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Entry tags:
- *mission log,
- asuka langley sohryu [evangelion],
- bellamy blake [the 100],
- clarke griffin [the 100],
- elena gilbert [the vampire diaries],
- john murphy [the 100],
- lexa [the 100],
- matrim cauthon [wheel of time],
- misato katsuragi [evangelion],
- rust cohle [true detective],
- ryohji kaji [evangelion],
- sam wilson [mcu],
- seviilia brightwing [warcraft],
- takashi "shiro" shirogane [voltron],
- the darkling [grisha trilogy]
[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!
((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.))
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.))
no subject
[ She is absolutely not listening to any such statements about being 'fine', she used them too often to ever truly believe them out of another's mouth. Instead she opts always to what she knows best: the most direct motion. She watches her roll forward and as she gets up Lakshmi moves to meet her half way.
An arm that goes around her back, the other guiding Annie's over her shoulder. The real cruelty is that she doesn't seem to hold Annie like she weighs - much of anything. Hefting her up to hold her weight. ] Still holding?
no subject
[ Annie twists her head around, and her body shudders, not at all wanting to twist those muscles around what's battered and bruised on the inside. But she doesn't so much as yelp, just wheezes a little at the way her lungs contract in shock. ]
Fuck, I can limp off on my own... Not the worst fuckin' thing that's ever happened to me...
[ It hurts but it's not the worst hurt. There's always something worse out there, why pay attention to anything-- ]
no subject
[ She shifts her weight forward, slips deep into the blackwater quiet. The blackwater still. Felt through the closeness. Her mind does not roar, not in battle, for all she might lose herself in combat, when she truly is in it, but like fighting a Lycan, this fight will not be one in sheer moments of strength - but in calculation. Here now, she sees everything in a flat understanding. A removal of her whole self to each of actions that is too much and too little and exactly as she means to move herself.
A step forward, her arm sweeps the rest of the way underneath Annie's knees. The other taking a firm grip against her back and - one, two, three - she lifts her up into a steady carry. Hefting her like she weighed so very little. ]
- and if you cannot stand, then I will carry you.
no subject
[ She stops, clutching her ribs for a moment. Being too vehement that she can get herself off the battlefield alone is backfiring. ]
Fine, fuck, just... lie me down somewhere and get back to it... The other dumb asses still need you.
no subject
Conveniently, you need me too.
no subject
[ God this is embarrassing. When's the last time she let anyone do this to her... Never. Literally never, she was always the one scooping up broken bodies and carrying them out of the way. She wants to slap Lakshmi to put her down but knows that's just not fucking worth it right now. ]
I don't, you volunteered yourself for this, you bitch.
no subject
[ Each step reaches longer, and her mind - it balances in between loudness and stillness. Each thing cut down to measurements. The exact weight of Annie in her arms, where her sword hits her side, the catch of the long robes at her legs. The insists upon, move, move, move. ]
Then I promise I will give you words in Hindi you haven't heard before to insult me in. But right now, I need you to keep an eye out behind me.
no subject
You sure know how to sweet talk a bitch.
[ But now she doesn't have a lot of choice, she slings an arm around Rani in order to rest her chin on her shoulder, to peer back at the battle, eyes blurry. She feels like a worthless piece of shit right now, being carried away from what could maybe finally be certain fucking death. What if she just asked Lakshmi to take her back? ]
It's super fuckin' distracted trying to eat our buddies.
no subject
[ There's a grunt to the acknowledgement of their status - good. Pushing forward in a sharp direct line: her goal to the place she had hidden with Rust to avoid a similar fate. ]
Let me know when it changes.
no subject
[ She slurs drowsily, limp in Lakshmi's arms. ]
no subject
Seems I can sail amongst stars, and honour still provides stupid excuses to be proven.
no subject
You don't sail spaceships, that implies fuckin' wind and space is a [ ow ] fuckin' vacuum.
no subject
The Commander informed me of that. I simply suggest you call them something else than ships if you resent the naval terms.