HONEY, WE’VE GOT VISITORSSa-Hareth-brand
Cassandra tries to flag the future, gets left on read.
True story — and then, the dead come.
His offer neglected, a desperate Unhalad resorts to sieging the farmhouse in search for the mirror
that was previously on the Imperious.
He’s in for disappointment, while the party prepare for... house guests over the
early-morning 16 June to 17 June period.
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Around 3:30am (16 June) of a storming night, those who are awake or sensitive to the supernatural may hear the winds and fleeing rats whisper that something comes.
At 3:45am, Karsa’s wards around the farmhouse set off, briefly shrieking. Within minutes, Unhalad’s undead infiltrate the farmhouse, with one slight creature first entering down the kitchen chimney.
A small faction of undead remain on the roof, while a swarming majority circle the farmhouse. Throughout the night, they attempt to break in through doors and windows, making slow progress. They are warier of the forest-facing back entrances.
The attackers comprise droves of undead, some clearly only recently converted in haste. They are weaker for it. |
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Over time, the undead drip into the farmhouse. They lack the coordination for a concerted effort. Attempting to exit within the first three hours of the siege will prove disastrous, as too many undead wait outside.
The undead will seek a mirror, being first and foremost drawn to Winnie, who carries a similar item on her person. Fox and Five will also be of interest. Fox can escape attention by discarding the shards.
Any character that was bound to Anurr’s tree still bears the lingering marks of Anurr’s undeath is especially perceived as an enemy. Regulus enjoys the same treatment, given his extensive recent stay with the free people.
The undead will savagely wreck the house in their hunt, striving to kill those in their path. They can be slain regularly. The older, "properly" summoned undead (identifiable because of their clear state of rotting) should be incinerated or severely amputated to avoid further resurrection.
Because of the overwhelming number of undead, it is best to keep lean, mean and mobile within the house.
Karsa joins the farmhouse around 6am. She’ll teleport in, but the density of undead outside will prevent her from teleporting out safely. Alongside three party volunteers, she reinforces some of the wards, decelerating the advance of the undead. Her group will also throw away any of Unhalad’s markings (salt and ash) out of the house and into the inner garden pond. |
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Come sunset (16 June) Unhalad himself will ride outside of the farmhouse, holding distant vigil over the hostilities with his retinue. On his arrival, unbound farmhouse animals will flee into the forest.
Unhalad will be recognisable because of the immensity of raw power he emanates — a feeling of great and overwhelming despair and hunger.
Options to evacuate the chaos include sneaking out, fighting the undead, calling on reinforcements from any local allies, or holding position until around 8am of 17 June, when Unhalad’s last-minute forces start to disintegrate because of the haste in which they were summoned.
The minority of Unhalad’s forces that were summoned back alive with the appropriate diligence will not break down and will need to be banished.
The free people will not intervene, unless they are called in. |
 |
If you’ve made it this far into Sa-Hareth’s worst hazing ritual, congratulations. A few more days of crud to go.
Over the next few days before the 21-22 June departure, characters will have to make do with their shattered lodgings and dearth of supplies, or can seek sanctuary back in Sa-Hareth. Any money spent on accommodations will have to come out of the travel fund. You're on your own, kids.
The animals can return from the forest, and the free people might spare some food and water, gifted to those who stood out during Anurr’s trials. The Anurr cultists of Sa-Hareth could also part with a few provisions for their good friends, Xie Lian and Xiao Xingchen.
To opt out of the event, have characters out of the house on the night of the siege. It will be difficult to re-enter. The OOC plotting floor is yours! |
FARMHOUSE LAYOUT
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westwhere2021-06-14 07:23 pm
i.
It's a familiar feeling that coils inside him as he stands next to Lan Wangji spattered with dirt and ichor, one so strong perhaps it's tangible to those with the right senses -- reckless and dark and rich and delicious, one he's felt through a thousand such brushes with destruction. Death nipping at his heels, an enemy before him. Ready to be crushed, brought low and humbled for the crime of thinking it could ever toy with him so.
Oh, the dark side can be a joyful thing, in the right moments. Oh, it can sing.
He doesn't flinch as the sword comes at him and stops, glancing Wangji up and down for a moment, briefly assessing, before he gives a slow nod.
His eyes turn toward the single horse that waits in the near distance. To one side another shambling undead tries to interrupt, vaulting in their direction, and he flings it off to tumble backward through the snow with an absent wave of his hand.
"I have your back if you have mine," he says over the noise of battle and the howl of the dead, and a small unwell sort of smile curls over his lips, and if Lan Wangji has ever wanted to truly know this frustrating stranger then perhaps in this moment he can find some weary insight at last.
"Let us lop the head off this serpent. If he deigns to show his face, it would only be rude not to welcome him."
Lightning dances on his fingertips as Archeval raises his saber for the charge, a sickly neon beacon amid the chaos. He can feel the sick sensation bearing down upon them, the darkness the creature is wreathed in. A familiar sensation, that, after all these years of murdering Sith masters, of carving a path through all the dark powers that thought they could step on him.
At last, this place feels a little more like home.
no subject
Too little. Far too late. Archeval's sword drawn, and the light of it blinding. War taught well: worse than men, than sorcery, than flights of talismans, than entrapment, than the lay of the land conspiring against its invaders, worse than any score of dubious, strained and tortured advantage, are animals in the enemy's hand. They frighten, then run wild, and in their chaos care for nothing. Not their rider, the safety of the men at their feet, not themselves as they stampede on, between the hissed entreaties of rock splintered, flinched off yielding ground.
The horse is of greater concern to Lan Wangji, absent archers on their side to still it. Wei Ying — ...but when did the Yiling Patriarch last hold his bow?
No matter. Lan Wangji wrenches back, weight on his hind leg, priorities redistributed — the lightning of Archeval's sword, in its pallor, betrays them. No matter, again: if the man advances, then Lan Wangji settles as his rearguard, his blade Bichen return to sheath while he unburies the spooled span of Eleven's crude, but efficient garrote wire. He webs it fast, first casting a broad circle, fattened and loose, then tightening it in snapped geometries and sophisticated formations, to sit wire between as many of the assailants as luck and haste-eroded skill permit.
Then, the last taste of it: qi, and the wire rises, cut of it feeding off Lan Wangji's own brand of strength, cleaving fetid flesh that drowns them in the cloying stench of stale, gelid blood and moulded innards. He does not look, as limbs fall, does not count the dead — only throws over his shoulder, where he expects Archeval to hold vigil, "Leave your back." Lan Wangji will have it. "Your legs."
One of them must ensure Archeval is not caught in friendly wire, and it is not Lan Wangji. He can only weave so much care in manipulating wire — an uncoordinated tactic, unless he directs the entirety of his attention to a scant pick of targets. No. Leave that to Archeval, tasks distributed.
no subject
Arche's long used to it, the saber, thinks nothing of the beacon he presents where Wangji is wary -- all eyes turn on the Sith or the Jedi in the middle of any fray, inevitably all blaster fire congregates in their direction -- here there's nothing to deflect but plenty to stab; he's as weary as anyone from a long day of exertion but still the Force moves faithful through his veins, still it lifts tired limbs and buoys him where he might falter. He's not worked around wire before, but he's well-used to accounting for a partner, and the Force makes his steps light as he dodges away. Here he skewers a creature to slice up through its neck, here he flings one backward right into the flying wire with a telekinetic push, watching it sheared straight through by the momentum--
Lan Wangji has his back, and he knows he can trust that as he watches severed body parts falling all around them, but Archeval doesn't leave people on their own. When there's a moment's lull in their push he finally has time at last to fling out a hand backward, feeling the presence still next to him without need to look -- Wangji's pain and fatigue will dampen a little as Arche reaches for the heart-pounding need to move that coils inside his chest, his anticipation and desperation stirring up the Force, his will demanding flesh to knit and muscles to renew themselves. There isn't time for anything fancier than that, but after hours and hours of this siege, they need to be prepared for what's next--
The lightning always so quick to his fingertips is little use against the walking corpses, but there's a roiling storm inside just begging to be let out, and now is no time to hold back reserves. He draws a black-gloved hand down the front of his robes, skin tingling as he feels the sensation of static wash over him and electricity arcs faintly from shoulder to shoulder, the thin barrier promising a nasty surprise to any who get close enough to touch. It will provide a moment's distraction to these things at least -- to the thing looming before them -- and sometimes one moment makes all the difference.
"We're pushing forward!" he calls out to any nearby to listen -- and if Wangji has his back, then forward he'll go. His blood races with anticipation, a potential end to all this in sight, dodging wire and cutting down the shambling obstacles in his path as they make their advance--
no subject
Around a blow that lands wet — his temple, never meant to survive unbattered, the blood of it singeing his mouth — Lan Wangji's lips feel sluggish and narrowing. Behind-beside him, sounds a wheezing, shrieked crescendo as bodies mount and fall. Archeval dashes, and the artistry of his combat might impress on days that are not this, when they are not partners imbalanced, strangers to each other's form — when Lan Wangji cannot predict the man's next turn, and must instead respond to it, mere moments before their enemies can. Trip the wire here, pull it there, carve Archeval's path. Read it, for the love of heavens. Learn his steps, when snow does not flurry hard enough to obscure them.
And the dead fall on. ( Forgive them, boot caked in blood and cold and filth, Lan Wangji does not linger on to bid their lids closed, their bones well. )
Forward. No time to excavate wire and set his trap again, not in the first stuttered, stifled heartbeat. Bichen creaks like well-aged wood, admonishing his step. He wrenches her free of her sheath, swivelling to capture the next undead strike before it lands and defend their flank. Forward, then.
He knows, without throwing the question, where he is needed. If they are two, and Unhalad's creatures encircle him as armour, then —
"Take the horse," he hisses out to Archeval, before the inevitability of spitting out blood that's traversed his cheek to pool in his heaving mouth. Take the horse, which seems to recoil from the electric breath Archeval summons to shield him already, and leave Lan Wangji the rest. White storm of silks, and the whirlwind of violence that surrounds him — forgive the dead, when they come, drawn.
no subject
Myriad undead hands claw at him, the horse rears and threatens to trample but he is Sith -- what has he learned in all his years of trial if not the lesson to go straight toward the thing that terrifies him most?-- There's no time at all to look behind him and he is truly, truly trusting his all to Lan Wangji as he twists away and lunges forward, grabbing for the creature's legs, its heaving sides, just a single touch is all that he needs--
There's a crackle of electricity and a scent of burning flesh as he pushes the power forward and a terrible noise from the horse, Force lightning being a torturous sort of pain -- a withered armored foot tries to kick at him but the damage is done, the huge bulk of the beast going flying, an unpleasant snap issuing from somewhere as it tumbles down to an unnatural angle, taking a few desperate undead with it.
Arche can hear Wangji's breathing next to him, can feel the gathering presences of everyone who's converged on the far end of the battlefield in this moment, fighting through the clumsy advances of the undead. And before him, rising from the ruin of its huge, pitiful, wrecked beast, two dark hollow eye sockets bore into the Dark Lord's eyes intensely. Unhalad endures.
And like calls to like. The sick, awful hollow of the thing before him matches a hollow within, speaks to all the frustration, the anger, the spite that coils waiting to be unleashed on his hated foe. He wants this. He's been waiting for this.
He's hungry.
no subject
With abandoning wire and casting Bichen on his back, when the great groan of lightning bursts bold of Archeval's body, when flesh around them shrivels and sears, and pain spreads like mould in sumemr's wheat infestation. Ahead, Lan Wangji barely distinguishes them, the dark of smoke and that of robes and of Archeval, in constant motion, and the warlord Unhalad, an agony of presence, a scar in winter's silence, fading.
They touch Lan Wangji. But for this, they might have continued the parody of their existence. Between the stink of their death and that of their liveliness, miasmic, the dead spread of themselves that imposition — first a hand on his calf, then rising to his thigh, another on his back. Bichen nearly dances to unsheathe itself, but he stills her, and two passes of the hand summon his zither to illuminate bright white sheets of ice below. He does not sing, but plays the anger of stringent, deathly melody, vibration and raw strength, braided and combined in a tight radius for how his fingers first fall short — then lengthening, when his play goes long.
A modicum of exertion, at the cost of the dead kneeling, of bringing those already weakened slain. His breath labours, slender and warm, and he does not try Archeval with the corner of his eyes, does not presume to tell him, Keep out of range. Only, before playing a few more notes of death, to cleanse their territory, while Archeval finishes his work, "Haste."
1/2
Haste, he hears the word called. None of them are going to last much longer. This siege will beat them down any moment now if he doesn't end it all here.
They circle each other silently for a moment, boots packing down the slushy ruined snow and tundra grass and spattered ichor, and Arche looks for an opening. That weapon in the warlord's withered hand has a great deal of reach on his own saber, and the sheer hideous presence of Unhalad is an attack all of its own. This close it nearly feels like it could swallow him, maybe literally. The force of it beats down on him. Summons thoughts of dark nights on a faraway planet. Of having too little already, and trying to figure out how to divide it up. Of watching a bent back walk away from him for the last time. Of being small.
--But this is no time for reverie, and he can't let the creature overwhelm him. Haste. That well is one he's pulled from many times before. The dark mire of despair, thick enough to drown in -- the feeling of gnawing hunger and the knowing there's no way out -- these are old friends. These are pains that he's long ago turned into power.
He lunges. They clash. Unhalad comes at him with all the force of a creature desperate to consume, desperate for more. A bleeding gash goes down Archeval's side before he can dance out of the way, not trivial but there's no time to tend it -- no time to take his eyes off the objective. For all that he can barely recognize this thing as a sentient, as a human, it has such power. Part of him holds back a little more than he should, skittish to get close, to give room to that grasping hand to touch him. If it really were to take hold, could it start to devour him right here and now? Could it suck out his essence, try to turn his power on everyone else here--
Wait.
Of course. That is the path forward.
Like calls to like, and Darth Imperius is as hungry for power as either of them ever were for sustenance.
If he can put an end to this right now, can grab the spirit within the decaying husk and make it his own, can use its power and learn its secrets -- that could change -- everything--
2/2 wasn't sure if you meant me to go on, lmk if you wanted to interject, will happily make room
And so this is the great warlord Unhalad, the conqueror of Sa-Hareth, kidnapper and slave devourer, their inexorable demise. Brought low under the assault of so few as this. The sheer immenseness of presence around Archeval is absolutely dizzying now, threatening to overwhelm him once more as he stabs, as he slashes, as he takes no chances with taking Unhalad utterly apart. If it can't take him in body, perhaps it seeks to overwhelm him in mind, but in that last moment as he can feel the immense presence shifting he sidesteps into the currents of the Force--
It's called walking, but really, there's nowhere for him to go right now. He has only to expand his sight to the world beyond the world in front of him, and -- there it is. Massive. The thing that is Unhalad, or was Unhalad, a black blotch of spirit of truly overwhelming size--
His now.
Arche reaches out through the Force with all the weary, desperate anger left in him at the end of this long, long day. The one who started all of this is damn well going to answer for it. He touches that darkness -- wrenches it forth--
Stumbles backward and down to his knees in the snow as it rushes inward, the immensity of it blinding his every sense for a moment with sheer despair, utter futility, emptiness--
He breathes hard as he rests there, utterly vulnerable for a moment, bleeding sluggishly into the snow as the saber in his grip deactivates. Fighting for control. He is Archeval. His name is Archeval and he remembers it still and this thing is not the master, he has to wrestle his way back to himself-- It's snowy again today, they're outside Sa-Hareth and he still owes Theron fifty credits, and peace is a lie there is only passion--...
/gently works around to bring this to finish!!!!
There is a sickness to it, a deplored and strangled quality in the wake of the kill, like storm breaking. Lan Wangji's heart beats dimmed with it — the wind stays long moments before recalling to stoke — and then the dead proceed onwards, transfixed.
They do not lose life with Unhalad's, puppet strings sturdier than expectation — only momentum shrinks, legs tumble, the next corpse carries the scent of something hungered and electric, a rush of itself to suicide. Bichen, for short range: the blade hiked and Lan Wangji stirring absently to defend himself against the claws that come for his face. Then, half rushed, half stumbling, dismissing the guqin with breath cut in little gasps, he nears Archeval. Exhaustion grazes babe-toothed at his awareness; he senses death, and death waves back his greeting, and the great sickly shift of bloodied snow abstracts itself to calligraphy and the history of one man's burdens — Unhalad's. The creature that was him once.
...rotten. Raw. Gaunt and skin barely stringing on core, as if even the bone lessened itself. Lan Wangji's boot hooks on a dead limb. Turns it over. The dead thing unspools, more furs and mantle than ligament and meat. You should be set to rest —
But the dead circle with quiet, shaky step, and Lan Wangji is too vague in his surety — a day of siege has left him with little sense of where strength begins, far greater one of its end. The guqin reappears, before he recalls giving the summon — another few notes, and the shockwave threatens the dead to retreat, if not flicker free of existence. He wastes nothing, wants less — grasps Archeval with one hand under his arms, rounding his back, in the way of every wound-carry Wei Ying has perfected, and pushes through the cresting wave of dead, the guqin's violence cutting his path.
Archeval reeks of death. They both do. And once the deed's done, and they're at the farmhouse to lick their wounds, Lan Wangji will wonder, laying down this man who has become his burden unto Eleven's care, Did he weigh anything at all?