[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

[wrackful]

[Murphy's mouth pulls sharp at the corner, looking away. He lifts a hand to rub at his nose, drops it as soon as he remembers the veils and scarves.]

What good is that going to do? You're just the same.

[Trying, still, to dig his heels in against it, ignore the part of him already wants to agree. Take hold of the straining line of the red belt stretched between them. Release some of the pressure building between the flood of the Nest outside and the squalling mess inside his head.

He knows what Bellamy's done before, been in his mind for before, but he holds onto the idea that this is different. He isn't breaking apart in panic or fear. He doesn't need help.]

[deployed]

You were there for me when I was in the infirmary, Murphy. You know I can do that for you now.

[ Bellamy skirts deliberately around Murphy's breakdown in solitary. Framing this as an evening of the scales seems like it would be more palatable for Murphy. He sticks close, keeping in Murphy's space without reaching for him a second time. ]

You don't have to do this alone, [ Bellamy repeats, palms burning. ] You can let me try to help.

[wrackful]

[This isn't like the infirmary. Murphy could say that, immediate, use it to shrug Bellamy off and push away. He isn't sick, isn't caught between memories and nightmares, unable to untangle them from what's real. He isn't alone. Not the way Bellamy had been alone.

Instead he's thinking about how Bellamy hadn't been that bad this time, using his power only a few days ago. They'd been able to prepare for it. Hold him grounded before he even slipped. Murphy doesn't know if he could consider this the same, keep that as the reason for how he's already turning toward it. The sudden, sharp wish that he could see Bellamy's face.

He doesn't say anything. He doesn't want to say anything, try to frame it in words. He just nods, slight, once. Then he's focussing away. Inside. Concentrating on letting his walls crack just enough, trying to make sure they don't crumble entirely.]

[deployed]

[ A sliver of space is all Bellamy really needs. Murphy opens up just a little and Bellamy takes the opportunity.

It's not as easy as it had been in the prison, or even that first time on Concodia when he'd felt Murphy's panic spiking across the city. But Bellamy is persistent, if nothing else. He makes room for himself. He drags in warmth to keep the despair at bay, tugging at the red-dyed strap of the bond between them to draw himself in tighter. ]

( Better? )

[ Maybe Murphy will say no. But Bellamy isn't particularly worried for that. He weaves himself in closer, letting Murphy's grief seep into his own consciousness like a sponge, as if Bellamy could lift it all away. Without thinking, he's reached to take hold of Murphy's hand. It's partly a preemptive ward against Murphy pulling away again, and partly to mirror the close tangle of their minds in the moment. ]

[wrackful]

[It doesn't spook him anymore, this level of closeness with Bellamy. Maybe he should worry about that, getting too used to this. Right now it doesn't rise as a concern.

Bellamy fills space like breathing in after being without air for too long. It should be too much, should be crushing in the space of his mind, and yet Murphy feels like something loosens in his chest. Unknots. His grief is quiet, the storm still present but slowed, heavy with the weight of death, guilt, frustration. Bellamy still bears under it, steady, warmth emanating outwards, the ghost of his heartbeat strong in Murphy's chest.

Murphy's closed his eyes without thinking, opens them again at the question, a dull splinter of annoyance that Bellamy's even asking. Pushing Murphy to admit he was wrong. But that isn't it, and Murphy knows it. He sighs.]

( Thanks. )

[deployed]

( You're welcome. )

[ Guilt is the discordant note among the flow of dark emotions. It makes sense that it's what Bellamy's mind snags on; he's intimately familiar with guilt. He isn't expecting to find it in Murphy just now, and there's a questioning hum as his thumb rubs across the back of Murphy's gloved knuckles. ]

( Is this yours? )

[ Or was it bled over from Seviilia? Bellamy has a hard time thinking that she felt any particular guilt over what happened, but he doesn't rule it out. What could Murphy feel responsible for? He'd been on the cliffs, safely out of reach. It wasn't Murphy's failing that allowed this to happen. ]

[wrackful]

[All of the ease he'd been sinking into in having Bellamy so close doesn't matter. Bellamy's question and pointed attention come and everything in Murphy flinches, drawing instinctively back like he'd just pressed a fingertip to a raw nerve.

It isn't far enough to fully withdraw. They're tangled too tightly for that. Instead the break of it just causes his mind to spill: the sensation of Lavellan's death surging into Cathaway's fear, too enormous to be contained within the confines of his room on the station. The insistence she'd pushed into him curving forward to the moment on the clifftops, the shock of sudden emptiness rippling through everyone and the certainty that if he'd been down there, his power could have saved him.]

( Yeah. ) [He says, after a breath, irritated at his own reaction, defensive at why Bellamy had felt the need to ask in the first place.] ( It's mine. )

[deployed]

[ No matter what Bellamy wants, he can't lift these feelings away from Murphy. He can't pull them up by the root. Alleviating them will have to happen some other way. Beside Murphy, he shifts as the urge to take some sort of action passes through him. His grip tightens on Murphy's elbow, not to hurt, just to remind him of the physical connection underscoring how close their minds have drawn. ]

( There was nothing any of us could do. )

[ Though Murphy's train of thought runs directly counter to that. Even having seen Murphy's power work, Bellamy still isn't sure it would have helped in that moment. The death had happened so quickly. What they'd gone into that maze to hunt had been incredibly dangerous. They had been lucky that more of them hadn't been killed.

And inevitably Bellamy's circle around to the aftermath of Murphy's powers. Murphy would have been a liability. And Bellamy wouldn't have been able to shove him into a cave and hope for the best as easily as he had done for Shiro. ]

( And we couldn't have gotten you out, even if you had been able to save him. This isn't you fault, Murphy. )

[wrackful]

[Murphy isn't expecting Bellamy to fix anything of what's swimming in his head. Bellamy might be a lot of things, but he isn't a miracle worker. He can't dissipate grief or heal pain. But his presence had already made it feel easier, somehow. It makes the reassurances and the grip on his arm seem unnecessary, especially when Murphy can already agree with most of it.

It wasn't his fault. He would've been useless in the hunt, more likely to get killed than not. But still, that seed of guilt lingered, rooted in the one fact none of them could deny.]

( My brainbug can tell the future, Bellamy. None of us know what I could've done. )

[He'd led them straight to a disguised ship that had been used as a storage room for years in a corner of the waypoint he'd never stepped foot in, on Shril. His power is bigger, has access to knowledge none of them can even guess at. Nothing any of us could do just doesn't apply.

It uncurls, suddenly, into a bitter, petulant rush. The blowback of his power already made it a problem; the way it expressed itself through him, an irritation. With this, with everything Cathaway had piled on him that day on the station, he suddenly just doesn't want it. Any of it.]

[deployed]

[ Bellamy can't work miracles. He can't manipulate emotion. But the earnest desire to shield Murphy from it draws him further into Murphy's mind to block what he can. It feels natural to insinuate himself in Murphy's head and crowd out the frustrated, overwhelming urge to reject everything that the symbiote had given him. After the first time Bellamy had used his own power, he'd felt the same as Murphy did now. The urge to escape it, reject it any way he could, it's not unexpected.

His grip on Murphy's arm drops to his wrist. Even as closely woven into Murphy's mind as he is now, Bellamy wishes he could see Murphy's face. The thick layers of fabric between them obscure the ability to be sure of Murphy's reaction. Bellamy still relies on expression to supplant what he can feel blossoming in people's minds, and Murphy isn't an exception. ]

( You don't know that it would have made you help him. It could have made you leave. )

[ And arguably Murphy would feel worse about that. (Bellamy knows he would.)

All this talk won't fundamentally change anything. Bellamy is intimately familiar with guilt. Absolution bestowed by others doesn't change the ache of feeling there's something you could have done and regretting that you hadn't. ]

[wrackful]

[There's a splinter of doubt, for a moment, digging in somewhere more distant at Bellamy's words. It's the spike of panic up on the clifftops as Clarke had lost her footing, almost tipped over the edge. How it had been simple reaction and adrenaline between him and Mat that had saved her. His bug had done nothing.

But all it shows is that he doesn't understand enough, yet. None of them do.]

( You're right. I don't know. ) [Bellamy's crowding closer, but Murphy digs his heels in, stubborn. Not a rejection, or an attempt to push him back. Just a certainty that he still has a right to feel how he's feeling.] ( And unless someone wakes up with a bug that can time travel us back there, no one's ever going to. )

[So there isn't any fixing it. Any absolute argument against it. It's going to remain until it fades, and there's nothing either he or Bellamy can do about that, either.]

wraps this up

[deployed]

[ A new worry emerges as Murphy answers him. What will Murphy do next time? Follow them into danger in hopes of shielding the rest of them from harm? At home, they'd never really had the luxury of keeping people out of danger. War had dragged them all in one after the other. But it's possible on these missions to insulate some of their number. Bellamy had been mildly relieved to know that Clarke and Murphy would benefit from that and now he isn't so secure in that relief.

But he can't do anything about it now. Murphy's not going to budge, and Bellamy is learning to pick his battles with him. ]

( You're right. )

[ The urge to protest further sparks in the back of his throat. Bellamy ignores it. ]

( Let's stay here for a little while. We can walk back when the rest of the Nest is falling asleep. )

[ They don't have to talk anymore, but Bellamy's willing to wait until Murphy's ready to go back to the tent. ]