groundrules: (Default)
let's set d o w n some ([personal profile] groundrules) wrote in [community profile] westwhere2023-03-08 06:47 pm

stage iii


THE ASHES







Rathakku’s forces deepen their siege, with sharp-clawed harpies, fire-bearing catapults and archers raining hell upon Alem. The last two watch towers collapse, along with half the roof of the Keep. Several structural pillars dissolve and most windows shatter.

The Lord Who Waits has tired of patience.

HIGH CASTLE



■ Attack is vicious and perpetual: Rathakku’s creatures descend from above, harpies make lairs in dark corners, and the fallen rise as undead enemies. Rathakku now necromances even the recently deceased, who retain a sense of personhood. Characters with mind control and necromantic abilities can take over these units. The recently resurrected have yet to decay substantially and hide they perished in order to infiltrate.

■ The dragon Irenia dips in to breathe frost onto Rathakku’s forces, but never lingers long. She disappears on March 20 but will return post-Arc.

■ Aware of his native Ellethia’s implicit role in raising Rathakku, Zenobius offers to teach you how to use the rare metals and saltpetre of Alem to create generous explosives — a set that triggers a very high blast, and a smaller shipment that can annihilate any magic — including death and summoning sorcery — in a 20-metre radius for two hours. Zenobius is a hard, curmudgeony taskmaster: expect to be worked and criticised to the bone.

■ Expect frequent quakes in the fortress, as catapults strike and the roof and pillars wobble. A hard winter is no longer contained by shattered doors and windows. Fire kindle and other supplies run scarce. Huddle together.

■ Paladins fall into zealotry, calling to sacrifice young princess Cle-Florens to ensure their success in battle. Deimar does not dissuade them, but lowers the number of guards protecting Cle-Florens’ quarters.

■ The voices that haunted Alem now multiply, increasingly likely to drag you into a dream-like state to descend into the glacier lakes underground. Spy thereabout at night, and you spot demonic fire sirens of golden scales, who gather in the fourth glacier lake’s cave to urgently complete their task before Alem falls. Their leader produces a purse of dark glass shards. A siren painfully transforms her tail into human legs by consuming such glass — she intends to infiltrate the fortress as a refugee. Sign up for a RNG thread to interrogate this mermaid.

■ With a few more shard crumbs, the sirens summon a ‘Jatharin’ — a fast dispersing silhouette that floats ethereally. They give it a white-silver string punish Prince Haiva for wronging a sister.

■ The Jatharin survives only two hours in the human realm. It lacks human consciousness and memory, remembering little of its target’s description and pursuing what ‘young men (with pale hair)’ it finds in the Wards. It is invisible to all who did not witness its birth — so keep your companions out of its way. It approaches a target and chains itself to them with a shadowy ‘umbilical chord,’ before sucking dry their life force. It can also deplete energy through... mouth-on-mouth action. Clean executions: Victims make no sound and barely shudder throughout their entrapment. Some say, these are painless deaths.

■ Sirens summon a Jatharin for three nights.

HARPIES
Fast, perpetually furious, prone to consuming human flesh. Deterred by loud noise and vibrations. Imbue their claws with poisons that prevent blood coagulation, extending bleed-outs.
CATAPULTS
Deliver projectiles of stone, fire and minor explosives. Rathakku’s most ferocious instrument, taking down Alem’s foundations. Manned by four undead apiece. Sturdy but slow, best targeted aerially.
FIRE SIRENS
Native to Hell. Deeply bound to ‘sisters’ and ‘family.’ Possess golden scales and shards of the previously encountered dark water mirrors. Their song is tinny but compelling. Their speaking voices are crackling and gravelly. Survive the glacier lakes’ cold by exuding flame. Skin burns to touch.
JATHARIN
Smokey, dispersing silhouette. Invisible to those who did not witness its birth. Kills by consuming life energy. Descended from the Motherless of Hell. Cannot be outright stopped, only avoided, enslaved or consumed. Can be distracted if you take an aspect similar to Haiva. Leaves a golden string on unintended victims.


THE DEPARTING



■ King Deimar orders caravans to urgently evacuate, carrying refugees and provisions through mountain routes into a new settlement. Able men, guards, healers and merchants make preparations around the clock and will gladly accept, command or guilt your assistance. Help them.

■ Courtesy of Jimmy and Nacho, merchants Batthour and Eles provide some last-minute wagons and resources. An Alison-coached Deimar strikes a tenuous agreement for supplies.

■ Having received ‘healing’ flowers, Prince Haiva seems entirely recovered — far more confident, he menaces guards to assist the caravans. Deimar watches uneasily. Haiva asks the party to lead the refugees through the icy mountain passageways, where Rathakku’s immense bat demons loom.

■ The caravans journey to a well-warded settlement near the base of the mountain — former paladin monastery Hassir. Those who wish to avoid conflict can remain here. Prepare to kill any wandering pursuers, before they may alert Rathakku of the settlement's location.

MOUNTAIN BATS
Monstrous, blood-thirsting. To the size of 1.5-3 metres. Bulky, quicker to use their brawns than their speed. Stalk together, but compete for food and want to drag their prey to some great distance before consuming it, for privacy. Use that time to escape.
HUNTSMEN
Undead forces, typically old resurrections of Rathakku. Once human natives of Alem. Excellent knowledge of hiding spots and the mountain. Hostile, take perverse pleasure in the game. Will prolong a chase for sport and give their hungering hounds the chance to catch you. Unusual kinship with local animals, who sometimes obey them. Some scent blood.


COME HELL, THEN DARK WATER



Hell is ruthless, but pragmatic — and must be sealed, before Rathakku controls Alem and weaponises it.

The growing cracks in Alem’s underground Room of Seals widen to reveal full-fledged stairs. More and more demons emerge as the rifts broaden. You have mere days to close Hell, ICly starting on 18 March.

■ Back/forward date your posts and logs as needed. Network access is spottier in Hell. Deimar’s paladins accompany the group.

■ To prevent the outpour of Hell, you must reach Level III and record disrupting at least three Motherless.

■ Each level of Hell shows shallow stains or streams of the familiar ‘dark water.’

LEVEL I

■ The Room of Seal leads into an underground stone passageway. Demons and skeletons are chained to stones or pillars, begging water. The dead are fickle: some offer directions, others answers to your questions. Most lie for their own gain.

■ The stairwell to Level II is behind locked gates, on a stone dais framed by a wall of flames. To reach it, cross a threadbare walkway of bones in a large hall room that has largely submerged into lava.

■ If the bridge ruptures, jump onto the nearby talking floating skeleton heads. Skeletal hands reach out to destabilise or drag you into the fire waters, as do demonic lava mermaids.

■ As you near the dais, the wall of flames might depict either the time when Thyvault’s people slaughtered the lava sirens, or your worst memory of betraying or failing someone. That same person is found shackled with long chains on the dais. If you never wronged anyone, this is someone to whom you are dearly indebted. At times plaintive, at others incensed, they appeal to your guilt or goodwill, bartering the gate key for their release. Their chains will only open if someone agrees to take their place in imprisonment.

■ You can steal their key, kill them — at which point, they return to their true form as a reptilian shapeshifter, or offer to take their place. Do so, and your character is stuck in Hell, suffering the intense heat and occasional clawing of mermaids, until Hell closes.

■ Up to you if anyone else can see your character’s memory in the flame wall. Please trigger warn adequately if you are describing sensitive memories.


LEVEL II

You descend deeper, into an underground urbanscape infested with flesh-like structures. Some stretches of land and stone are covered in membranous, dense, thick surfaces, letting you feel the faint, distant heartbeat of Hell. Other landmarks — lairs, adornments — are made of the remains of fallen demons.
■ Step lightly and rapidly. Flesh-eating demons roam these lands, as do hungering hell hounds and golems that chase you for parts to patch their limbs.

■ The next stairwell is guarded by a deathly groom or bride, their tentacles barring your path.

■ To proceed, you must gain the ring they are safe-keeping for a future ‘intended.’ You’ll need to persuade a local demon, assemble a passing corpse bride, sell a companion or offer yourself to betroth them — and negotiate a dowry.

■ The groom is crafty, cunning, eager to manipulate you into offering your soul as a dowry; the bride is cruel but irresistible, stirring you and your companion to violently compete for her hand.


LEVEL III

Behold true hell, an endless wasteland, its horizon fathomless and grey. Your mouth tastes of perpetual ash, bone dust scattered at your feet. You walk aimlessly for hours in fields of gravel, haunted by stone snakes and shapeless bone creations.

Demonic creatures rally as armies, fighting each other for crumbling territory or for overground dominion, as they prepare to invade Alem. Some drag rows of sullen, depressed or bellicose dead men behind them, whose souls you can liberate furtively when the demons make camp, or are assaulted by Deimar’s paladins. These captives did not all originate from Alem.

■ Some of the lesser demons may part with information, if you give them memories, important trinkets or a taste of your soul.

■ Most paladins are on this level and will shield you. You hear from them or from passing demons that Hell is now able to seep into Alem because of the Motherless — dark and flickering silhouettes, two-three times the size of a man, who float high above ground. They send down thick ropes like umbilical cords that consume the energy of whatever they attach to. They redeliver this energy as tectonic blows against Alem above.

■ Beyond a hatred of the Room of Seals, the Motherless lack conscience, speech or allegiance. They are drawn to the warmth of living things, or the purity of their spirit. Their ropes are broken easily — but the presence of a Motherless can quickly drain you.

■ The Motherless are briefly visible when they fling their ropes down, but otherwise roam invisibly and can only be recognised by the trails of barren land and aridity in their wake. You know a Motherless has stopped above you when you are suddenly paralysed by chilling fear — run, at all costs.

■ The Motherless swarm when endangered. They cannot be killed.

Deimar’s paladins share that, hundreds of years ago, their brethren committed ritual suicide, so their spirits could perpetually hunt the Motherless in Hell. You find ghostly paladins walking listlessly in lakes of dark water, seeming to remember nothing of their mission or their former selves. Try to remind them of their duties without entering the water and stranding yourself.


NOTES

■ Hell demons can recognise if your character is canonically connected to hell. Up to you if that’s a (dis)advantage!

■ Everyone should eventually make their way to the Hassir monastery.

Sign up for a RNG thread with an unexpected travel companion on the trek to Hassir.


NPC THREADS

QUESTIONS

downswing: (十一)

lan wangji | untamed

[personal profile] downswing 2023-03-08 08:42 pm (UTC)(link)


( Oooorrrrr bring your own wildcard prompt, if none of the below work for you! )

downswing: (二)

how is jatharin born

[personal profile] downswing 2023-03-08 08:45 pm (UTC)(link)


( They look at their shards with such malice. Such beautiful, snow-pristine malice.

Where Lan Wangji has slipped in the lake waters — where they have tumbled, for he does not swim or sink alone — the gentle thrumming and slurring of ice sheets rattling, collided, nearly coaxes him to listless sleep. It is cold; colder still, when his companion and Lan Wangji favour subterfuge and chase their cover behind the broad-backed stretch of a single, sunken icicle. Among glaciers it is nothing, little more than a blunt tooth. For them, a shield against discovery.

He does not flinch, when the crea — the siren presents her shards, when another consumes them. When the curves and ample lines of the latter's… scale-laden wormlike limb sunders into legs.

When the sirens whisper their words, their rites, their sorcery, and the apparition shapes itself like oils wrenched free from water, and he knows, part and whole of him, knows they face an ugly, vicious killing thing, made holy by the purity of his purpose. And the sister-summoner siren says, Jatharin, and the clutch of Lan Wangji’s hand on his sword’s hilt is a tight thing, choking. )


We could end this here, now. ( Water drenches his silks like claws on his back, curling. He hisses: ) It could be so simple.

( But then, that might prove to be sabotage, suicide, ruin. He sees the failure of it writ large and scalding. He does not risk himself alone, if he dashes in now. Cannot assume for two. And he waits — )

downswing: (九)

jatharin kart

[personal profile] downswing 2023-03-08 08:47 pm (UTC)(link)


( A cleaner chase would have deprived them of comedy. First, the obstacles: the riotous pace, blitzing from the glacier’s cave to the overground, from stifling, suffocating corridors to light blinding. Then, trading the waters of the lake with those of people, dazed, confused and hurting, barely retrieved from the fortress rubble or the frontline of war.

Now, Lan Wangji navigates the swarm, the bursts of red torch light, then the panic of people, hastening to physically push, nudge, trip or kick passers-by out of the invisible Jatharin’s path. They cannot see it, he understood, when it first broke into public quarters and attracted not a glance. They cannot see it, and so they fall.

With gladness, the creature appears calm, unhurried in its hunt.

...a flushed, Lan Wangji, firmly elbowing the next person out of its way in the Wards, is sadly bereft of that privilege.

Bony, prickly, jutting Lan elbows, here they come — )


Move

downswing: (imperator)

obi-wan is definitely cle-florens' last hope

[personal profile] downswing 2023-03-08 08:50 pm (UTC)(link)


( There, little nephew of opportunity. There’s the moment. Watch, when they’re two of them, Lan Wangji and the first man, woman or child of his party that he’s stumbled upon, and the aim is clear, the corridor of the Keep barely a routine race of fallen or still collapsing obstacles. The goaded assaults were thunderous, ruinous. Before them, the game of escaping pillars and gravel and the swarm of rushing guards is afoot.

The Barracks have been largely stormed, emptied. The Wards live overcrowded. Even now, blood royal hides in the glory of its many privileges, the child Cle-Florens half-ferried, half-dragged to her quarters, as they watch, as they wait.

There is talk to kill her, for victory. Lan Wangji suspects, for sport.

It would be easy, to look at her. Some might decree, expected. White of her roiling eyes and her fussing, spoiled groan from a rosebud mouth. She is a sheltered thing, pale from a life lived under paltry, unassuming cover. Were she any less green in her years, he might think to despise her oblivious, manicured indolence. As the dice have rolled, he pities her, the fate that paladins greedily whispered for her among each other.

They say that king Deimar has thinned her palace guard and rerouted her man to serve in the war. They say all roads to the girl’s rooms are largely barren. They say much, for men who do not purport to want her liberated. )


We might remove her, now. ( If they were tempted, if they had the design. ) If we located a stand-in.

( Not that he is suggesting

…not that he is not. )

downswing: (egalitarian)

sugar mother(less)

[personal profile] downswing 2023-03-08 08:55 pm (UTC)(link)


( Acid in his gut, beastly, binding. Clay-like tar. Every drip and drop of him slowed to a trickle, limbs laden. He’s knees deep in flaked greyed dirt and the easy, quiet petulance of an arid breeze, scratching dead land. 'Hell,' this. Hell and slaughter.

Careless slosh of his feet, he dragged himself, dragged linen strips and cuts of his boot leathers, in endless pilgrimage. He has arrived here. Somewhere. Anywhere. It could be any wasteland, any stretch of hopeless, vast, senseless nothing. What is there to live for, in this Hell?

He feels a fortress ruined — like Alem, hollowed. Watches, with blank, unblinking eyes, the spectacle of what he was sent to cull, the Motherless drifting, jolting, lolloping, like a young creature that has yet to master the bloom of its strength after a growth spurt. Ahead, far ahead, like blinks of dark nearly stellified, the Motherless shift and trail, their bodies all but sketches and smears. One looms down over its — their...? — prey, a fledgling thing, a demon roaming. Some unlucky, misshapen thing, trapped in the predator’s tremulous noose.

The sound of the Motherless’ hunger is slow thrumming, fricative. Lan Wangji watches it metabolise life it drains from this demon, first through fear, then stealing the fullness of limbs and cheeks. Then, the final tremors of animal flesh assail, and the demon surrenders. To what? Death would have been an elegant solution. This desiccation is a farce.

A complete, blood-curdling destruction of life. Leaving no chance for reincarnation, for improvement. Only consumption, finality, waste. Worse than death is this: the sudden, clawing reality that life force itself has been shredded.

Lan Wangji, stricken, mouth made clumsy and slack between wind whippings of dirt, cannot look away. Arrested, stays silent and still, far too still, until the execution is over. Then, he lifts himself, knelt long enough that his joints have stiffened and howl, prepared to conclude with this monster, as was his assignment.

He is not alone. These days, he is never alone. )


It — eradicated. Left nothing… ( He did not think himself, voice stilted, a man of mercy. This is no place for men at all. ) ...nothing in its wake.

bravelyrunsaway: (amused; genuinely)

licyn mansbane | original character

[personal profile] bravelyrunsaway 2023-03-08 11:42 pm (UTC)(link)
open and closed prompts to follow!
bravelyrunsaway: (er; you really think that's true)

when the bodies hit the floor

[personal profile] bravelyrunsaway 2023-03-09 04:11 am (UTC)(link)
( He'd endured Zenobius, mostly teasing and flirting when the curmudugeon was getting too grumpy: Licyn was, on examination, clearly listening. The results were too deadly not to, and the results likewise too valuable to dismiss.

Which is why he's armed with more than his sword in the lingering remnants of this falling down keep, part of the lingering entourage of King Deimar. It means he's not yet evacuated, because the searing king isn't, but it also means he's on hand to throw a magic disabling explosive into the gap in the walls where Rathakku's undead forces. Leaving them all collapsing to the ground, but also meaning if you're doing any magic...

... he just cancelled your magic. He also feels tired, sapped, because in that moment, he's had his own innate magic's bleedoff suddenly, fully cut.
)

Drag the bodies this way, we need to stack them and burn them to make this hole harder to get through!
bravelyrunsaway: (serious; unfortunately i heard that)

like a bat outta hell

[personal profile] bravelyrunsaway 2023-03-09 04:16 am (UTC)(link)
( He's not yet making the run to the monastery itself, but he is hauling in people and supplies to get into the wagons and guarding the initial starting area. Part of it because Deimar is making the effort, part of it because Haiva is getting brassy, part of it because this isn't the front lines and Deimar being here is infinitely wiser in his opinion.

It does, however, mean that he's on hand for one of the mountain bats, sword coming up in a block and cut that sends the attacker shrieking and flying to the ground. Heavily injured but alive. It's the first in its small pack, over-eager and younger if the size indicates anything.

Either fight with him, or listen when he says:
)

Get that storm-struck wagon out that gate!
bravelyrunsaway: (wolf; trying to take what I could get)

wolf and dog: the new generation of cat and mouse

[personal profile] bravelyrunsaway 2023-03-09 04:21 am (UTC)(link)
( He's on all fours, and one of two things are happening:

He's either carting an unconscious person on a sled that he's harnessed to, in one of the least predictable turns in his life.

Or he's stalking alongside the group, catching scent of one of the undead hunting hounds... and indicating to you, his partner, that it's time to veer off and turn this hunt around.

Pick your passion: this is about the bravest he'll bother being for a while.
)
bravelyrunsaway: a red wolf running away from the camera, ears turned back toward the photographer (wolf; don't make me sad)

wildcard;

[personal profile] bravelyrunsaway 2023-03-09 04:22 am (UTC)(link)
Hit me up here with a wildcard of your own choosing! He can be found in both human and wolf form, or just shifting back from wolf form, though then you've got a naked guy helping you deal with problems. Or causing more!
bravelyrunsaway: (chat; as we walk about town)

Galatea

[personal profile] bravelyrunsaway 2023-03-09 04:30 am (UTC)(link)
( at some point, toward the end of this or however long she remains alive, look, who necessarily survives this, he finds Galatea with a container of thin soup, more about warmth and the ghost of nutrition and water to keep her going, like it is for the rest of the paladins and likewise guards who're eating the very same thing. )

Your portion, love, rations are going out and the cooks are minding who hasn't had what.
bravelyrunsaway: (ask; for serious considerations only)

Deimar

[personal profile] bravelyrunsaway 2023-03-09 04:34 am (UTC)(link)
So.

( if the stench of death and fire and offal from those who died unclean and hadn't enough left to be resurrected isn't enough, there's always the scent of moving dead to keep his nose over busy. not that it's strictly on his mind right now; licyn simple notes it, and in the moment where deimar is here and licyn is the temporary single guard (attendant, look at his virtue here, all those who keep thinking heroics are actually a viable trade) between yelena returning and others of the paladin's, he asks: )

At what point are we allowed to attempt your evacuation? We're down to the dregs, and word on Hell is coming sooner, not later.

( so he presumes. he has yet to throw himself near there after being wrath's magic extra hand, so to speak, in keeping it sealed as long as they could. moot point now. )
weifinder: (right | on empty promises)

wei wuxian | the untamed | ota

[personal profile] weifinder 2023-03-09 04:51 am (UTC)(link)
Open and closed starters to follow! You're likewise welcome to tag this comment with your own wildcard if nothing I've written strikes your fancy.
jatharin: (deimar)

[personal profile] jatharin 2023-03-09 06:52 am (UTC)(link)
( Excuses must always be made for madmen and kings, both likely overcome with the instinct to not run, man, run at first opportunity. For his part, Deimar appears — tired, blood-smeared, still futilely waving the sword he thrusted in something, earlier.

Something with viscera and hurt. )


Out of rats? ( In terms of evacuation priority, the humble rat should really get to go first. )
jatharin: (galatea)

[personal profile] jatharin 2023-03-09 06:55 am (UTC)(link)
I do not wish to be your love, I am a warrior.

( At once spiteful and calm, barely lifting her gaze from where she's taken a moment to rest, back to hard wall in the ruins of the Gut's Bind, inspecting her shield for resilience. It'll do, another round. Another round after.

Finally, she nods to the soup. )


Take that to a child, or those in need. We fast and give alms, as the old ways intended.
weifinder: (calm | as i walk)

i heard there was a secret chord | cw: dead dying explosively in threads

[personal profile] weifinder 2023-03-09 07:00 am (UTC)(link)

( In the early last days, Wei Wuxian partitions out his strength. He's mortal, and what power he has is as liable as any other to wind down, to exhaust, and he refuses to take the measures of inviting those energies within himself to help bolster for longer. Not unless he must. Not unless it's what saves lives, without any other options.

He doesn't have the luxury of treating his own life as expendable.

Early days see him wresting small numbers of the newly resurrected from Rathakku. With enough of their personalities left, with enough recalling who they once were, the control he has over them allows him to present something like choice.

So when he turns to you and one of Alem's former living is at his side, and he asks:
)

Hand them the explosive, please.

( The grim expression on both their faces is a precursor of what, specifically, is about to happen. )

Edited 2023-03-09 07:29 (UTC)
weifinder: (patriarch | i walk)

that david played and it pleased the lord

[personal profile] weifinder 2023-03-09 07:28 am (UTC)(link)

( Death sweeps in, from outside, from below, in the crush of rubble, in the ice caverns and the forests, slipping and crawling out of hell. Slipping and sliding down from above, halls slick with wet, rent from veins, ichor of the creatures that fight under Rathakku's command, the violence of the landscape caught in its own final death throes.

He stands, Chenqing lifted to his lips. Studies the cracked, tilted bizarre landscape before him. Plays, and the music unwinds, curls and coaxes, threatens the dead who recall nothing of themselves as Rathakku continues forward, inexorable, an avalanche of malevolence bowling through the wreckage, covering it with death, and calling that death back up again. A fight where no warriors are left untouched without being so rendered into parts as to be no longer of use, or burned beyond any semblance of self.

He plays, and the song pulls from Rathakku those recent deaths, those people who were, and their lingering sense of selves. Aimed, directly, back at Rathakku, disrupting his lines, tearing into each other and being torn into in turn. He plays, and death feasts, cackling laughter of metal meeting metal, the thunk of arrows smacking off stone, and the failing attempts for the last of the catapults to send its rain of fire and stone down overhead.

It's the final push, the final resistance. And he can't watch for Harpies, those that survive, at the same time, nor does he need to stand alone.
)

fushichou: (39)

[personal profile] fushichou 2023-03-09 08:48 am (UTC)(link)
[Well. Can't say Hell isn't an awful place. Does exactly as it says on the tin.

Kanesada also can't say this isn't the worst place he's ever ended up because, logically speaking, it probably is. At least going back in time for missions generally means he has a present to return to, unless they really screw things up, somehow. It's...sort of set in stone.

This, though? Kanesada has no idea where to go from here, really. Yeah, theoretically it's simple enough; cause enough problems down here so that everything up on the surface doesn't go to complete shit, but that's not exactly the most enticing mission. Still, he's here, and he's been slicing his way through whatever demons and Hellspawn try to get in his way. He may have volunteered for this, but with the desire to get the hell back out.

And then he sees the awful tentacle monsters.

Yeah, okay, those are terrible. He, too, watches as those tentacles seemingly steal a creature's lifeforce with next to no difficulty, leaving the forsaken thing to just...cease. A shiver runs down his spine as a real kind of fear takes root. His body, while human in form, is more resistant to most things. Not invulnerable, but definitely sturdier.

...But not invulnerable.

Lan Wangji is here, someone Kanesada has formed some sort of bond with over the past few months. The man usually isn't the easiest to read, but right now his emotions come across pretty clearly. Kanesada gets it, but he also understands that every moment matters here. Still, he speaks softly, either to be a source of comfort to Lan Wangji, or to just not attract attention to them.]


Yeah. And it'll do the same to us, if we're not careful. You good?

[Can you gather yourself or will you be a hindrance?]
balancedwire: (Should I Leave It to You Now?)

Xie Yun | Legend of Fei

[personal profile] balancedwire 2023-03-09 09:07 am (UTC)(link)
[ Or tag with your own wildcard adventure if none catch your fancy. ]
balancedwire: (Maybe Like This Instead?)

Not On My Watch

[personal profile] balancedwire 2023-03-09 09:26 am (UTC)(link)
[ Sacrificing young children screamed Disha to him. Not that the paladins were Disha but that didn't mean he was going to allow someone, much less someone as young as Cle-Florens, be sacrificed.

He knows that the number of guards had been lowered that were protecting her quarters. Knows that if he wanted to do this then he'd have to blend in. Hell, he's posed as Disha before and posing as a guard wouldn't be hard.

Sure, someone could probably mistake him for someone that he's not but no one was going to get to the girl to sacrifice her, not on his watch. ]
balancedwire: (Not My Fault)

Fight For All You're Worth

[personal profile] balancedwire 2023-03-09 09:33 am (UTC)(link)
[ Sword in hand Xie Yun keeps with the caravan. He makes sure that everyone is accounted for and that they are safe, or as safe as they can be. This? It wasn't him avoiding conflict as much as it was him making sure that people managed to stay alive. That none of the creatures nearby come at them. Or any of Rathakku's people, creatures... things.

His hand tightens on the hilt of his sword and he lets his eyes roam around the caravan for a moment, eyes narrowing slightly, before he shakes his head and looks toward the companion not that far from him. ]

Something feels off.

[ Or maybe he's just hearing things that may or may not be there. Whether his companion is hearing sounds nearby too or not was a whole other story. ]
balancedwire: (I Remember Differently)

Wirewalk With Me or Skeleton Walk

[personal profile] balancedwire 2023-03-09 09:40 am (UTC)(link)
[ Hell was not what it was cracked up to be. He has been at death's door before. Wouldn't recommend it to anyone around him, much less people he's grown close to or people that he's met within the place. Like his not-brother and quite a few others.

Of course, there was a walkway that was submerged in flaming hot lava. It almost, honestly, reminded him of the volcano and how some of them had walked the plank over it. This? It was different and the place was hotter. If he'd still been poisoned by Bone Chilling Blue then he'd be freezing to death.

Parkour is something he is good at. So when the bridge he'd been walking on creaks, cracks, and ruptures (the sound far too loud to his own ears) he jumps. Jumping lands him on top of a floating skeleton head. Wires would've been easier than heads in fiery waters. ]

All you want is someone to talk to you?

[ Whoever is with him might think he's crazy but he isn't. The skeletons probably want more than that. After all, there's more out there than just them. ]

Do you need help getting around me or do I need to help you?

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