he rode in, a king

[groundrules]

HONEY, WE’VE GOT VISITORS

Sa-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.

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.

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.

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

Comments

[downswing]

i. a dead man and his horse

[ He moves like lightning, spread and fractured — kinesis, a poison in his bloodstream. Amid chaos, the doors gave first, crackling and aged, with old groans scratching deathly silence. In their house, metal and blood and the wet of tears or trailed snow, and the screams of bodies, disjointed.

Stirred again, the dead live with sharp, loud impunity. Hours of siege pass, and they fall a second time, like metal shedding rust, with a dissonance of anguish: shrieks where they lack pain and ability to suffer. Stillness, where the heft of their flesh should invite thuds.

The sun bleeds by the time the death's man appears in the distance. Lan Wangji watches him slink close, born of his shadows, and stay himself out of harm's reach. Of the vanguard he slaughters to reach Unhalad, he remembers little — nothing, shame burning his cheeks, tender under the grease of carnage. There is an animal wetness to butchering, to parting flesh from bone in amputation, to catching the scent of fat burning in arson.

Ache breathes in him. Exhaustion exhales.

He does not look back. Cannot, steps dripped and snow creaking, and the rush of dead grass underfoot clawing at his boot. A day of this, and he is worn, but Bichen's tip kisses the ground, lending the red stains of some recent kills, or the five before that, and he cuts his path up the hill, to where Unhalad gazes, and he expects —

There is a day to die, each man must greet it. Here, the skies blight his eyes.

Habit and learning alert him, senses years honed answer before his mind. He registers the smoke of a shadow, the charged air of movement besides him —

And turns his sword in a snapped swing to point at his assailant, only to welcome a familiar face. Ah. A moment's violence, wasted. He draws Bichen to his side, yet unsheathed, and nods up, where the undead convoy waits alongside its king. ]

The creature leads them.

[ He knows this: his spirit recoils; the nausea and revulsion of his churning stomach confirm. There is death, and there is travesty, and Unhalad twines the two. ]



ii. wei wuxian: words

After, another deed done, fresh bead dropped down the string of their offences. Far above, the moon cataracts and twins itself, shallow-diffused, glimpsed indiscreetly through the gaping, many-toothed mouths that now crown their rooftop. Footsteps, earlier. Their lodgings, trampled.

Around, sulphur and acrimony and the ill-drenching scent of smoke and fire, and the great, shark-like cut of crisp winter air. Cleanliness mocks Lan Wangji, soot strewn on his hands, his feet. If there were yet dignity of the sect to support him, standing, it does not live in his body. He waits, depleted for Jiang Wanyin's gain, an idle and tempestuous and grudging donation — for Jiang Wanyin is sect leader, and so finds himself the chief cultivator's burden, and Wei Ying's eyes linger dark and wanting in his wake. Let Jiang Wanyin live another day for his reckoning. And another day more.

The battle executed, Lan Wangji finds Wei Ying as he expects him, adrift like lichen and his limbs laden. Sat like a king calling court over slashed floors stained by a pox of bone ash. Recovering, Lan Wangji supposes. Earlier, Wei Ying gave of himself: talismans, time, travel. An army, beckoned and called and enacting.

Again, and Yiling spreads shrivelled and crimson and gaunt in Lan Wangji's memory, haunts his next exhalation. Again, and Wei Ying's footing now on his floor seems fragile again, lessened of purpose, the dance of a man bereft of himself, remiss of his rooftop.

There is the frantic exhilaration of anticipation, the prickling and allergic sensation of blood rushing to fend against inimic intrusion, agitating skin. Lan Wangji feels unlike himself, an observer, when his hand calls on Bichen, sluggish but certain, and he steers the blade beneath Wei Ying's chin, drawing it high to glimpse Lan Wangji as he is: lost. Found. Drained. "Was there no other recourse?"

But this, again. Demonic cultivation, unfettered and raw, undirected and crude. Consuming.



( ooc: Happy to match prose/brackets or write a custom starter for you, if the generic open one doesn't do the trick! Let me know \o/ )

[weifinder]

Cold is to Anurr as hunger is to Unhalad, or whatever becomes of such, in the aftermath of the battle waged as siege against the farmhouse now left in its cadaverous ruin. He hears the wind, the creaking, the susurration of their companions in words and movements and the exhaustion gone bone-deep, burrowing into his marrow. Death lingers at his fingertips, paints shadows under his eyes, slow in its final purged contact; he sits and circulates and steadies his mind, Lan techniques, Lan visions. Or no, that is what the firm press is underneath his chin, lifted to stare up into a face more familiar to him than his own. This, a Lan vision, and the words that come with it as drained and unanchored as he'd felt in the moment of darkness that had wanted to sweep him away, staring out across a battlefield at the shimmer of white of his soulmate and his son, steel white in their hands, guqin singing.

He blinks, slow and stupid, pulls himself out of thoughts that swirl thick and heavy and splits his parched lips, shadows stretching for him. No, not form him, simply the strangeness of this night and moon stretching down to drag silvered fingers across torn landscapes given such new form in the bitterness of cold.

"You were in here. You, and our son." Ours. Ours, and no blink, no hesitation, just as he does not move from Bichen beneath his chin.

"They had so much they were willing to give. So much pain, anger, resentment." The chorus of the shouts and pleads and demands, the ones he'd brushed past to understand in the months here. Given purpose, avenue, direction. A conduit, through song and application, and he to have touched it all without encapsulating it within the emptiness of his core. Touched by death, but not incubating it, not hatching it out of the hollow of his chest, even if it would be easy, so easy, in this world, to let it fill and spill over into something he's never wanted to be.

Letting go of the resentment as it had flowed and flowed and feeling the parts of it that left, truly left, having vented all that kept them trapped here. Practice of what he once asked, contrarian and too curious and too self assured in his youth: what if.

"Gone, now." Even Chenqing, forged of such things, only carrying the residue now, not the succor of lingering energies. A vessel filled and empty, left with the dregs of what passed, and processing those, slowly, so that he might be left bereft of that memory, too.

Was there no other recourse? Not effective enough, not acceptable enough in margins of error, not then. Perhaps now, the understanding of skills applied en mass to the solution finding, perhaps now he could trust to a solution relying less on what he gave, more on what the group could cobble together, desperate and united and fractured all at once. Perhaps now. Not then.

[bearshermark]

a. the fight

[Eleven's twin blades flash with fire as they sever limbs and take up the acrid smell of burned flesh that will follow him through much of the siege. He fights with a vicious ferocity that may surprise those that have only ever seen him at ease; contrasted to narrowed brows and bared teeth coupled with the dually deadly dance of his swords as they cut down any undead that makes it into the farmhouse.

Occasionally, it's lightning rather than fire, sparking along his blades, then sweeping outward in a spinning arc of electricity to give the emerging undead an altogether unpleasant shock and grant them some pause before continuing their advance.

Eleven skips back a few steps, giving himself a moment to breathe as dredges of tiredness begin to wear on him]

..Do you think we can hold them?


b. medical attention

Hours into battle, a call for medical attention found Eleven retreating from the front lines to apply his energy elsewhere. He only meant to heal the wounded then return to the fight, but had sorely underestimated how much work there was to do. They needed water- or snow- that then required heating. He retrieved the supply packs he and Wei Wuxian hadn't yet distributed to tear through them for bandages, cloth, ointments- and later, hardtack.

Wounds cleaned, disinfected, and unable afford the energy to seal all of them fully, Eleven spared only enough magic to heal them to the point where they were no longer debilitating. Bandaged with a recommendation to eat and rest a short while before returning to the fray if an individual fit enough to, and if the walls of the makeshift ward weren't currently under threat.

Working under a constant worry and pressure, he hardly felt the cold. There was a lot to organize, and not all that many hands. His spare moments were spent disposing of bloody water and cleaning, and switched off with Hendrik in shifts to rest and recover his energy.

Resigned to his position as medic, Eleven took to prodding information about the state of things from those that stopped in for one reason or another while he worked- either as patients, defenders, or new helping hands.

"How is it? Last I'd heard, we were gaining some ground.."


c. aftermath

[He's tired. Everyone is. But he's alive, and he can stand on his own two feet, so that's something. They'd won the battle, even if, in some respects, they'd also lost.

The farmhouse is barely recognizable.

Eleven has made cursory efforts to clean, but the damage is too extensive and the task so overwhelming that he doesn't get far. Instead, his feet carry him to what used to be the garden- a singular place of solace in a land otherwise set upon by undeath. But as with everything else, it's beyond repair. The crops are trampled and scorched beyond salvaging and for some reason it's the sight of them more than his comrade's grim, exhausted faces that drains the last of his energy.

He slumps to the ground and knows that if he had the energy to cry, he would be. The urge wells up in his chest, crawls up his throat and stings his eyes, but doesn't make it any further than a few shuddering breaths before it fades, dormant.

It's morning, though it feels like it shouldn't be. In a little while, there will pressing things they'll all need to worry about, but for now, Eleven draws his knees to his chest as the cold begins to make itself known again and drapes over them, staring listless and unfocused at the ruined earth and scattered debris beyond.]


d. wildcard!


[ooc: action/prose, present/past tense is fine! likewise, feel free to wildcard for anything during this event scenario that might not neatly fit into the above prompts and we'll work it out]

[downswing]

"Do not make an excuse of Sizhui." This, above all else, set of Lan Wangji's jaw haughty and strong, hand trembled on his sword. He expects, if he flinches once, Bichen will part with his grasp, his knees will topple, gravity will once more love itself and betray him. He will break, he will fracture, he was never whole before.

Fatigue eats at him like vermin propagating in the moist, fattened flesh of fruit. Beneath skin, roiling. The seed of his stubborness cannot withstand this. On his dominant hand, the guqin's toll: nails chipped down in effervescent play, joints inflamed. A maiden would dismiss his hand in stupor. Bichen does not presume.

"Will it be so again? As in the Burial Mounds?" Death unto death, and Wei Wuxian, Yiling Patriarch, lord above all. Armies summoned, enemies at each corner. The cavernous depths of a waiting abyss. A man who fell once will never learn his footing thereafter. Bichen stays long-mean-lean, trained.

If he grazes the sweet span of Wei Ying's pale neck, how much blood would gurgle out between an obscenity of gasps thereafter? Men bleed, men sink, men never rise again. And Wei Ying? Lan Wangji's lips lashed, mouth dry. "Tell me."

So Lan Wangji might, perhaps, banish himself like the smoke wisps of an excoriated ghost. So he might prepare for a second tomb, another burial, sixteen years of further mourning. So he might —

No. "Wei Ying."

i.

[darkeststars]

It is and is not the kind of battlefield he knows. He's walked the blasted plains of Balmorra, the crumbling streets of Corellia; seen bright red blood burned to ash in the heat of laser fire, shoved men's innards back inside them, heard enemies gasp out begging for home with their dying breaths. This -- this is less awful, more personal. The things that hunt them lunging in close desperate for a taste. Darth Imperius, who has lived amid death and stubbornly beat it back for all his short life, who fancies himself the master of it in some small arrogant corner of his mind, is... comfortable.

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.

b

[unswervingcompanion]

"We are doing well enough." Hendrik replied, watching the Luminary heal someone as he wiped his gloves on his cloak. His shift had recently ended and it was hard to sleep knowing his charge was going to be called upon soon. He tried to make sure the other ate and slept and while he didn't really like being so heavy handed, it was simply his way of worrying.

And since he couldn't truly sleep anyhow, he helped remove blood stained cloths and helped as well with trying to obtain enough water. It was a sobering experience though he'd dealt with some of his own soldiers being wounded from battle in Heliodor and in the Last Bastion. But mostly those were taken by others. This was different as he was literally more hands on here. And it always rattled him inwardly as others spoke to him about their hopes or dreams as if they were dying and wouldn't ever have a chance to tell another living soul.

As information trickled in he was sure to report it to Eleven and the suffering irked him. It was a reminder of how much the people went through here and how much the folks of Cobblestone back home must've suffered due to Heliodor's assault. His green blue eyes focused now on the the one he would've destroyed and that would've set the world back who knows how many years had he succeeded. And Hendrik was infinitely glad that he hadn't.

"If you need to rest, you can go."

[royal_venant]

A) A Wandering Target - OPEN
The screeching, lurching undead burst into a cloud of dust and ash.

Standing on the other side of the dispersing particles was one irate wizard, wand pointing directly where the undead had been rushing him.

Reducto was a simple curse most witches and wizards knew by the time they left Hogwarts, though it wasn’t taught by any of the professors there, it was usually passed from the knowledgeable student to those willing to learn. Regulus had learned it from his cousin but had graciously passed it on to many a young student. It blew objects apart and reduced them to dust. And though the number of dark curses Regulus knew could fill a book, he found that simplicity worked best in the confines of the farmhouse corridors.

Usually, his expression was calm, unreadable. But now, exhausted, the façade was decimated, he couldn’t even bother to repair it, and he looked as incensed as he felt.

He’d lost track of how many of these monsters he’d kill this night (or was it day now, trapped in this farmhouse he’d lost all sense of time). But he was starting to get the feeling these monsters had a particular taste for him. On more than one occasion, it almost seemed to his eyes that they’d specifically chosen to go after him rather than another person.

This was the wrong kind of flattery.

He adjusted the shoulder strap of his bag across his chest, rolling his shoulders to work out the kinks in his neck and back. He patted the spot where Patricia, transfigured into a figurine, was tucked safely inside the bag. And without another look at the thing he’d just decimated, he turned with a great, disgruntled sigh to carry on wandering the corridors.


B) Open Network; un: fishious rumors
[ He sounds possitively indignant. ]

Is anyone else dealing with a disproportionate number of undead attacking them? Their approach feels targeted. And personal.

[ Is there a pattern here to the way the undead are acting? Help a poor wizard out here. ]


Fiendfyre with Lily
Through the quartz, Regulus had called for Lily’s help. He hadn’t said what, this was a weighty matter that needed to be discussed in person. He’d just said that it was urgent and her assistance was necessary.

Only Lily could help him with this. At least, that was his hope.

Exhaustion had him leaning against the corridor wall, a thankful moment of undead respite. It was tempting to just close his eyes and drift away. But, despite the yearning for a chance to sleep, Wei Wuxian had asked for help, and Regulus knew a way that could drive the undead army towards the forces Wei Wuxian was bringing.

His idea was dangerous bordering on madness.

In another life, the first chance to flee and Regulus would have been gone. Only, he didn’t know where he could go. The forest people might take him back, but that meant a hard life he was ill-suited for by disposition alone, never mind the lack of skill. And he might not fully trust a single person in this farmhouse, but they were the only people he knew.

He turned when he heard Lily arrive.

And the first words out of his mouth started this possible catastrophe.

“Do you remember the counter charm against fiendfyre?”


[OOC: Down for any random ideas others might have for Regulus before he unleashes fiendfyre on the army of undead. So hmu PM/Plurk and we can work something out.

Also, he's going to be out for the count after unleashing fiendfyre so his aftermath is sleeping.]

[soulsrob]

A: I'm a Damsel, I'm in Distress

[At first she hadn't thought too much about the odd feeling in the air, other than the general oddness that she could actually acknowledge it being there. The attack startles her awake and she dresses quickly, grabbing her parasol and poking her head out in bewilderment.] What in the world is-- Oh!

[The undead don't seem too interested in most of the others, seemingly willing to bypass them to get to her, which would be terrifying if she could feel terror. She yelps and quickly scrambles away down the hall, her eyes wide in fear and panic as she rounds a corner and grabs onto whoever she nearly barrels into when she does.]

I don't mean to alarm you, but those undead may or may not be looking for me, specifically.

B. Or not so Damsel

[Winnie really was content to just sit around and let herself be protected while she observed the goings-on. But sometimes things happened, things went a little wrong. Whoever's guarding her will suddenly find the thin blade of Winnie's hidden sword stabbed through the neck of an undead that managed to sneak up on them, pinning it to the ground]

I'm afraid I'm not sure about this next part, but this was easy! [She beams away as if in giddy delight that she's done this] Goodness, this is exciting though, isn't it?

C: The Aftermath

[She rests her hands on her hips, hair and clothing in slight disarray as she wanders about, examining the bodies and the damage done.]

You know, far be it for me to say I told you so, but... I did tell you so.

[neutrality is clearly not the right way!!]

Now what?

D. Wildcard!

[Your wildcard option. For anything else!]

[weifinder]

The Burial Mounds. What he's seen, a lifetime ago: men and women who worked the land, tilled soil made barely better than dangerous, encouraged life out of a landscape of death. Fed them all on thin, hardy fare, and even alcohol in Fourth Uncle's hands, after a time. Nothing fancy, everything hard. A child's laughter ringing out, and the cries of the resentfully murdered, cacophony for vengeance.

Burial Mounds, and his and Wen Ning's response to the incursions when those restless yet spirits surged forth in frothing bubbling malestrom, when havoc was part of happenstance, when melody forced the bending of heads and purpose to ones which allowed them a measure of peace. Thin, fragile, a single log spanning a cavernous divide, steps careful, the pretense of surety to lead him forth.

Burial Mounds, near two decades later, where another man's strife drove spirits to possess the bodies of the villagers, dragged them up the mountain paths, sent them physically hurling like so many puppets on jerky strings: people stripped of one purpose, resenting spirits patched in with another. Stand firm, and sing the chaos, the turning away, the ending, as Bichen sings for blood and endings, and there's some harmony between them, some give and take and harrowing reverberating in marrow, knowing this is done, we are the breakpoint ahead of the blaze of the inferno, we are the levee before the river's gaping maw.

The worst, and oh he doesn't say this, but the worst of his transgressions were the ones seen by hundreds, the push of resentful energies that coiled close and clung like a malevolent cloak when he'd held the Tiger Seal still; forged and dripping with the power others wanted, and he'd known, but he hadn't known. There, too much called on, too much turned to a purpose of possessing he stayed away from, turning a battlefield into a charnel house and it is Nightless City and the pass where Jin Zixuan fell, wide-eyed and heartless, a knife in hand turned against his intent, that keens within. Loss, loss, his fault. No matter the interference, no matter the hands that played the shadows to make them sing, and the second pair that sung him back to the world he'd left behind, thinking now, now, is now when I'm done?

Explain what, in all that, feels powerless? Explain what he felt, cold and numbed to the point of feeling nothing but the whisper and rush of thoughts in his over busy mind, at surrounded, at no way forward, no way out. Explain the terror he knows now they both understand, the loss of one they cannot stop, the sliding with no breaker, the farewell no one is prepared to make too soon, come even sooner.

He laughs, or makes the bare attempt to. An exhausted exhalation, the lilt of it seizing his chest and making it cough up the sounds he hasn't been able to summon since the pre-dawn hours of the morning stretching only a day ago, or perhaps a touch more, or perhaps ten years before this moment.

"The Burial Mounds were my first graveyard. The dirt of that won't fully wash from what's left of my bones." The man he'd been is not someone he can say he was not; the actions of a lifetime ago will forever be his, claimed, even tempered by the shadow manipulations of those greedy in a manner he was not. He closes his eyes, two heartbeats passing, opens them again to stare up at Lan Zhan, to see a summation of a fear that had been his path to the edge, driven and herded, pressing back in rage and heartbreak, until his heart cracked too far, the dark swallowed its flickering light, and he stole the rest of that darkness, that evernight, and shattered it like the seal that still, still people scrambled after like dogs, those feral angry things, snapping jaws and swallowing flesh and bone and everything else that might have been food, even if they weren't starving.

"I'm tired of last stands, Lan Zhan."

[bearshermark]

"What?" Eleven glanced back to Hendrik with a flash of a tired smile. He hadn't gotten enough rest, but that was a difficult thing to manage during an invasion. "I just started. You're the one that needs to take a rest. It'll be difficult to protect me if you're tired."

Pointed reminders to Hendrik about his oath wasn't the sort of tack he'd normally take, but just as the man had taken on a new fondness to push him to rest and eat, Eleven had turned to employ similar tactics. It was effective, and through the strain and tension of a long-fought battle, it helped with maintaining a focus on priorities.

"I promise I'll call on you immediately if there's a breach."

[lancifolium]

1) Shouts in the night

Just as the rough edge of Petunia’s voice calling her a freak had softened to a dull subconscious scrape Lily began to doze off where she sat at the table in the kitchen, a mug of tea cooling before her. Nearly every night that wind had found a way to get under her skin, and when the rolling, distasteful narrative it provided changed so drastically the shift was enough to rouse her from that delicate nearly-sleeping state. ’ Something comes’ - the hiss of it on the wind made her skin crawl, and the unmistakable sound of the rats, scampering along the floorboards in the dark recesses of the house only further cemented the prickling sense of anxious dread that had begun to sweep over her.

After casting a wary glance around the kitchen, her drowsiness momentarily abated Lily began to collect her things, taking her larger bag and stuffing it into an improbably small zippered pouch that in better times served as a vessel for the typical cosmetic odds and ends of an eighteen-year-old girl. It was too quiet to be comfortable staying still any longer, and she was well on her way to heading to one of the storage barns, resolving to channel this sudden surge of concern into practice.

Until the wards broke with a shriek and Lily’s anxiety bloomed into fresh, roaring fear.

Not bothering to linger for a moment longer inside the kitchen she took off like a shot, wand in hand, slamming on doors as she ran by, shouting as loudly as she could that something was coming in the hopes that it would be enough to rouse as many of the others as possible.

1b) It’s not, not a buddy cop movie (For Regulus)

They had agreed to watch each other’s backs, and it was a promise that Lily intended to make good on. Their alliance had proven useful already, and while he certainly would not have been her first choice for it, any familiar face in a place as strange and hostile as this one was a good thing.

Which was why the moment things had begun to go south she had taken off through the house towards his room, hoping to make it to him and alert him before whatever danger headed their way did the work for her.

She found him already engaged with the undead, and while part of her wanted to be stunned to the point of inaction by the sight there was no time to dither.

From behind Regulus Lily sent a Leg-Locker Curse soaring past his shoulder, immobilizing the undead in front of him. Moving quickly to get beside him Lily’s wand sent out a jet of red light, as a well-aimed Severing Charm sliced through another of the undead.


2) Even in the fray, manners matter

“Bombarda!” Her voice was loud and followed by a flash of white light and the subsequent explosion, one of the undead taking the hit right in the face, its head exploding as it toppled to the ground, exposing the one behind it to the Severing Charm she had become so fond of that evening.

No matter how many of the things she’d taken down already Lily couldn’t help but wince. “Sorry!” Decapitation was so rude. She wasn’t sorry she’d taken the thing down, but she was sorry she had to be so heavy-handed and uncouth about it.

Spotting another from the group Lily changed course, fighting her way to where they stood, sending spells left and right, working hard to keep the undead back.

“Are you alright?”

2b) Support Network (un: any fin is possible, voice)

[ Managing to stay mobile has been a blessing, though it’s clear from the rushed, breathless tone to her voice that it hasn’t been an easy task at all.

Still, Lily wouldn’t be Lily if she wasn’t trying her best - even in the thick of battle - to help everyone else around her too. ]

Can anyone hear me? Do you need help?

[ She only had enough time for a quick message, darting into one of the ruined bedrooms to use the quartz before she was on the move once again, listening for a reply. ]


3) The Aftermath

When the adrenaline had drained away exhaustion was quick to replace it, leaving Lily slouched against one of the exterior walls of the farm. She looked like hell, blood drying at her temple and her clothes more torn and singed than they had been before everything had gone spectacularly to pieces for what had to have been over a day of utter bedlam.

While Regulus had given her more than ample reason to question him throughout this ordeal - Fiendfyre, of all things - she continued to keep watch over him, propping him up against the same wall keeping her on her feet. In a pinch, he could just join her possessions in the makeup bag hidden inside her shirt, tucked securely into the top of her jeans.

Lily still hadn’t loosened her grip on her wand - nor would she for a good while. The farm was in pieces and though she desperately needed to rest, there was still work to be done.

It could wait a moment, it would have to wait a moment At present Lily could do nothing but stay right where she was, arms crossed as she bent slightly, trying to compose herself and recover enough to press on through the mess around her.

4) Wildcard!

[ prose or brackets is fabulous with me. feel free to come at me with anything that doesn’t fall under the above. lily’s here to kick ass and help out (she’s got a bag that can fit a person and she’s down to transfigure things into weapons). hit up my comment in the event plotting post, or get at me on plurk or via pm if you want to suss anything out. ]

2b

[bearshermark]

[It's a stressed voice that responds; too tired to be frantic, yet underpinned by despair]

We're running out of water in the study- where we're treating the wounded. Can anyone..?

[downswing]

His back, battered, broken, flayed. Lay no claim to tatters. And his teeth grit in warning, "Hold. The horse will —"

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.

[lancifolium]

[ The study was behind her, but not by much and Lily began falling back as soon as she heard the message. ]

I hear you, I'm coming.

[ Making water out of nothing was easy, getting to the study would be tricky alone, and the stretch of time between when Lily last sent a message and when she tumbled through the study door served as evidence to that.

Unkempt and a little roughed up she quickly moved to Eleven, wand in hand. ]

Where do you need the water?

[jeoha]

Barricade || Open

He'd had this dream a hundred times, maybe more. In this house, at least a few dozen, sometimes multiple times a night. Undead breaking in through the windows, sliding down the chimney, falling over themselves in a constant onslaught through the endless night and into an endless day. Every night he relived it and every morning he tried to ease it from his mind, to push the paranoia away. But it never really faded.

Whatever man he had been before the plague, this was what he was now. A weapon tempered for a purpose that he could only half live here. A shadow of a King who's sole purpose was to stop a plague - solve a plague - he was now a world away from.

This world wasn't his. The undead were different, acted different, were begot differently. It had taken him a long time to accept this.

And then the siege began and every cautious rebuilding of Lee Chang's person around something other than a warrior dissolved instantly. He should have known. He should have prepared. Should have listened to his instinct and not called it paranoia.

He should have already made this place a deathtrap for undead.

Now he would have to make up for letting down his guard, and he would have to do it fast.

On the first night, Lee Chang might appear less of a man and more of a demon himself. Woken by the first alarm, wearing only half of his clothes that he'd managed to scramble together - his pants, and a leather cloak lined with fur - he wastes no breath to explain to those he came across, and instead launched himself past them to slide his burning sword through undead throats as quickly as he was able. His bodyguard Ylsa follows quickly behind him, just as eager to fend off the undead, for more than her paycheque. As long as Karsa is here, so she will remain too, and fight just as bitterly as any of those who call this place home.

While the undead breach the house in fits and starts, he will say to anyone close enough to hear him: "Take the head, nothing less will stop them fully."

He leaves many in his wake.

And then, to the barricades - any furniture that wasn't tied down will now be used as defense - shoved up against windows and doors to keep them out. Any people he finds in his brusque requisitioning of the house he will pass instruction to, especially if they don't know what they are doing. To the warriors, he will say brusquely:

"The windows and doors can be secured. We need to keep them from the roof, or entering the courtyard. Buy us time, and buy us space."

Second Day

No one has had much sleep, but to Lee Chang, this is what he expected. The cold too bitter for the sun to hold them back - if it even could, in this world. Lee Chang looks slightly fatigued, but brims with a strange, brutal energy. He's been through sieges of undead before. They aren't doing half as badly as they could be.

And he was ready to call for reinforcements.

In the meantime, any who look tired or lost he will attempt to help them rise to their feet.

"We haven't broken yet. And we will not. But there are still more to come, and we cannot waver."

[bearshermark]

[The room hardly resembles its original function; furniture repurposed and scattered over with cloths, bandages, buckets, and a mess of other supplies crammed in the corners.

Eleven's eyes immediately scan over Lily when she enters- at first worried, then relieved. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbow and his bangs are tied back, though steadily escaping. He isn't in his element and the scattered state of the room and his person is a testament to that, but it's just as clear that he's giving it everything.

He nods over to a standing barrel, where the water is so low that bending in to reach it would be quite a task.]

Anything you can manage would be a great help. If you need it moved, I can send Hendrik with you.

[downswing]

The old way: never entomb an unsheathed sword in her fetters until she has tasted of blood, in the soft knot of your enemy's belly, or the barren strip of your palm. Do not dishonour her, if she has shown the crisp light of her blade, do not leave her a widow, friendless and without purpose. He cannot cast Bichen aside, her mission incomplete — but withdraws her, red-smeared and bone soot armouring her blade to hang cadaveric at his side.

Before him, Wei Ying ​breaks like notes in dissonance, a string of minor musical concessions to unskilled hands. So much of him is jarring, pained contrast, sharp and biting. Disassembled, dissolved. Foam in water.

"You perform them adequately." Among friends, taunts, wine, laughter. Among soulmates, this: the heavens-decreed right to name to tether the animal of another man's agony, look it in its wild eyes, name it for disaster. How many last stands yet between them? Claws digging dirt, Wei Ying bloody or torn or dead after one and each.

He makes no haste: shivers in anticipation, when he brings up the blade and gives Bichen her last feed, a clean swipe against the soft inner flesh of his thumb. Blood rushes, incautious, grateful for another spill. He has wasted so much already, what is another gift more? She wets, and, glistens, returns to the sheath with thanks murmured and blessings due — and he allows it, the scent of Lan Wangji's meat and his sweat after battle, and the grime tasting of his white clothes only another earthly conclusion. This battle was born of creatures, not sophistication.

He is of them, now. He collapses as one, graceless, breaking the fall on one knee, recalling the second at the last moment, with empty bereavement. Sat beside Wei Ying, always to his right, always bearing witness. Breathing, in and out, and remembering the last of his rites with finality — extending his wounded hand to tap Wei Ying's wrist, careless of his thumb leaving blood tarnish, alongside the gift of an anemic flow of qi. Too much of it with Jiang Cheng now, too much wasted in battle. So little to spare, and this only a token, but his to give, for all Wei Ying will ridicule its pace.

"What price, to keep you alive?" Gently, a father teaching an errant son the market. Trade.

[foxable]

Day One: 3:45 am | For Archeval

He wasn't sleeping. Or, he doesn't think he was sleeping. Okay maybe he dozed off a little, but he'd still been working, forever and always trying to learn more than what he already knew. It kept his mind and his hands busy, and this was usually how he managed to sleep anyway - work until he passed out over his papers, or Mingyu dragged him to bed. But Mingyu was with Lee Chang that night, so Fox was alone when the alarms sounded. He jolted upright with a start, scattering pages and knicknacks that he had been collecting to test. "What the fuck--"

He staggered upright, heading towards the window to look out and see what the hell was even going on in the first place.

The farmhouse was always creepy. Even if there weren't creepy voices on the wind, the house itself was old and derelict, floorboards creaking under his step. So he was used to being cautious. What he wasn't used to was getting to the window and seeing a hoard of undead outside it. He immediately scrambled backward, but not fast enough, the old glass shattering as one of the creatures threw themselves at it, lured by the faint trace of mirror that Fox carried in his cargo pant pockets.

The first undead skewered itself on the broken glass, groaning and reaching for Fox who'd fallen to the floor, icy fingers scraping at air.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Fox panted, terrified, deciding in that moment that no zombie movie had ever done them justice. "Fuck-- Mingyu! Where -- Fuck--"

The second undead had managed to pull itself up over the body of the first, using it as both anchor and foothold as it climbed in the window, falling onto the floor with absolutely no care for itself, the body a mere puppet for the force of will that lay behind it. It scrambled across the floor at Fox as fast as he could shuffle backwards, finally grabbing his ankle.

"Fuck!!" He yelled as he tried slamming his foot into its skull, but without enough force to dislodge it from him. A third undead was already spilling into the room as he fought vainly for his life, hands grabbing whatever they could find (an inkwell) and throwing it at his assailant (it did nothing, inkwells barely count as improvised weapons).

He was going to die. He was going to die, and he was going to die first like the worst fucking stereotype in any horror movie he'd ever heard of.

NETWORK: OPEN (But especially for Wei Wuxian)

[ He was winded and terrified but alive (thanks arch buddy), and his voice was only a little shaky when he said over the network: ]

Okay, I -- fuck. Fuck. Okay. Um, they definitely want the mirror. I - well I have a few pieces, and they're useless, but the zombies definitely fucking want them. I have, uh, a terrible idea, if anyone is up for something really dangerous.

3:46 am

[darkeststars]

The door on the other side of the room burst open with a heavy slam as a glow of neon purple sailed over Fox's head.

There was a cut-off shriek from that third undead as its head was sheared from its body by a whirling lightsaber, the throw arcing backward unnaturally to return to a black-clad grip as Archeval called it back to his hand. Just lucky there'd been enough unease on the air waking him up earlier for him to think to put his armor back on--

"Hold still--"

An instant later he was slamming the saber down two-handed probably a little too close to Fox for comfort, and then there was only ("only") a withered grey corpse-hand clutched unmoving around the other human's leg as Arche severed the arm -- then brought his lightsaber down again to stab into its head, kicking the body carelessly aside once it went limp at last.

"You and I seem to be making a habit of this," Arche noted in a wry drawl, staring down to assess Fox's health with remarkable calm for just a moment before he turned away, starting to quickly take stock of the furniture in the room. The petty and vindictive side of him was tempted to drop a snide comment as well, but severe differences or not, he didn't really wish Fox ill -- at a time like this, mutual survival came before all else.

"We should get something in front of this and get you further inside--" He reached out to fling another approaching undead away from the broken window, but there were far too many making their approach outside; he definitely couldn't sit here slaying them one by one.

1b

[royal_venant]

Regulus' head snapped to look behind him to identify the ally whose name he already knew. It could only be Lily with a spell like that.

He didn't stop for pleasantries, he simply returned his focus on the undead scrambling after him- now them. The crowd had been bigger before Lily had shown up but these last five had been creeping ever so much closer while Regulus tried to take them out one by one while also not lighting the whole building on fire.

Angry blue light shot out of his wand at the leg-locked undead, turning it to nothing more than dust.

If only they had more room and fewer chances of incidental casualties.

But Regulus sent another flash of blue at the undead behind the one he just decimated bringing their count down to just two now.

"Good evening," he finally said, voice a bit breathless. "They're crawling all over the farmhouse, aren't they?" It was the most logical reason Lily would know to come find him. It's that or she'd taken to running mad around the farmhouse hexing random people and that didn't seem like Lily.

a

[royal_venant]

"That depends," Regulus said, now that they had a moment to catch their long-lost breath.
"How many of them are there?"

He had more questions, such as: were those swords magical? But Regulus needed more than a moment before he sated curiosity.

"And how big is your faith?" Always the skeptic here.

[bearshermark]

"Difficult to say," he breathed, voice heavy, "Most of them are outside."

But he cracked a laugh and flashed Regulus a sharp grin as his mind made the connection to their previous conversation. It was almost like they'd predicted this somehow, wasn't it?

"Extensive," he answered, shifting into a defensive stance. To think he'd been at odds with the man only days earlier, but here they were firm allies. "We'll get a drink, after."

c

[lancifolium]

Using both hands to carry the little zippered pouch as though it held something highly breakable Lily abandoned the task of using the Repairing Charm on the damaged farm, managing to get a few beds back into shape for the most injured before her exhaustion swept over her like a concrete blanket.

Unlike the mornings she came here once the voices had quieted down, there was no peaceful respite to be found in the garden, just more battered evidence of the terrible events that had deluged them all.

She recognized Eleven looking as broken and exhausted as she felt and walked towards him, gently setting the bag down on the ground a few paces from where he sat. ]

"Do you want me to try and fix a bed for you?" Lily posed the question quietly as she approached, sitting by him on the ground with a weary sigh as her hands reached up to comb through her wildly tangled hair. As spent as she was, she was sure she still had a little bit of energy left to help one more time.

[bearshermark]

Eleven raised his head and, recognizing Lily, put some effort into sitting upright at least. His arms were left to drape between his knees.

"No, that's all right. I'm just.." He'd felt exhaustion before, but this was deeper than that. There was probably a word for it, but his mind couldn't begin to think of it. He shrugged. "It was a long battle."

Because although he'd spent most of it well behind the front lines, he was sure most all of them felt the same. They'd barely slept, hardly eaten, and spent the last full day fighting for their lives.

He turned a look on Lily, taking in her disheveled state alongside the comforting fact that she seemed to be moving well under her own power. Tired, but not to the stiffness of injury.

"I'm glad you're all right."

first night, barricades

[lancifolium]

[ i hope this works! ]

Time and space. It felt like they had neither of those things but Lily was inclined to try and give the group as much of either as she was able to. She moved first to the mangled, smashed furniture that now served as the farm's defense.

Passing her wand over as many of the exposed points as she was able to she transfigured them into blades, the magic was rushed and not as elegant as she would have liked, but it would still hurt. In a way this was almost a reprieve from the heat of the fight, it was still hard work but it allowed her to catch her breath in some respects. Tiredness would be coming in a few hours, she had already been weary when the assault began, but the barricades might make all the difference in the end - he was right, they needed time and space.

Turning back to Lee Chang she nodded at him firmly. "What else needs a blade on it?"