[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

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ It’s a familiar feeling, the heavy atmosphere in Rust’s memory, but Sam doesn’t let it pull up memories of his own battles, swallows back the taste of thick dust and copper and keeps his focus entirely on what Rust shows him. Nelly - Lavellan - deserves that much.

Hell, Rust deserves that much, to have someone’s undivided attention as he pours out what he witnessed, burned into Sam’s mind with the intensity that he shares it.

That’s familiar, too. Being the one who listens, as venom oozes out of the cracks in people’s minds, like bleeding a wound after too long festering, trying to hold it all in and keep it to themselves. A desperate need to press the weight of it all onto someone else - only since coming to the Nest, that’s been a hell of a lot more literal than anything he did at the VA back home.

He’s adapted. He keeps to himself, mostly, aside from the twisting pain in his chest at the memory of Lavellan flung into the air, at recalling the feeling of someone dying. There’s the faintest hint of a sensation, rushing wind and heat, but he detaches himself from it before it forms.

His connection with Rust has sharpened, the memory spread between them and the feel of the drink in his veins even though he hasn’t had a sip yet - but he reaches for it when Rust offers, swallowing a gulp down and holding it back out. ]

( They walked him out like a puppet. )

[aluminumandash]

[ Rust takes the bottle back. He drinks. ] ( Fucking crazy. ) [ He says without heat or emphasis. Photographs spill out, postmortems slick and shining like unshed tears: plum-colored bruises around her eyes, bloodstains on her faded floral print dress, this one half decomposed, her gums black, that one prostrate on a bed of leaves, the line of her mouth serious.

A little blonde girl, the line of her mouth also serious. Hair in her face. Alive, in this moment. ] ( You knew him, yeah? ) [ No break in his thoughts, all of it—air in his lungs, liquor on his breath, steady spiteful thud of his heart—an extension of his grief. ] ( Got a question for you. )

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Fucking crazy. That's a real damn good word for it, and there's a hum of agreement that's more distant than anything else.

His minds slides over the pictures that Rust's supplies, noting each one with a detached sense of acknowledgement - Rust is clearly familiar with death, in a way that Sam's aware he'd normally be looking closer at, but right now it's gonna have to wait until later. ]

( Yeah. ) [ It doesn't really need an answer, probably, but he wants to give one anyway. Because yeah. He knew him, and it's still hard to hear that in past tense, let alone think it. ] ( Can't guarantee I'll know the answer, but I'll give you one anyway. )

[aluminumandash]

( The fuck's that supposed to mean, you'll give me one anyway. ) [ Dull, wounded-animal anger. His head snaps back. His mind pressed to Sam's like a blade to a throat. ] ( Did you know him or didn't you? )

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Their disguises make it so Sam can't effectively give him a look, but the feeling comes across anyway. ]

( The hell do you think it means, man, it means ask me the damn question 'cause I don't know what answer you're gonna get until I hear it. ) [ There's the faint sensation of feathers, less ruffled and more flared up like a shield. ] ( I wouldn't tell you I fucking know him if I didn't. )

[ Knew him, his mind supplies, where grief had been too fresh for him to catch it as his thought first slipped out, but he lets that go. ]

[aluminumandash]

( Knew him. ) [ Rust corrects, or echoes. In another time, another place—not that there's space in his head for either of those things, sentenced as he is to this moment, confined in it—he might find the impression of honest-to-god ruffled feathers amusing. Here, now, calm prevails. But it's calm layered over anger, smothering. ]

( Why'd he do it? They all ask that, but I mean specifically. ) [ He's gripped a spear in his hand, knows the feel of the wood. The force needed to drive it into the hard earth: that one decisive instant. ] ( Was it for her? He look to his right and, and in those last couple seconds see a person? Or was it calculated? Detached. Mission first. ) [ Question after question, his thoughts so clear as to be piercing. A cold wind whistling through a tunnel. ]

( You knew him. ) [ Affirmation, accusation. Appeal. ] ( Well, what'd he die for? )

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Sam’s a bird, all right, he can’t help the mental imagery that goes along with his irritation. But there’s acceptance when Rust says the past tense, a quiet acknowledgement before he throws that question out.

Because I asked him to isn’t fair, and it’s not true, not really - not when Lavellan had been right there planning the proposed alliance with him. Sam doesn’t blame himself the way he did with Riley, the way he still does sometimes, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a tangled complicated ball of guilt and regret in that grief. ]

( Does it matter? Does it make his death better if he died for her, for the mission, for some noble cause - is it gonna make it mean something? ) [ It doesn’t. Well, maybe it means something - but it doesn’t make it better. ] ( We proposed an alliance. Talked to the other envoys, said we’ll watch out for you and you watch out for us. He didn’t die for that, but it was on his mind. )

[ It isn’t worth it. Sam doesn’t give a shit about this mission, doesn’t give a damn about anything but trying to get all of them out of this safely, and he doesn’t bother hiding that. ]

[aluminumandash]

[ There follows a long, unnatural pause, Rust stretching and stretching it as though he wants to find a breaking point. Feel something snap. He's angry: an afterthought. Muddy, drunk anger that demands something to scrape itself up against. That won't feel real until it's turned to violence. ]

( His death is a fact. ) [ Rust spells it out. Slows his thoughts to a plod, trading insult for insult. ] ( Facts don't get better or worse. You can't improve a fucking fact. )

[ Spite like swallowing down a mouthful of blood. ] ( Sam, was it? ) [ An aggression in this kind of questioning, hands planted on a table clamped to a bare floor. ] ( You a politician, Sam? )

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Sam's not an angry person in general - but he's not doing so well right now, and there's a low, simmering anger under his skin that echoes the traces he can feel from Rust.

Still, his brows furrow briefly - not that you can see if through their disguises, but there's probably some sense of it through the mental link. ]

( Of course you fucking can't. That's the point I was trying to make, when you asked me what he died for. ) [ Just in the wrong way, apparently, if Rust got that from it - and then Rust asks that, and there's an immediate, sharp sense of disgust.

There's flashes of faces through his mind, different people wearing the same fake smiles and the urge to punch them if they don't shut the hell up, before Sam pulls himself back a little. That serves as a hell more of an insult than death being a fact. ]

( Why the hell? No. )

[aluminumandash]

[ A rush of satisfaction; he drives it home: ] ( You bullshit like one. )

[ Barely a pause, and Rust doesn't move but his mind crowds in. Even with the alcohol a last hint of finesse, the way a time-ravaged face can still look beautiful in a certain aspect of light. ] ( “We,” who's we, just you and him? What were you doing cutting deals, you knowing shitall about politics? Was it his idea? )

[ Underneath it all, drumming like a pulse, shrill as a siren: What are you, what are you, what are you. ]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Sam has a response ready to spit back at him, 'anything sounds like bullshit when it's all you wanna hear', bitter and uncertain, but the press of Rust's mind against his stops him. He doesn't hear the rest of the questions, too focused on what he's really after, and there's a sense of if you want it, fine.

He stops shielding, stops keeping their connection closed tight enough that he isn't pouring his emotions all over Rust. Grief bleeds out heavy and festering, the kind of tangled seeping mess that comes from an old, old wound scarred over and re-opened too many times. The feel of sand and grit against your teeth, copper warm and wet at the back of your tongue, eyes stinging and throat ragged and aching -

The creeping dread of fuck it what does it matter anyway like a tendril around your ankle pulling and whispering, held at bay only by the strain of muscles and the beat of wings. Not again, never again, no one can save everyone that's the way it is -

An echo of that others may live, the sharpness of Cathaway's smile, hackles raised and a dispassionate murmur keep some of them safe as though she had to ask, as though Sam hadn't spent most of his life protecting others -

As though Sam gave a damn about this mission other than trying to keep everyone safe - everyone, the Nest and the Rabadoceans, avoid as much death as possible -

And grief swells back up again, overwhelming everything else until Sam pulls back, shielding himself a little more. ]

[aluminumandash]

[ That he wants it doesn't mean he's ready for this compounded loss, his own grief deepened, coarsened by Sam's. Choking down the dregs of the other man's pain. The taste in his mouth like light hitting his eyes after another sleepless night, like names stamped on newsprint, cheap and fateful.

Rejecting it is unthinkable. He hurls himself in.

Everything they bought her, he distrusted. Gripping the rail of her crib he felt how flimsy it was, scratched at sloppy smeared glue with a nail. There was no greater injustice than this: that he couldn't remake the world for her.

He tried all the same. Carved her a rattle, his hands soothing the walnut into shape. Lowering his head to breathe in the scent, running his thumb along the curves to be sure nothing would snag or splinter. He made her a doll, the fabric patterned with stars. A kite, a pinewood squirrel.

If Claire understood the underlying desperation, she was good enough not to let on.

The dead boy, gathering him up. Taking him out of that room. People could talk about feelings, those fleeting impulses they analyzed and exalted. No: the weight of him. That was a feeling.

Somewhere in this he's been crying. Face hot under his fucking hood. ] ( Well, Sam. ) [ He doesn't compose himself. He's seeped in grief, his thoughts ringing out above the murk. ] ( Whose idea was it? )

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ It’s so easy for grief to compound on itself, for their experiences to mesh together and drag down, and there’s an edge there where Sam could almost give in, let himself go down a path that’s way too well travelled - but instead he sinks in, taking in what he’s getting from Rust and trying not to let it get caught up in his own grief.

Or at least, not old griefs - there’s nothing that’s gonna keep it from pulling on the mess that is Lavellan, and he doesn’t want it to.

This is personal for Rust, about so much more than death in general, than death on a mission, than death in the Nest - it’s not about Lavellan himself at all, but it isn’t about Lavellan for most of the Nest, and the anger that Sam feels there has already settled in and dulled.

Memory flickers out over the connection, Sam sitting next to Lavellan with his knee pressed against his, saying What do you think our chances are of getting all the envoys to work together to kill this thing and come back safe and Lavellan’s murmurs about the advantage of a successful alliance, Sam shooting back You’re better at all this shit than me, Nelly just to see him make a face at the nickname - ]

( Mine. And his. I wanted to get everyone out of there alive, he knew an alliance would be beneficial. )

[ Lavellan knows - knew - how to handle all this crap, how to strategize and figure this shit out, how to deal with this stupid fucking mission that Sam hates more than ever. Too much, sometimes, and part of Sam’d wanted nothing more than for him to be able to relax, to get him to laugh. His mind trips itself reaching for the place where Lavellan isn’t anymore, and he misses him so sharply it’s hard to breathe for a moment.

He doesn’t care how much of that is slipping through his shields. ]