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 )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

rhan.

[After a certain point, there's simply nothing to be done. Logically, she knows this. Sometimes these things are just best left to lay wounded in the darkness for a time - to scab and scar before they're brought into the light for any measure of examination. Rest and time is, Rhan hears, sometimes the only way to manage particularly cruel cuts.

But honestly, she doesn't sit terribly well at the best of times. Moments of difficulty tend to exacerbate that instinct rattling around under her skin. Best to walk it off, hmm?

Which is why long after the hunting party has returned with it's morbid trophies - some especially so - that Rhan can be found walking the camp in the evening. To any casual observer, she is merely a lone Carbauschian in typically heavy garments, but to any host she is a faintly humming awareness at the edge of the mind as she sweeps along with enough momentum that she might very well be on the way to perform some errand or task. It certainly doesn't look at all like troubled wandering and should she cross paths with similarly restless Hosts, she doesn't sound disturbed:]

So much for a quiet night, hm?

lyr.

[The fourth of the elder hosts has made a reputation for himself by merit of his absence. He doesn't speak much, doesn't prod into many conversations, and generally seems to have very little interest for the Hosts around him. Tonight, despite everything that's happened, seems to be much the same. Once all has been said and done (and doubtless, there has been plenty of both in the intervening hours between Lavellan's death and this moment), Lyr is remains as an inert stone in a weather cold puddle. He sits quietly in his designated corner of the tent he shares with a handful of the other Hosts and writes in a book balanced on his knee. Outside of the Carbasuchian disguise, he is a prematurely graying young man with a dreary expression to match the sensation of his mind.

Do you best to maintain your composure, won't you? Otherwise--]

Must you do that here? [It's a mild indictment. Scratch, scratch, scratch goes his pen in the book.]

[ Misato refuses to be comforted. It feels too indulgent, not nearly as punitive as she deserves when she had been given all the pieces of the picture and still failed to piece them together in time to prevent a death -- that would have been so easy, so easy. But well, this self-flagellation is just as indulgent.

When she sees Rhan passing by, she follows quickly to fall in step, close enough to speak in low voices. ]

Rhan. What was the point of all this?

[ That her tone is accusing is clear, as if Lavellan's death can be blamed on Rhan, on herself, on the Hyrypian for setting up such lethal games -- because it must be so. Someone or something is responsible for it. What she wants is a clarity of cause and effect, purpose and the cost of achieving it. ]

Whoof, that's a question all right.

[There's an easy clip to her tone - not unsympathetic, but certainly brighter than one might expect. It's the sort of thing that might work if they weren't attached at the brain, but given the unfortunate reality there's no missing the shades of difference between the loamy texture of Ryan's mind there this evening compared to her otherwise typical, comfortable vibrancy.

She navigates them casually from the main avenue and between a few tents, but doesn't slow her pace. For all the world, it seems she meant to come this way and that it's not simply an effort to afford them a little more privacy.]

Are we talking specifically or is this more of a philosophical question? Because my darling I'm telling you now, I'm not terribly in the know with the latter. Lyr or Collector might be better for that kind of thing. [A pause. Hmm.] Collector. I wouldn't talk to Lyr about this.

[Not for his comfort, for hers.]

But if it's the former... establishing ourselves as credible. As reliable. Winning hasn't ever been in the table, but building relationships is the only way we'll get to the bottom of this and participation in the events seemed to be a good way to encourage that. And now-- well, I'd say almost people in this camp will probably think of us as extremely reliable once news of Lavellan's death spreads. It's a terrible accident.

[But pretending it wouldn't benefit them would be lying. And an awful waste.]

I'm not sure there's really an answer though. Lyr would say differently, but he's a prick.

[ It's true. This is nothing at all like losing a member of the crew, a good friend or the metaphorical piece of one's own heart, it is like losing a limb. The absence is physical as well, albeit numbed now after she has had her cry, the catharsis needed to flush away the indelible sting of separation. The human body is extremely adept at preserving itself, for good or for ill. ]

They'll pity us. Maybe like us a little better if we tell them what he did before he was killed.

[ She quickens her pace just enough to fall in front of Rhan, hoping to block off the way and force her to stop here between the tents. A way to set in place what she senses as the agent's restless spirit. ]

The plan you set out for us, find out which is the enemy, befriend any of the others and help them win, that plan is -- [ Too slow for such impatient ones in this arm of the Nest. Too passive for the likes of her. Too uncertain, too meek. She draws in a breath and bites back her words. ] -- How are we doing?

[It's a sensible tactic - getting Rhan to stop anyway -, but only easily avoided by a sidestep and the faintly chiding:] Oh, don't do that dear. Let's keep walking as if we have somewhere to be.

[She'd rather not stand; who knew what listening ear might be pricked behind the canvas of one of the nearby tents? Much better to continue moving (nevermind that it's completely possible to have this entire conversation without saying a word.)

--Or maybe she really does have a destination in mind.]

But as to your question - better than anticipated, honestly. You'll forgive me for having my doubts. [There's no telling whether Rhan punctuates it with a smile or not, but habitually: absolutely.] You're all doing very well poking your nose into other people's business and making friends with the local color. And you're a very welcome distraction to have on hand.

[ It's the prerogative of the more powerful to act so lighthearted, Rhan's easy chiding against her own hamfisted way of asserting herself. But she lets the agent go, resuming their earlier routine of Misato following just one step behind.

She's so easily slighted: ] I didn't set out to be the distraction.

[ Both an admission of her mistake, if the result wasn't what she intended then the blame lies on her shoulders, and a complaint against the agent's view on her actions. Her tone is too aggressive for it to be an apology. ]

But it's been almost three weeks and we've got nothing to show for it. What happens if we run out of time?

Then we lose. [Is she expecting a more complicated answer? Something a little more nuanced about their predicament here? Rhan shrugs, the heavy lay of her intricately embroidered robes swaying with the motion.] I know you there was some conversation of a 'Plan Z' in that case, but honestly I'm not sure we have the equipment or capabilities to pursue that kind of thing. Not immediately anyway.

[And if she's honest - which she tries very hard to absolutely never be -, she'd rather not be part and parcel to genocide if she can avoid it. Maybe that isn't self preservative of her, but it's a little ethically grim isn't it?]

Luckily, I think we've got more than you think we do. You lot have been shockingly effective. [A pause. The sensation of-- some tipping point, something at the tip of her tongue that she might keep back. It's the shadow of a thought in her mind, the exact shape of it impossible to parse across the watery connection between them. But eventually... well, sometimes you've got to throw a person a bone:] That's not what I meant, by the way. When I called you a distraction.

It would've been much harder for us to hide in plain sight if there were just four of us. Having so many Carbauschians moving around, and a handful of them being loudmouths, has made it much easier to do my own work without someone getting suspicious.

[Safety in numbers. What a novel concept.]

[ Wholesale genocide, by accident or by design, is already as much part of her bloodline. It isn't as difficult for her to stomach. Demolishing a number, no matter how large, is infinitely easier than killing a person. Already the tragedy of Lavellan looms larger than the loss of the entire race of Rabadoceans, and she has to remind herself that they would think the same of their own family, and that she can't afford to be selfish. ]

I meant for 'Plan Z' to be a deterrent, a line we would do everything possible to avoid crossing. I thought that would be obvious -- but well, famous last words.

[ And Misato gnaws on the bone like a starved dog, ashamed too of her own appetite, palpable on her mind. How embarrassing, to take a slight when it was never intended. She moves on to the next thing to avoid facing up to the humiliation. ]

What work have you been doing?

Oh, this and that. Nothing you need to worry yourself over just now. Not that I'm being coy to spite you, just that it's not terribly relevant yet. When something comes of it, I'll make sure you and everyone else knows.

[If it's any consolastion, there's something in the shifting sensation of her mind that seems genuine enough about that much. If only because it would be more dangerous not to say something than to share - imagine if she died in the middle of her project? At least if she'd chatty about it, she knows the effort won't be wasted.

Ugh, what a bleak line of thought.]

I'm sorry, by the way. That he died. I know it isn't easy.

[She feels it too.]

rhan + lyr | ota

RHAN!

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lyr

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RHAN

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rhan

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