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

[onemind]

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 )

Comments

[huntsmachines]

Aloy shifts her weight a little and slides closer so that she sits side-by-side with Lakshmi. The closeness is comforting and she can focus on the work instead of the more complicated business of delving into emotions and support and the nature of grief and frustration at being stuck too long in a place without much idea of what to do. The work gives a focus, something to speak about.

Aloy is frustrated, though. Her fingers feel clumsy as Lakshmi tells her she's not quite doing it right. She loved Rost, He was a good father, perhaps the best she could have hoped to have--but his sewing had all been simple and utilitarian. A warrior's sewing for repairing gear or mending garments or making a new pair of trousers. It hadn't been this sort of sewing, delicate and neat and pretty. He hadn't been that kind of father and she had never had a mother.

"Ah. Like this? I'm sorry. I've not done anything this delicate before." She stays quiet for a moment, focusing on trying to make sure her next few stitches are taut and proper. "My father wasn't any good with a needle unless it was mending and I never had a mother."

"I'm Aloy." She can't remember if she introduced herself to the woman, but it seems a good a time as any to make sure.

[shri]

"Nor I. Raised by a father and mud and horses."

There is a small twitch of her mouth, amusement as she watches the girl work with the long thread. Gold and beautiful, it twines itself about her fingers as she works until Lakshmi thinks they've both had enough of her trying the way she is.

"Jhansi ki Rani," the Queen of Jhansi comes with the click of symbiote, "Maharani Lakshmi Bai. Rani will do." It's not forceful, she does not demand, but the tone is clear to expectation. There won't be any jumping to immediate names with her as she shifts herself closer to Aloy to inspect just where she went wrong - "the first thing to remember is it isn't different to what you already know. You want each stitch to be just as sturdy as leather work. Pull too tightly, it will pinch the material, too lose it will not hold its shape."

She shifts to place her hand over the top of Aloy's hovering. "May I?"

[huntsmachines]

"Horses..." Amusement there from Aloy. She had never heard of or seen horses and then here it seems everyone knew them! At least she'd been shown them already once before so the reference doesn't fly completely over her head. She glances over at Lakshmi for a moment. Rani. A queen. How odd ot meet a queen in this place, she thinks.

"Rani then." She tilts her head to listen to the instruction and smiles a little. It reminds her of Rost chiding her about stalking or hunting or a dozen of the other things he'd taught her.

"Of course. It's harder than it looks," Aloy remarks with a wry grin. She nods in agreement to Lakshmi, permitting the contact--or for her to take the work back if that's what she intends.

[shri]

Rather than take back the work completely, she lays her hand over Aloy's, and begins adjusting how she holds the needle in her hand. The showing was not as good as doing to her mind, and she speaks in low words as guides her to hook against the material.

"A flower to start with," she pushes against her thumb to push the needle through the material, to bring it up and around. It creates at first, no more than a line that she curls back to the center, to change the degree, and repeat the process.

After the first two, she lets go. "Now, you try."

[huntsmachines]

Aloy nods, silent while Lakshmi guides her hand into the gentle curve that will no doubt be the petal of a flower eventually. It's a bit easier to grasp now that she's been shown and Aloy has always been a quick study. This is nice. Something physical and material--it takes the mind off of what's been happening.

"Flowers. Reminds me of home," she murmurs, then smiles. "Alright--" And she imitates the movements, curling the line of stitches back towards it's center in imitation of a flower petal.

"Like that?"

[shri]

"Me too," she relinquishes her hold as Aloy takes it up. Letting her form the lines that will by increments take up the shape of the flower, blossoming on the rich blue fabric.

"Yes - very good. Now continue until you have made a flower whole." A simple series of instructions, as Lakshmi finds at least - contentment in showing the work, in giving something, anything at all, to their mutual distraction. With it, she settles, stretching herself against her side. "Then repeat them in a line to the end of the fabric."

[huntsmachines]

Aloy sighs a little as she feels Lakshmi settle against her. It's a nice feeling. Closeness and a calm sort of contentment as they focus on working on something of no real consequence. It keeps them busy though, doesn't it? Keeps their minds off of the situation that presses down on them. Aloy smiles, glancing towards Lakshmi as she continues her stitching. Now that she's had some instruction, she seems to be picking it up quickly--and the maternal air that the other woman exudes seems to help settle Aloy.

"I like this. It's calming," she speaks in a quiet voice. "...Do you mind if I come and sew with you more often?"

[shri]

"Of course. I can teach you more than just flowers, if you wish."

Another lesson, less practical perhaps than swordplay or horsemanship. But it is no less dear to her, in its own way. The actions of a woman who belonged to another time and place but her nonetheless.

But as of right now, she shifts to gather the other end of the material. Fishing for another needle and thread to start the pattern from the other end. "Shall we meet in the middle?" A nod, to the Aloy's work, and then to her own side.

[huntsmachines]

"I'd like that." It's not the sort of action she's used to, but since she can't hunt or ride or climb or do what she usually does to try and work away the nervous energy or the frustration that comes with so much waiting. Turning the fabric in her hands, she continues her work.

"Yes, the middle sounds reasonable," Aloy replies in a quiet, contented voice. She works in silence for a few moments, steadily moving her line of flowers towards Lakshmi.

[shri]

Lakshmi begins at her end - taking the time to thread her needle, wetting the thread by the curve of her lip to make it easier. Then catching the material between her fingers, she twists it up to a point before it hooks through the first time, small mercies. Then she picks her place, at an even pace she judges by distance and smoothes the material out between her fingers before she pushes the thread through.

After that, she doesn't speak again either, it's enough - a shared task rather than the solitary one. Moving in steady patterns to form the flower star burst like the scattering of twilight on the blue material she favors. One little golden bloom that follows another.