surgeon." A better shot than breaking directly for Redcliffe, all fifteen miles distant. A barber might be able to hold him over long enough to see a mage out. “But I need you to let me look."
no subject
"Good and noble sir," he began, hands spread,
"Worry not for my sake; wounds may give me only pain. By divine will, my holy mission as lowly Unkindled ash liberates me from death." For all he understood, this knight, too, followed the strictures of the First Flame, and knew well the deeds of great Gwyn. The linking of the fire.
What unkindled even meant.
That, and the idea of anyone seeing his hateful, withered body made his stomach turn.
no subject
Wren tosses her arm free, rounding on him in an instant.
The sword’s out again, and this time, a long parrying dagger leaps into her other hand. A poor time to have foregone her shield, poorer still to have shirked full plate. Templar armor calls undue attention in these hills, but what mail she has now won’t stand up to a concentrated assault.
Wren's stance tenses, shoulders arc up like a cat’s — but she doesn’t move to strike just yet. There are too many questions unanswered, even as she strains his words for meaning.
Holy mission, unkindled ash. Whatever manner of spirit this is, she can only guess it’s imprinted on the Chant.
"Your name," She demands. "Or on my honour as a Templar I will see you from this world."
What honour? It's only talk, cannot be allowed to come to that, she knows. One way or another, this — thing — must be returned to the Inquisition’s researches. The necromancers will want it. How in all the void has a possessed corpse gained a shard?
no subject
Wren would not understand the significance of this; in Lothric, it was the image of a prostrated knight, but moments before cutting his own throat on the edge of his blade. But she would, at least, understand that he had become harmless.
"I am Gaultier de la Guerre! Prithee, sir, stay thy blade; I would not wish ill upon a brave comrade."
To emphasize the fervor of this request, he used his free hand to tip up the top of his visor, and let her see his eyes.
no subject
A weaker spirit, perhaps, to not otherwise define its purpose. It may not even recall the full truth of its being, so desperate for life that it would press at even the imitation of it. Another might hold pity for the creature. Another, much younger woman would.
Wren is far from youth.
"Stand," She holds her voice steady, even. There’s a new blankness to her consideration, a wary distance kept between them. The sword lowers, but the knife does not stray. "Gaultier de la Guerre.”
Not a house she knows, but the wreckage of the civil war has seen the old lines splinter, reforge. To bestow a meaningless title — or sell one’s own — is hardly unheard of.
He doesn’t speak like an Orlesian, but death will wreak much havoc on a tongue. It may be the man Gaultier was a transplant, or in exile.
What’s apparent is that hostility will not ease this task. Against herself, Wren forces the grit from her jaw. It’s too late to fake a return to ease, but if the creature believes itself a knight, orders and hierarchy may be taken better.
"I am Knight-Lieutenant Luwenna Coupe, presently acting under authority of the Inquisition. You will return with me to them, that we might render sense of this situation."
She gestures with the knife to the valley beyond.
"It's a long walk. And you get three questions. Understood?"
no subject
And doing so hid his tight-lipped frown.
"You came yarely to my defense in battle, sir, for which I owe you a debt of honor and service. But I owe no allegiance or duty to the Inquisition you serve; I am Unkindled, and my duty is to the Flame, and to what knightly orders I have sworn myself to. There is no sense to render."
It was a great deal to speak, after so long in silence; he swallowed, exhaling slowly, watching to see if the knightess would make use of the knife she kept out.
Not that it would avail her aught.
no subject
"That might at any moment tear open the Veil and unleash more demons onto the countryside." Unkindled again. A true name, perhaps? Worth remembering. There will be more reliable sources to consult than Gaulthier itself. "That creature would be the least of it. If you truly owe me service, then you shall not repay it by endangering the innocent."
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The reason for that might just be the being that looks like a young man who has just strolled up, sword drawn. He is pale, eyes all black, but he nevertheless offers his free hand to assist the knight to his feet, if needed.
"The good news," the Outsider informs him, even as the Blood Briar he's summoned is ripped into by claws, "is that you have weapons and armor."
Admittedly, he doesn't seem to be wearing much armor himself, but that's beside the point.
no subject
... and instead, a shape of darker black peeled away from the night. A man, a pale man strode forward, and his eyes... Like the Pontiff's, he thought, and remembered...
Knights who peer into the black orb are lured into battles of death, transformed into frenzied beasts. His Dancer.. Vordt, all the Outrider knights...
But the stranger offered a hand. Feeling like one walking in a dream, Gaultier reached to accept it, staring. The green light, the monstrous beast, they all seemed... faraway, somehow. He turned the sword he gripped tightly in his hand, and only after a moment registered what the stranger said.
"... an Unkindled has no need of armor, goodfellow," he answered, voice muffled by his helm, striding to finish the work of killing the monster before him. "They are only proof of his quality!"
no subject
With one last screech, the demon yanks the last of it apart. The vine dissolves into nothingness. The Unkindled is striding forward and the Outsider, never one to be outdone, strikes again. This other Rifter has a sword and so, not to get in his way, several long, sharp thorns are shot out from his hand into the demon's face.
"We will want to kill this one quickly, before others come through, and then we must close it."
Matter-of-fact, to the point; for all the questions he has, they can come in a moment.
II.
Actually, that's a lie, it's quite common to find someone wandering the Hinterlands in full plate. Typically, they might be emblazoned with the Templar's sword, or the pierced eye of the Inquisition. What we have here, wandering thither and yon between bears and bandits, is an anomaly. Obi-Wan sees it as his duty to address such anomalies; indeed, it's his job.
If it can be called that.
"You there!" He's trying to beckon the stranger over towards the Inquisition camp, "Over here!"
One hopes the image of an un-armored, seemingly un-armed man in sand-colored robes isn't threatening enough to prompt aggression...but there have been times...
no subject
He flips up his visor a little, squinting after the figure. It had been so long since he'd seen an unhollowed man that he almost didn't trust his eyes. Where was his grave-withered skin? Had he not yet perished -- or was it some Vinheim sorcery?
Too well-mannered to ask outright, he slowly moved his hand to the hilt of his sword - a display for the other to see, an obvious but polite warning. "Name your allegiance, sir! I am Gaultier de la Guerre, Unkindled ash, and I offer no harm to those who would not stay me from my holy purpose."
no subject
Outwardly, he appears unconcerned.
"You're a Rifter, as well?" It's an honest question, and he raises his own hand, to show the mark there, gleaming and green, unnatural but quiescent. The question is silent, but obvious-- This mark, too? "I am Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, of the Order of Jedi Knights. I've been working with the Inquisition, an organization not unfamiliar with the importance of holy purposes. We have a camp, nearby. It's a safe place to rest, get your bearings, if you like. Yes?"