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 )

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[ It's well and truly after all has passed and the morning after, that Lakshmi goes looking for Clarke, with a rather particular concern in the front of her mind. An agitation too it perhaps that isn't well suited to her, a pace behind bars, the unhappy set of shoulders roll beneath skin, jut where holds herself in the long grass outside her fortress walls, that says she - doesn't know what to do.

Which leads her to do something, anything at all, when she catches Clarke's attention first with the press of her mind. Then the curl of her fingers to beckon her closer. A conversation she wants to have with teeth and lips than thought and mind because - because she cannot be sure otherwise.

And they all needed their little delusions.

She jerks her head for Clarke to follow her, heading back towards her own tent. ]

( the morning after finds clarke griffin, agitated, pained, dizzy, and nauseated. it takes her far longer than normal to rise from her bedroll, to precariously wrap her scarves around her head and secure the rest of her disguise. there's calls for breakfast, and the mere thought of food turns her stomach so severely, that she doesn't even notice the legitimate hunger pangs under layers upon layers of the borrowed hangover. it won't occur for several more hours that her misery is a choice, and even then the pounding headache will persist. stumbling out into the red glare of the hyrypian sun proves to be a mistake, but there's a sorrow in the air that hangs like rot. she can't sit idly, she needs to move.

but a vaguely familiar presence presses into her pounding skull, and effectively freezes her in her shuffled tracks. it's lakshmi, she realizes before even looking around to see the other woman beckon her to follow, and a part of clarke flinches — already drowning in her own emotions, not ready to chance an invasion of foreign ones.

for a long moment, she watches the other woman's retreating shoulders. considers pressing on her own path, maybe dry heaving behind a boulder. but the urgency tethered in the air between them eventually tugs are clarke's rib cage. she's several seconds behind pushing through the tent flaps, and sways slightly on her feet just inside the safety of shadows. )

Did you need something?

[ She might have a lot of questions - some of them might even be important but the edge of Clarke's nausea hits her own. Dizzying ill. Hung over, she realises. Horribly, sickly hung over. She can't blame her of course. Most of the hive had found solace in alcohol. So had she not so long before, with Annie ( and then something else completely, granted ), but they all managed the after effects so poorly.

That and they didn't have the mercy of the blackwater to cure even the worst of hang overs.

So the questions, for the time being, are shoved aside as she doesn't even bother to ask what happened to her. ] Sit. Now.

[ It's worse than a commander issuing orders: it's a mother, utterly exasperated with the idiot choices her children liked to make. ]

( well.

that's a tone of command she hasn't heard in the past few weeks, and far be it from clarke to argue. there may be a moment lost to surprised blinking, but eventually, she does as she's told; walks to the closest bedroll and stoops to sit at the foot of sheets she doesn't know who sleeps on. it helps a little, being closer to the ground and shielded from the blazing red sun by thick tent walls. the whole world doesn't feel like it's pulsating, and clarke can take the opportunity to begin to unravel the confines of her headscarves so as to breathe unobstructed.

so sitting is nice. but in her eighteen years of having a mother, she knows the fussing rarely stops after one stern demand, and clarke offers a preemptive: )

I'm fine.

( but really, is she ever? )

Make those arguments to someone who will believe them.

[ It's tossed over her shoulder as she arranges it all on a tray, water - simple food. Her ladies knew better than to be so ill disposed in her presence, but soldiers certainly had no such scruples. Not that she ever blamed them. Saw how the physicians tended them just the same.

And does it now as she comes back to put the tray in front of her. ]

Drink and eat before you bother to say anything else.

( well, okay then, she's not fine.

the dismissal of her loose assurance comes as a bit of a shock. having existed so long in a world where everything short of actively dying could be qualified as fine, and very few would question the validity of that excuse, having her tried and true mantra so easily waved off is a little... jarring. clarke stares a little skeptically at the back of lakshmi's head for a long moment, idly picking the fingers off her gloves off, but has the decency to school her features into something resembling nauseated impassiveness by the time the woman returns with a tray of food and drink.

she's not hungry, her body physically recoils from the thought of settling anything in her stomach. but doesn't object. ) Thank you. ( weak and weary, but heartfelt.

she's plucking at an oddly colored alien version of a grape, holding it up between two fingers as if to say okay, i'm eating, before asking again: ) Was there something I can help you with?

[ She watches, hawk like to make sure that she does start to at least nibble. Small bites - good. Nothing to too much. Didn't want her throwing up, heaving herself around in the confines of veils was always a poor choice. That one she knew all too well.

Morning sickness while on pilgrimage was a special hell. ]

Yes. [ and then inevitably, she leans forward to straighten her out in a way that is all too presumptive. Letting the veils sit right. A distracted sort of fussing. ] I wanted to ask after Master Cohle.

( under such a stern, watchful gaze, there's really nothing else to do besides pop that grape in her mouth and chew. contrary to what her stomach would have her believe, the sensation of juice bursting on her tongue doesn't immediately send clarke into a fit of dry heaving. in fact, it's quite nice. refreshing. she's reaching for a cup of water when lakshmi brings up her — arguably — least favorite broodmate right now, and clarke is forced to pause with her mug halfway to her lips. )

Rust?

( this time, the uncomfortable twinge in her abdomen has little to do with her hangover. there is the most unwelcome urge to steer the conversation elsewhere, to not talk about him, maybe even to leave. a measure of those personal, protective mental barriers start to rise up, and clarke's posture stiffens.

wary, defensive and low: ) What about him?

[ Her hand settles back, pulling up to regard Clarke's face. It isn't a response she expected. Certainly, she hasn't gotten along with her own brood well. Perhaps it meant no more than that, except she only took that tone for a very plain reason.

Her hands settle in her lap, her gaze still direct, straight at her like there was nothing else to be looked at right at this moment. For all she keeps it so inside of her own space, some small mercy she was trying to adapt for the sake of getting along with others. She was not even a rebel queen here. Her approach needed something more of an even hand. ]

I wanted to ask if he was... well. [ A lack of any other term, she settles for mock pleasantries. ] These last few days have been hard on us all. He wears it stubbornly, but I cannot imagine he would take it any better.

[ To say nothing of what she might have done to cause that state in him. ]

( clarke listens to the imitation of small talk, but hears the weighted concern behind the inquiry of rust's well being. her face begins to contort into a soft sort of confliction, and she first takes a long sip of water before answering. because how does one tactfully go about discussing the fact that their mutual acquaintance seemed quite intent on getting himself — and maybe all of them — killed last night, after who even knew how many bottles of alien liquor...

simple, really. you don't.

and then skirt the question. )

Why aren't you asking him yourself?

[ Lakshmi, however, doesn't believe in skirting very much of anything - a continual problem she has with half the members of the hive - and especially amongst her own brood it turns out. No gift except to take things in the headlong motion.

Except where this matter - isn't something she is willing to share, and it leaves her somewhat adrift - not herself. Not in its entirety. The notion there, of something bright and beautiful - kalinoor's diamond, glittering boldly, with as many flat surfaces as pointed edges, beating away like the steady drum, drum, drum of her own heartbeat - that sits now in Rustin Cohle's hands. He has something precious of me, and for that, I cannot abide our presence together. ]

We quarreled, I would be least amongst who he wishes to see.

( clarke is silent for a moment, contemplating the implications of what little lakshmi's offered up to her. a fight, a glimmer of affection, a palpable shift in the dynamics of someone she'd considered close until very recently. give her twelve hours, and clarke will be sitting in a very similar boat and struggling to paddle upstream. )

We fought, too. ( she sips her water, wondering if barking orders at a despondent rust while mat physically grappled with him and kaji sat tipsy and unhelpful in a corner truly constituted a fight. it had felt important at the time, but now she has to ask herself if things would have escalated the way they'd done if she'd just left her broodmates alone to lick their matching wounds.

quietly, a little mutinously — because for as hand-picked as they seemed to be to join the nest, whichever puppetmasters were pulling the strings hadn't seen fit to grace alnitak with likeminded people: ) And he never wants to see me. ( clarke griffin has a ballad of unkind thoughts to air regarding half of her conscious brood, but she rallies, fiddling with the rim of her water mug and eventually dragging her gaze to meet lakshmi's. )

He was a mess. Even if the two of you are fighting, you should still probably talk to him.

[ Lakshmi keeps her persistent idle fussing - though whether it is for Clark or for her own inability to take these things easily, who can say - some unfortunate mix that comes with a need to look after others because what else is she if not always pressing, selfishly, onwards?

So she tugs the set of her veils - what sort of life did so many of them lead that they could not work out how to drape material effectively? To let the fineness of the cloth to do its own work for them. Right up until - he never wants to see me - never mind that she rejects her own brood for reasons, some good and some bad. But that ? ]

Why not?

( a shrug, a cop out of an unspoken answer: i don't know. rust hadn't the tendency to keep himself to himself, leaned towards brutally slitting open his very life with the ease of a sharp blade through soft skin in the hopes of overwhelming. the first time their tangled thoughts had collided, raw and loud, his knee-jerk response had been appalled alarm at her age. she's a fucking kid, a line of discomfort that could be traced through all their interactions.

it's difficult not to feel immediately discredited and written off because of her age. both rust and kaji have grown bitter and damaged in their old age, if they weren't that way before, and viewed her steadfast determination as a distinctly childish trait. but could it really just be a side effect of youth when she doesn't feel particularly young anymore?

no matter, being eighteen has never stopped clarke from trying her hardest to boss around adults. )

I think I make him uncomfortable. And we don't agree on a lot.

Agreement should not be the whole of an acquaintance.

[ Her understanding of that is quite plain: as a Queen, she had come to never trust anyone who agreed with everything she said or did. Such was the complacency that came before betrayal.

That, and she couldn't imagine not arguing with anyone. Someone should check her for a fever if that ever came to be. ]

He is frequently uncomfortable. He was quite uncomfortable with the notion I could throw my hits as well as he, until I dissuaded him of them. Never mind I went to battle younger than he is now, and was ruling well before that.

[ It's a slight exaggeration on the tug she had felt in him when they had first sparred, but Rust didn't get that kind of kindness when he was apparently doing this. ]

What is it about you that makes him uncomfortable enough to behave in such a way?

( clarke sets her jaw at first, then seems to remember that harshly grinding her teeth gave a look to her entire face that could only be described as tight and sour. of course people didn't always agree, that point has been proven to her time and time again. but disagreements ought to be reserved for little things, like preferring panther meat to protein rations, or tea to coffee. not whether or not to die a potentially violent death and doom the rest of one's acquaintances to much the same fate. she forces herself to raise her glass to her lips, to mask if not remedy that sour pull of her mouth.

the proffered knowledge lakshmi offers up — fighting, ruling, battle — are all neatly acknowledged then filed away to be thought harder on at a later time. when clarke speaks, it's pinched and wet, water still coating her throat.

she's a fucking kid. )

He thinks I'm a child.

( an old and tired sentiment. she had not asked to be sent down to earth to die, no one had asked her opinion on assuming a leadership position among criminals thrust into territorial disputes, and absolutely no one had consulted clarke about her tentative peace being overridden by adults when they'd finally come down from the ark. if asked, she'd do it all again; turn eighteen on a radiation riddled planet and fight her fair share of battles as well. but she could do without being devalued for being sum years of age and acting older.

i don't feel like one anymore, another sentiment hidden behind the rim of her cup as clarke drains the last of the water away and sets it back by the plate. she doesn't touch the provided snacks again, and for as refreshing as that drink had been, bile still coats the back of her tongue. perhaps, if she tried, clarke could parse the root of rust's sorrowful sentiments and emotional distance in regards to children in rough situations, hurt children. but she doesn't feel like drawing weak lines between herself and sophia. nor talking much longer on this subject. )

But that doesn't matter. He's not well. And maybe he'll listen to you.

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

wildcard - raises ur ten years late with fifteen years

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