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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 knows though. Shril was a good time for her, she'd like to go back to a mission like that, where it was fine for her to just wander around on her own, make trouble, fuck. This whole mission is stifling her into total insanity. ]
I don't care about being handy. I care about getting the fuck out of here. Fuckin' hate this place.
no subject
I don't suppose there's anything I can do to make it less miserable for you? And I'm asking that genuinely, not being a snot about team synergism or any of that trash.
[Her path has shifted somewhat now, meandering out of a slightly more central route through the encampment and instead cutting up randomly between rows of quiet tents.]
no subject
Wanna fuck?
no subject
[Look, not everyone in the multiverse likes to bone outside their species. Good god, imagine how less annoying she'd be in that wasn't the case?]
You know, I hear that Kavinsky fellow of yours has the good shit. You should talk to him if you want to take your mind off something.
no subject
[ A noise of mild revulsion which has nothing to do with Rhan herself. Hell, Annie would be tempted to chuckle and promise to set her up with something good as soon as she finds it, but then there's Kavinsky. ]
Look, I've just gotten back to justifying drinking, let's not go full junkie psychobitch too quick.... Then I might be tempted to be really fuckin' disappointed in myself.
no subject
[The encampment is quiet, comfortably so - especially here, so far from the largest braziers, the dining and sweat tents. If it weren't for the occasional servant darting along or a bodyguard looming up out of the darkness as they past, this is practically a private conversation.]
no subject
[ And she tilts her head back to take a big, pointed swig. ]
Besides, don't you guys have to wait until I royally fuck something up and then you get to pull my ass out of the fire and go 'I told you so?' when you didn't really tell me so, you just looked on disapprovingly while I wrecked my liver, and my relationships.
[ Glug. Glug. Glug. ]
But seriously, no, I might've even heard it before and wouldn't that be just fuckin' boring.
no subject
Really, I'd rather not wait until the 'I told you so' stage but I realize these things can be delicate. I'll also admit easily enough that I don't particularly think of us as friends or even especially close - brain stuff being the exception, of course. Those conversations always seem to work better coming from someone you actually have any respect for. Or, you know. Whatever. [She makes a wobbly motion with her gloved hand to emphasize that last point. There are probably people in the multiverse that Annie Westwind likes enough to consider their opinion, but Rhan very much doubts it's her.] But I guess I could go around and kick a few asses to make sure someone else talked to you about it before it starts to slide fantastically down hill. You know. Just to be safe for the rest of us.
[It's cheerfully, plainly straight forward.]
Anyway, blah blah blah bullshit. I won't mention it again. To your face, anyway.
[s h r u g.]
no subject
[ No don't sic the stupid Nest on her, she's not in the mood she just wants to drink goddamn. Noctis moping around the edges of her thoughts was bad enough. ]
no subject
Oh darling, I know. I'm incredibly charming.