I will vent my fury upon them

[abyssalarcana]

Who: Demons, more demons, and you: a survival guide (OTA!)
What: Using Margaery's blood, Caedra summons some buddies to terrorize the residents of Hadriel.
Where: Temples, general city whereabouts, see within.
When: April 1, evening. These events wrap up before April 2!
Warnings: Violence and death

Note that I've provided some subheadings based on conversations here and on plurk but please feel free to make your own as needed!

Comments

closed to Ivar

[abyssalarcana]

The teleport is successful, as Caedra's feet land exactly on the ink marks traced across the floor. Teleportation is a funny thing, easy to screw up. Easy to accidentally merge oneself with a wall. But she has developed her own tricks over time for perfecting the art, which is good, because carrying the body of this woman all by herself would have been awfully hard.

The blood was already drained back at the shop - a risk, but a worthwhile one. Caedra dumps the body in the bathtub for now - she'll have to see what happens, she knows people are reborn here, so how long does the body stay? - and then sighs and goes through another round of cleaning with the usual cantrip, making sure her outfit is spotless. Once satisfied, she triple-checks the contents of the bag over her shoulder to confirm the jars still have all of their contents, and then sets it down on the floor and sits on the sofa, slouching comfortably into its cushions with a content sigh. She burned through a lot of spellcasting in the last hour - time to foresight, then recharge.

As the last sun begins its final descent under the horizon, Caedra shoulders her bag and heads outside toward the temple grounds. On her way, she spots one lone familiar silhouette, the boy who cannot walk without crutches. She grins and hurries toward him.

"Ivar! Come with me, I want to show you something."

[crippled]

Ivar looks up in surprise, but looks pleased to have been interrupted by Caedra, of all people. A curious eye slips over to the bag around her shoulder, and then he glances towards where she's headed.

The temples?

Oh, he perks up further at that. He remembers their last talk, after all. "Alright," he agrees easily, adjusting his gait so he's hobbling in the same direction that she is. "What is it?"

[abyssalarcana]

"You wanted to know if more of my kind are here, right? I realized - I can bring some here. You'll see! Meet me at the temple to Rage."

She continues on past, just content with the fact that he's coming now, rather than slowing down to wait for him. She's eager to get set up, and he'll be by soon enough.

Once there, she sets her bag aside, and starts tracing patterns in the dusty city soil in front of the temple with the toe of her boot. The blood is a limited resource, and she wants to be sure the summoning diagram is perfectly accurate before she risks losing any of the casting material. By the time Ivar arrives, she will have just completed it - drawn in the dust is a series of concentric circles and radial lines, with Abyssal glyphs placed at key points. Just summoning the vrocks would be simple enough, wouldn't take all this preparation, but she wants to anchor this place to the Abyss if she can. It won't be a permanent Gate or anything of the sort, but she'll do whatever she can come up with to make Hadriel a little more like home.

Maybe someone will notice and do the same from the other side.

[crippled]

Oh. Now isn't that exciting? Ivar makes his way over to the temple as quickly as he can, which actually doesn't take quite as long as one might expect, because having spent weeks wandering around the place at every available opportunity, Ivar has begun to learn where the shortcuts are and how to travel certain distances in less time.

And admittedly, the temples are frequent destinations of his.

Upon his arrival he examines the lines in the dirt critically: they're not entirely dissimilar from, but still not the same as galdrastafur, his own peoples' written spells. The one she just made on the ground with her shoe appears not to be doing anything, so maybe— he casts an eye towards the bag she'd been carrying when she'd spotted him in the street.

"You are going to do some magic?" There's no containing the note of excitement in the way he asks. More people like here here... that would certainly spice the place up, he thinks.

Vrocks and Dretches | OTA

[abyssalarcana]

One after another, the three Vrocks take to the sky, shouting their joy in Abyssal despite their kind's lack of a syrinx to make proper speech with. The words come out as hisses, grunts, and snaps of their beaks - though once they spot their prey, it turns clearly into laughter, and a mockery of the Common tongue as they call out insults and threats to the people below them.

Sqieth dives groundward, just buzzing its feathers over the soil, as it calls Abyssal names, promising violence and glory to its followers. Zerra and Iliyek follow suit, and as the three rise upward, black wings catching the last of the pale orange light, a pack of twelve Dretches rises like black sludge, solidifying into lurching, hunchbacked green shapes of twisted and malformed flesh. They belch, they reek, and they lumber forward, eager for blood.

Caedra doesn't need to command the group. They don't want her commands. They tear off through the city, with nothing but madness and violence on their minds.

((Feel free to make your own threads and interactions with each other - I will hop in and out with demons to fight or flee from when I can but you are welcome to autopilot their actions just like with the monsters the Door brings in each month!

For those curious about their abilities, the Vrock statblock means they are remarkably fast in the air, but quicker than you would expect on their feet as well. They can talk to each other telepathically, and so will silently coordinate their actions to work as a group to select targets. If they encounter a group of people they will try to stun them with the screech, or poison everyone with the spores they can release by beating their wings. In summary they are fast, efficient, and deadly.

The Dretches on the other hand are slow, dumb, and much easier to kill. They also can communicate telepathically with each other but are incapable of complex strategies and will just try to swarm whoever is closest to them. They make gross noxious clouds of sickening stench wherever they go and they mostly just want to take big bites out of you and eat you alive.))

This is right after Nick Valentine's call to arms

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin is just across the river from the vicinity of Rage's temple. When he hears the emergency net message, he tears across the bridge at the south end of the river, just in time to see in the distance the Vrocks rising into the sky over the barren field where the temple and the Armory are located. He unsheaths his sword and makes a threatening gesture at them to lure them out of the sky.

"Come down here and fight me, you cowardly, chicken-headed spirits of chaos!" Which is possibly not the most eloquent of insults, but he hopes it will be sufficient to get them to focus their energy on him instead of on the first innocent, unarmed Hadrielite they encounter.

He's also hoping to get them within easy bowshot range. If they dive at him, and he misses with the bow, he'll have to fight them with his sword. And considering the striking power of those claws and beaks, that would be tricky.

[abyssalarcana]

Curufin has chosen a difficult fight to take on by himself.

The Vrocks hear the insult, all right, and tuck their wings, all three eager to kill this little mortal - all eager, in fact, to compete over who gets the kill. They dive as a mob, and while one arrow does catch Iliyek by the wing, causing it to spin briefly in the air, the other two are immediately after Curufin. Squieth aims for his head, while Zerra dives for his belly, hoping for a deadly bit of tug of war if they can make contact.

Think fast, Curufin.

[so_dark_a_road]

He has indeed chosen a difficult fight. It would have been better to wait for Henry or for other backup, perhaps, but this looks and feels too immediate to Curufin. He can't wait. It wouldn't be like him to do so.

He grins fiercely at the Vrocks and lets an arrow fly, and it does hit one of the creatures in the wing. But the other two are now swooping in with vicious speed, and now he is in the situation he anticipated. He has just time to toss the bow to the grass where he'll be able to retrieve it when he needs it again. He swipes out his sword. The razor-sharp, gleaming steel blade is almost part of his physique, so integrated are the two, the weapon and the Elven-warrior.

He swivels his body so that the two gnashing beaks do not catch him between them. . . at least, he thinks they have missed him altogether until he feels a sharp piercing pain from a set of claws. . . but he continues his sliding motion, and simultaneously, he slashes ferociously at one of those ugly heads. He then flings himself to the ground, rolls and comes back up on his feet, sword still in his hand, ready to deal another blow.

[bythewaves]

Maglor isn't a member of the guard - he should be, probably, but as his family could tell you, he has a tendency to procrastinate, if he's unsure. So it's nothing that the guard posted that summoned him, but something far older.

Curufin needs you whispers instinct deeper than thought, a tug on the soul that isn't conscious, on either part. The world hurts whispers something closer to the surface, but just as unconscious, the music of the world tugging at the bard who hears it. Death is here.. His steps turn without his devising towards the temple, and his sword is already in his hands as the first of the Dretches appears around the corner.

They learnt war in the furnace of Beleriand, the princes of the Noldor, from the hands of Evil himself, as he sought to destroy them. Of all those proud and valiant lords, only two survived. It's very clear why Maglor was one of them, the fire in his soul rising to meet this foe, blade in his hands burning with a cold light as it slices across the Dretches' throat. Maglor doesn't even loose a step, even as a he Sings a wind to disperse the gas, a sharp, clear desert wind, howling in from the surrounding sands.

He needs to find his brother. The monsters are in his way.

[abyssalarcana]

The lumbering green beasts swarm toward Maglor as if they have a death wish - but they don't know the elf's strength and their thoughts are blinded in the haze of bloodlust. His scent fills their nostrils, and they drool eagerly as they stumble forward, snarling and stinking.

The first dretch to reach him falls quickly, the single slice of the blade enough to do it in. As its body hits the ground with a gurgled cry, it seems to dissolve entirely, a mess of black and green and red ooze that sinks into the ground as its tenuous connection to this world is severed. And the air clears, but the rest of the monsters aren't far behind their fallen kin. They gallop on all fours, but reach up with claws and teeth once close enough, trying to grasp and bite at this mortal, hoping to overwhelm him with the sheer force and weight of their bulky bodies.

[bythewaves]

Maglor's steps are light, a dancers fluid grace, flowing like water around the monsters (he almost seems to predict their moves), but he himself burns, a fell light in grey eyes that turns them almost molten silver, the same flame that flickers across his blade.

He's Singing, as he fights, the wordless battle song that reaches out towards his enemies to confuse and distract, gives him the time he needs to duck beneath rending claws, so that they scratch, rather then tear, enough time to drive the longsword home in the chest of the next, using it's bulk to shove against another.

fight fight fight, ota if others want to jump in!

[pocketspa]

Alright, this isn't the way he wanted his day to go.

Taako's not the hero type- he's not going to go rushing out here, protecting and clearing the streets because people could die and that would be bad. He's here because he's one of the assholes that has to live in this husk of a city, and it's real hard to do that when there's demons running around. When it becomes quickly apparent no one else knows how to deal with this, he sighs, dons his oversized wizard hat, and makes a break for it from the house, putting out a call to his family as he goes if anyone wants to join the smackdown. If not, it's his job.

He pings a quick detect magic as he goes, squinting a little as it points him towards Rage's temple with something decidedly not lich magic. Not that he's keen on keeping tabs on people with a similar magical signature, but now he's regretting the lack of knowledge. But the good news in that is he knows how to fight them if they're on his sort of magical plane- and if he can get within range of one, he can probably banish it. Only so many spell slots there, though. Not gonna fix this whole problem. He'll start with carving through some ground walkers and making his way to the temple to figure out just what the fuck is up.

Taako rounds a corner, spotting at least one at the end of the street, quickly tossing up a shield spell before he announces himself. "Hey, fucker! You wanna be target practice?"

OTA, no need for the creatures to be controlled

[hotspurred]

[Henry's already on the move when Nick's network post goes up. He's donned his plate armour over his mail again, his heater shield on his left arm and his arming sword in his right hand.

He charges straight into the fight on the ground. He's fought far more terrible monsters en masse back home, including dragons and giants, so the Dretches pose little challenge. He cuts straight through the first, and smashes his shield straight into the face of the next as it attempts to bite, before thrusting his blade down through it's neck.

What he doesn't expect is the sudden release of a sickening green miasma, from the next, a smell worse than even the rotting, pustuled shadow dragons; he grimaces and gags, but does not let it slow him down.]

Foul creatures...!

Re: OTA, no need for the creatures to be controlled

[soldier_blade]

[Sonya's almost glad for the attack; even doing patrols now, she felt useless after recovery followed by the flu. Much as she feared for those she fought with, she loved the adrenaline and danger that came with combat all the same.

Her armor wasn't much, even by combat standards, considering she'd arrived here 'after' a war was fought; all she had in way of protection was her gauntlets and protective vest. She was armed this time, and definitely not about to let lack of protection stop her.

She stopped the vehicle just ten feet away from the Dretches, just far enough from the gas, but not so far as to not smell it. Quickly, she tore at her sleeve and used it to try and block the smell-with only moderate success.]

Percy! Get Down! [She stunned two with her gauntlets just as they were about to launch at him.]

sorry for the huge delay!

[hotspurred]

[It's countless years of experience as a soldier that means Henry hears the words and rather than looking towards the source, he simply drops, bringing his shield before his head as a precaution.

He gets up as after the two beasts fall, dispatched by Sonya, and quickly moves out of the miasma. Glancing over his shoulder, he nods at her, then speaks with a voice left a little hoarse by the foul air.]

Sonya. My thanks. Now let us hunt!

[Without waiting, he begins to head in the direction the first dretches seem to have come from.]

OTA vs Caedra

[abyssalarcana]

The summoning might have gone off without a hitch, but Caedra isn't done. She turns away from Ivar with a toothy grin and leaps upward into the air, leaving the circles and glyphs written in blood below her. The effects of her foresight cause her mind to race, as she anticipates with eagerness everything that will happen just before it actually does, and already she's sighting her targets as they run away - or toward her. Those fools who think they can fight her will be deeply mistaken and soon, the steps in front of the temple to Rage will run with more than the blood of just one of these pathetic creatures.

The more she can kill, she hopes, the stronger this world's tie to the Abyss will grow. Who cares about heading home - she can bring her home into this world, and turn this city into a wasteland of heat and metal and death. And who will dare to fight her then?

((Caedra will not necessarily stay put right next to the temple area so feel free to tag into this anywhere outside if you want your character to run into her. She will most likely fight to the death, but as a demon outside the Abyss she doesn't die the same way everyone else does, and instead will re-form instantly in front of Rage's temple as that's the point in the city that most closely resembles the Abyss in some cosmological way.

How to ultimately resolve this will be up to you guys and how your characters want to handle things. I'll be around here via PMs and also on plurk at tinylongwing if anyone has questions or wants to talk about permissions or anything like that!))

[outofthefire]

[Laura has been scouring the city, looking for the demon, a shortbow in hand and a quiver full of arrows with nasty barbed tips slung over her shoulder.

archery was the only thing she was good at in gym class. she's hoping that she can actually manage to hit a moving target. and she hopes that the demon can even be killed in the first place.

Laura finally finds her with her back to Laura. good. she grabs an arrow, nocks it, draws, and releases]

[abyssalarcana]

[It's a good shot! Laura does have good aim. She has the severe disadvantage of not realizing Caedra has several minutes of flight before the spell wears out, and also that Caedra sees the arrow coming a few seconds before it's even been fired, thanks to the foresight. Her eyes widen in alarm as she spins to dodge as well as to face her attacker, propelling herself upward a good fifteen feet in the process.

And then she laughs when she sees who it is, as the arrow sails just past her - even with the knowledge it was coming, Caedra had been nearly hit. This girl has guts.]

What, you think that can hurt me? You're just a child with a toy.

[But she feels that familiar tickle at the back of her neck, now - whatever energy it is that protects this girl. Angry, she flings a bolt of black energy at Laura, but her aim is painfully off as something causes her to hold back on what should have been a deadly blow.]

[outofthefire]

[well, foresight's cheating. that's not fair. it also doesn't stop her from grabbing another arrow, aiming, and firing again, aiming straight at her face.

and drawing another arrow when she's laughed at. she's not going to be taken lightly. not this time]

Yeah, I think I can. I think you better not underestimate me.

[the black energy (what was that?) sails past her, hitting a building nearby, taking a chunk out of the building. she's glad it didn't hit her, it probably would've turned her into a smear on the wall]

[synthedick]

Nick usually keeps himself out of the fray these days, but with Rey out of commission and them needing every hand they can get, he heads south once he's sent out assignments to the rest of the Guard. He covers most of the distance on one of Tranquility's mopeds: since most folks went toward the eastern bridge, he comes the long way past the orchard and the hot springs, making sure none of the grounded demons went that way and got missed entirely. Leaving his scooter by the springs, he makes his way toward Rage's temple, keeping his eyes peeled for anything hiding in the rubble around the area.

He doesn't see any of the demons Ignis described, nor any of the flying ones in the air -- who he does see is Caedra, her dark hair and eyes catching his as he rounds one of the still-destroyed buildings. His metal hand tightens on his pistol, his glowing eyes hardening; still, he doesn't raise his weapon as he calls to her.

"What do you playing at?"

[abyssalarcana]

Flight had run out by now - hopefully that had been enough time to let Ivar get away. He had yet to prove himself useful, but Caedra couldn't see a reason not to have a free ally. May as well keep him happy and healthy.

Foresight, however - that lasts hours, and she hears and sees Nick approach just seconds before it actually happens. She spins to face him, though she stays close to the summoning point in front of the temple. She has lost track of the other demons, but they don't concern her anyway, now - they were always going to break free once she brought them to this world. Now, what she wants is to spill more blood over this diagram, to strengthen the pull of the Abyss, as it is always so hungry and so eager to spread into new worlds.

But then that construct appears. What's his- Nick, right. Well. There's no blood in this one. More wasted effort. Caedra's eyes narrow, and she holds her sword forward in warning, readying the last of her arcana.

"Stay back, metal man. You have nothing you can give me," she calls out to him.

That bad feel when you see a typo in your tag. :<

[synthedick]

Nick doesn't budge at Caedra's sword, unimpressed by her threat for the moment, his gaze still locked upon her. He's faced super mutants toting miniature nukes, their hulking bodies careening straight toward him in a suicidal attack; in Hadriel alone, he's seen wendigo, abominations literally born from nightmares, hordes of Null, and even had his arm ripped clean off by a deathclaw. It's hard to be too intimidated by a sword after all he's been through, though he realizes well enough that's not all she's packing. The demons she brought in are evidence enough of that.

"How about some good advice?" he cuts back. "You're wasting your time."

[ex_matricide319]

[News of the demon situation spread quickly - so quickly that even Kiran, who's hardly a network addict, heard about it. At first he wasn't sure whether to trust everyone's unusual urgency; monsters roam around the outside of the city all the time. But apparently, these demons were coming from inside the house city.

AKA, one of the city residents might be behind it. That part shocked him enough to spur him into action. He stepped out of his window and climbed onto the roof, in the slim chance that he may be able to see whatever is going on. The network said something about everything starting to the south, which isn't far from where he is...

And as luck would have it, he sees something. A person in the air. They're too far away for Kiran to make out anything else about them, but it's definitely the shape of a person.

With a hop upwards, he uses his magic in reserve to grab the air around him, swirling and rushing it upwards to lift him up. The sound of the wind drowns out all other noise as it rushes past his ears and pushes him in the direction of the figure in the air. He doesn't really know what he's looking for, other than a woman with black eyes, but who else could this be aside from her? He isn't aware of anyone else in Hadriel who can fly.

When he starts to get close, he raises his hand and waves, trying to gesture that she should land. Of course, considering what's going on, he's still on his guard as well, but there's no harm in trying to talk, right?]

(thread is before Nick's, to clarify to anyone following along)

[abyssalarcana]

[The flight won't last much longer, Caedra estimates. It's a fairly limited spell, but it has been enough to help keep an eye on things. She glances down once again toward the ring of blood and sigils at the temples - but the summoning point has been quiet since she brought the Vrocks through. Either it needs more blood, or these gods have somehow managed to find her attempt in time and seal it off. Or maybe something else - all she has are guesses.

Thanks to the foresight effect still on her, she sees the boy approaching just before he actually does and whirls in the air to face him, ready to fight. But - he's waving? Seems to want to go down.

All right, boy, then let's land. Flight's almost out anyway and dropping from this height wouldn't be much fun.

Caedra hesitantly nods and begins to descend, but as she does so she backs away through the air, leading him toward her summoning circle.]

What do you want?

[As she descends, she watches him closely, waiting for an opening. Laura may have gotten off free with whatever magic it is that protects her, but hopefully this newcomer isn't so well-prepared.]

[ex_matricide319]

[As he gets closer, he can see her nod and land, but it takes another few seconds of closing the distance between them for Kiran to see her black eyes and the conspicuously evil-looking satanic circle thing on the ground. Both of which are, actually, pretty terrifying. Welp... looks like he found the problem on his first try.

Kiran isn't going to fuck around, considering what he knows this person is doing, and he's now reconsidering his decision to give her a chance to talk. But, well, he'll just have to be extra careful about this.]

You're the person making everyone flip out on the network, huh?

[He has not landed, choosing instead to stay a few yards above the ground. Because the wind is still whipping around him, he has to raise his voice over the noise.]

Don't you think you should just stop this now? This isn't going to end well for you!