station72 | [mission: hyrypia] and when our bottles and all we are fill’d with immortality

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[mission: hyrypia] and when our bottles and all we are fill’d with immortality

CHARACTERS: The Barithian Hunters (and anyone sneaking along)
WHERE: Hyrypia - The Finger Maze
WHEN: DAY :018
SUMMARY: The barithian hunt leads into the depths of the Finger Maze.
WARNINGS: Violence. Animal slaughter. Character death. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

THE FINGER MAZE
DAY :018
IN MORNING'S PRE-DAWN GRAY the camp is far more subdued than on preceding days. There's no music, breakfast is a quiet and simple affair, and the servants are hushed as they go about their duties. Before the sun has even fully risen, the members of the Envoys participating in the hunt make their way to their mounts. When they arrive they are given a speech that seems practiced - likely only a slight modification of something that the Elinmaster has said many times before. The group - just under forty hunters kitted out with all of the weapons and traps they have had time to learn in their days on the graze - is brought to the fenceline running parallel to the technomagical barrier which guards the mouth of the Finger Maze proper. In the fence is a plain gate. Once the hunting party is gathered there, it opens. A slash in the technomagical barrier disintegrates before them and the smell of ozone evaporates or is carried into the twisting depths of the Maze by the wind howling mournfully inward from off the Graze. The Elinmaster leads the hunting party through the gap.

Once on the other side, the party draws pauses until the technomagical barrier rises once more behind them. No crowds today. No onlookers (unless they're being especially industrious). Then the Elinmaster brings a familiar sounding horn to their lips. It's long, low wailing note echoes down into the maze and splinters down the endless twisting pathways. With that, the hunt begins.

INTO THE LABYRINTH
I. THE STAGING GROUND
HERE IS HOW YOU HUNT A BARITHIAN, explains the Elinmaster. First, a field of battle needs to be chosen - and it's always better to know the ground you're fighting on than to be caught unawares in unfamiliar territory. The hunting party will need to establish a fall back position inside the canyon that's advantageous to them, at which point it will be lain with all manner of traps. Memorize it. You'll want to know every nook and cranny when you return here under duress.

Plan your routes and lay your traps. You do remember how to set them, don't you?

II. BY THE TAIL
WITH THE STAGE SET, only the star is lacking - or the villain is. But the Finger Maze is a vast labyrinthine space that stretches on for miles. Finding the Barithian, even as large as it is, presents a challenge - perhaps the second greatest challenge of the hunt. It is time for the hunters to separate. Some go off alone, some travel in small groups. Each is equipped with a small version of the horn that had summoned them to this work in the first place. Their task is simple and herculean: to search the maze for signs of the beast and locate it, then to draw its attention and lure it back into the staging ground. Lastly, they must send out the call to summon the rest of the party to rendezvous meet them where the chase will end. However, only one route leads to the barithian. Perhaps--

a) There were signs - a bone, a tell-tale scrape on the canyon walls, a corridor of felled coral. It was difficult to tell from the back of the Elin, so it made sense in the moment to dismount and check more closely. --At least, it made sense right up until now when you suddenly hear something. Something-- big. Its footfalls shake the floor under your feet; its heavy breath snorts out of its multiple sets of nostrils with a wet visceral sound. You can’t go back the way you came - the trembling footfalls seem to come from that direction. Luckily, there's a narrow cave opening in the canyon wall right there.

Inside is dark. The cave goes very deep indeed - so deep that after a time you can smell the promise of fresh air again. Maybe there's another exit? Which is good, since the way you entered is no longer an option: the beast is there, it's massive forepaws clawing into the stone on either side of the cave entrance and its huge mutli-nostriled nose sucking in big, gulping breaths.

b) ((OOC NOTE: first come first serve)) You find the Barithian. Even with its great hulking back turned to you, it's awe-inspiring. Terrifying. The Elinmaster's assistants had described it on the way in, but their words failed to convey the details. It's disturbingly massive - mammothian, even -, its six legs coiled tight with muscle, and strong, sharp claws on each of the massive paws. You have to get it’s attention. How you do it is up to you, but you know that the moment it turns its massive head toward you with its beady eyes hidden behind a broad, triangular face plate and its multinostrils flaring with a horrible groaning noise that it's time to get a move on.

c) Your search has turned up nothing - but that's not surprising is it? The maze is huge. Not everyone could strike gold. Hell, not everyone would even want to. It’s almost a relief until you hear it: the low, moan of the signal horn echoing through the maze-like canyon. You need to get back to the staging ground and you need to go fast - or risk leaving the other hosts to face the beast alone.

III. THE BATTLE
THE HORN DOES ITS JOB. By the time the hosts unlucky enough to have the tiger by its tail come riding back into the staging ground, many members of the hunting party have already returned and are armed, if not ready, for when the creature comes barreling in behind them. It shakes the brittle bone coral with the weight of its galloping footfalls and makes a deep, low sonorous noises that echoes down the stone walls. With its ire raised, the barithian is even more fearsome than it had seemed from a distance. It’s size and strength are undeniable up close. The creature tears great mounds of earth up under its clawed feet and there's a mesmerizing, horrific quality to the flash of filtered canyon light off its sharp teeth.

The riders are now tasked with the last phase of the challenge - kill or be killed, using the weapons and techniques they have learned in their time here. And hey, maybe you have a few non-Hyrypian tricks up your sleeves you can play with some subtlety. Fighting fair seems less than ideal when one of those huge paws comes swiping right at you.

IV. THE FRUIT OF DIPLOMACY
'DON'T GET CLOSE TO THE HEAD,' had seemed like an easy to follow rule back on the Graze, but the reality of facing down with the barithian is far more complicated. And despite being slowed by the environment, the traps laid for it, countless spears jutting from its dense marbled hide, here in its last moments the great beast is at its most dangerous. Maybe someone gets over confidant. Maybe it's just general exhaustion. Maybe it seems like the barithian is staggering when really it's turning for one final, deadly snap of its ferocious jaws.

It bowls three riders from their Elin with one swipe from its massive paw - mechanics twisting and bursting with brilliant flares of released technomagical energy - then lunges for the felled hunters left in the wake of their ruined mounts. A Descendant throws up both arms in some lunatic, useless defense mechanism. Beside her, Lavellan drives the blunt end of his spear into the ground and braces the shaft across his knee. The Barithian drives itself down on the point of the spear, snaps down on his arm by reflex and then recoils - tossing him clear like a horrifying rag doll as the great animal thrashes.

There's an immediate, palpable, indescribable POP! A ship being hulled and all the air sucked out of into into the vacuum of space. A glass bauble splitting into a hundred thousand pieces on some distant stone floor. A seam splitting. A branch snapped across the knee. And then there's nothing left at all except the frothing barithian snapping out those nearest i to it.

V. THE RETURN
THE RIDE BACK TO THE CAMP seems to take twice as long as the one they took to the Finger Maze - though it hardly seems long enough, knowing what lies at the end. Certainly the other Hosts will have felt Lavellan's death, but you know what they say. Seeing is believing.

It doesn’t matter. The camp awaits their return regardless. As they ride through the gate again one of the massive technomagically driven wagons passes them, headed into the maze to retrieve their kill. Once they reach the edges of the encampment, the atmosphere there remains subdied. While the other Envoys and Hyrypian hosts might not know the nitty gritty details, the certainly seem to have considered the possibility of things going badly. There is food, drink, and eventually even some gentle, sober music, however the evening is quiet and many of the envoys retreat to their own tents rather than remain in the public spaces.

Some victories are not celebrated.

((OOC Notes: This log covers the barithian hunt and any relating events that take place on DAY :018. You can find information about the hunt and ask event specific questions HERE.

Have more generalized questions? Drop them on the MISSION: HYRYPIA OOC POST or get in touch with us on the Mod Contact page.))

NAVIGATION • GAME CALENDAR • MISSION: HYRYPIA • FAQ
• MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

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[ Asuka's still not looking at or talking to much of anyone. She doesn't want to see them. She doesn't want to hear them. A part of her is still trying to get over having someone torn away from her. He'd been there and then he was gone and there had been a silence that wa so much worse than the buzz that had been there before. It still feels empty and hollow and she's not sure whether she wants to cry or scream or just... sit. She reacts - very slightly - eyes flickering up to glance at Annie.

She remembers the thing in her head. ]

Why?

Cuz you're having a shitty time.

[ A shrug, her movements are languid and fluid as she comes through the tent to sit at a distance from her, legs extended out. She may also be in here avoiding Noctis and Gildor so they can't pry at her too much about why her thoughts are so quiet. But that is beside the point, entirely. ]

Need anything? Could go get you some dinner or something.

[ She is definitely having a shitty time of it. She's not sure what to do about it, though. Besides suffer. That's what she's had to do before. This time doesn't feel like it'll be any different. Somehow, it manages to feel worse. She'd convinced herself she didn't care and then he'd just been gone. And made all the worse because she'd felt it happen. ]

I don't really want to go anywhere, Annie.

[ Her response is weak. At least she said Annie's name.

And a part of her is a bit frightened of whatever it is that lurks in Annie's head. ]

[ She smiles, sideways and lazy. ]

Yeah, was offering to get it for you. That's, like, what you do when other people are grieving. You take care of some of the mundane day to day shit so they can just sit there and feel like shit for a little while. What, you never done a funeral before? We did them all the time in school, always meant there'd be a fuckin' buffet out so we could stuff ourselves with whatever we wanted. We got like, a long afternoon off class to be shook. Then back to it, you shitty little child soldiers.

[ She laughs at that, and maybe even almost sounds nostalgic about the memory, but if she does she also has a unmistakable kernel of bitterness about it too. ]

I went to my mother's funeral.

[ Asuka's reply is low and quiet, but it carries. She doesn't want to talk in her head for this. She's afraid of what she might do or let slip now that there's too much silence. She doesn't like this. Doesn't like losing. Doesn't like any of it. ]

And I told myself I wasn't going to cry, ever again.

[ God, Annie's told herself the exact same thing so many times she's lost out. Also told herself she was never going to drink again too, but here they are: and she's broken both those pacts. ]

Never say never.

[ She sounds as tired as that aphorism is. ]

Crying sucks, but sometimes it's just the stress relief your body's craving.

[ Asuka shifts and tries to pull the pile of blankets she's burrowed under a bit further over her head. Her response is muffled and her voice is strained. Scratchy. ]

I shouldn't have to. Or want to. It's... weak.

[ Weak and silly and something for small children. And it hurts. It always hurts. Because she still cries, even if she doesn't want to. Even if she hates it. And that sensation pulses out of her. The drained, empty feeling of someone who is out of tears or perhaps of someone who has too many. ]

[ A sigh. ]

Really, kid, tears are downright biological. Some people abuse the shit out of them and don't know how to put on a goddamn stiff upper lip sometimes... And then sometimes, you know, somebody you're hooked to at the brain dies horribly inside of your head and in front of your eyes.

[ Her tone of voice trails off into a knowing kind of irony, trying to coax a little humor out of it all and failing. ]

This would be an okay time for it, and it might help you get some sleep.

[ Asuka winces. She doesn't want to remember the mental feeling of it, even if it keeps playing over and over in her head. It's the ultimate method of abandonment. Reminds her too much of her mother (although he hadn't killed himself had he). She doesn't want to think about any of this or the mission. She just wants to pass out and forget for a while. ]

I just - don't. I can't. I'm not-

[ But she's never really been able to keep that promise. And she can feel prickling at the corner of her eyes and a roughness in her throat. She knows the signs. ]

I don't want to.

[ That's a stupid reason, honestly. ]

[ Humorless laughter. ]

You don't have to, just sayin'. If that's what your body wants to do, you can just get it over with.

[ Just a sigh, like everything is heavy. ]

What do you want to do instead? Thought about that dinner thing?

...food might be OK.

[ Maybe it'll help her feel a little less hollow and empty. And maybe she can distract herself from feeling like she's going to throw up or just bawl her eyes out or something else that she doesn't really want to do. ]

...I don't know.

[ She slouches up to her feet, posture loose, unconcerned. ]

I'll surprise you then.

[ The basic assent to eat was a good start. If she'd totally refused Annie wouldn't have really seen the point, some people shut down that hard. Seen it plenty. Some of them never wanted to eat again, although that was a little more common with the really gruesome deaths. When meat and meat got crisscrossed. Annie herself has... no real relationship with food. She wants coffee and cigarettes and eats without looking or tasting because then she might think about it too hard. ]

Be right back.

[ And she ducks quietly out of the tent to go on the hunt anew. ]

Fine. Surprise me.

[ Her response is weak and perhaps carries a bit more venom that it ought to. She's... kind of grateful, honestly, but she's very wrapped up in her own head. The why she shouldn't listen to other people or need them. The being alone. It's all criss-crossed in her head. So she tries to hold herself together. But while Annie is gone, she allows her self to shed a few tears, even if they feel hot and shameful.

By the time Annie comes back, Asuka is red-eyed and her cheeks are stained, but she's not sobbing anymore. ]

[ She makes no comment at all about Asuka's red face. She's glad the kid got it out, holding onto tears could be toxic. Annie should know, considering she did it all the goddamn time. Although now she has Noctis all sloshed up inside of her: and he was a fucking crybaby. Her nose wrinkles slightly. Shit, is she going to start crying like him? Goddamn.

Annie sets the food down at Asuka's side. Going out to get it was also a good moment to slip in a drink. Makes the vibrations of everyone's miserable feelings easier to ignore. It's great, she's a fan. Can't even entirely feel the guilt of knowing she's broken a promise to herself, like she'd done a good job planning ahead for this fucking catastrophe. There was always a fucking catastrophe. ]

This thing smelled pretty good, figured if anything was gonna get you into it'd be that.

[ She steals a chunk of the meat, slipping her hood back off to put it in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully for a second and then saying with a full mouth: ]

It's fuckin' hot though, give it a minute.

[ Asuka watches Annie with a hint of wariness, even through her red-rimmed eyes. She's still... figuring out how she's supposed to deal with this. People wanting to be kind to her. People wanting to help. She shouldn't need (doesn't want them), but she does. And it's a confusing push-pull of her old toxicity against the slow start she's managed here. Two steps forward, one step back. Or more. Depends. She keeps her blanket curled around her, as if it can protect her from her own emotions and the world outside of the tent. She snakes a hand out to tear off a chunk of the meat, juggling it for a moment before popping it in her mouth.

It tastes... fine. Not that she pays much attention to it. She chews mechanically and swallows and, hey, at least she's putting fuel in her body. Right? ]

...it's alright. Hope you didn't pay for it.

[ She chortles a little, ]

You ever handle money much? We didn't, I mean we were kids, most of us kidnapped from our fuckin' parents, and it wasn't like Sparrows was gonna give us an allowance. So we mostly stole shit whenever she'd let us go into town, or traded with other kids for the things we did have: comic books and music and cigarettes and shit like that.

[ She'd really be in a cigarette about now, but that's beside the point. She's just talking to fill the air, keep things mellow and personable, low energy, low pressure. ]

Then, the whole end of the world shit happens, and even though the Academy got rebuilt by this psychic bitch she didn't have any plan for how to like. Feed everybody and shit like that. So I had to start paying the bills somehow, figure out where the hell Sparrows was getting money for shit like that... I'm not very good with money though, kinda just throw it around all over the place. Better with the bartering kind of thing.

[ A self-denigrating grin, big in her face, hollow in her eyes. ]

Oh.

[ That sounds like the resource wars. That period of brutality and death that had followed Second Impact. She'd been mostly insulated from it. Too young to remember any of it and a member of the elite; she'd never gone hungry, even if the food hadn't always been the best. So scratching out an existence on the street or struggling to get by is alien to her as an experience, even if she understands it in practice. ]

I... never actually went hungry or anything.

[ She gnaws on another piece of meat. At least she's not talking about it. ]

[ Annie has. She talks about the Academy as much as she pleases, what she doesn't talk about were the years when half the major cities of planet Earth were rubble. She doesn't talk about how little any of them -- pathos bearers -- had eaten while sorting through the wreckage, pulling out survivors where they could... erasing memories where they couldn't.

The Earth Annie had left behind was scarred by the catastrophe that had occurred on its surface, and fractured as to how much most people actually remembered that past. The pathos bearers knew, some wanting to keep it to themselves, others festering to break the spell of forgetting that had been cast like a net over the human race. And then there were those who thought it was all divine retribution, or some kind of test from greater beings from beyond the stars.

Fucking idiots. ]

Cheers to that.

[ Asuka doesn't need to go hungry, not in Annie's eyes. ]

[ They're both from dead worlds, then. The only real difference is that Asuka's was ended at the hands of humanity itself, struggling to find its own path. They didn't need aliens or gods from beyond space and time to do it to them. Humans are bastards all on their own. ]

...cheers.

[ It's not incredibly reassuring. But it's better than being alone. Isn't it? ]

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[mission: hyrypia] and when our bottles and all we are fill’d with immortality

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