genessia | [ action | closed ] One, two, three and four -- the devil’s knocking at your door.

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[ action | closed ] One, two, three and four -- the devil’s knocking at your door.

Who: Team Dragon Age: Merrill, Cole, and Alleyana.
When: Slightly backdated to just after the latest issue of the newspaper.
What: Bounty log, and Cole's entrance to the game!

Fayren

Cursed Blade – A man has come into contact with a cursed sword. The sword apparently housed a demon, and picking it up allowed the man to be possessed. He has extreme strength and magic at his disposal. Defeating the man and breaking the blade is the only way to free him. A level 3 payment is being offered to anyone that can accomplish this.

- - - - -

It was a small keep. Stone walls, wooden doors, thick mud. There was a final check of equipment, and Alleyana rolled her shoulders with a crunching pop before bracing herself and kicking in the wooden door. It hit the wall beside it with a thunderous crack! and the Inquisitor stepped inside.

"Hey, ass-demon!" she taunted, voice echoing loud and deliberate. Focus on her, not on the mage behind her. Focus on her. "Let's fucking dance!"

There was movement on the stairs going up; the crackle of fire as a ball of it launched at her head. Alley ducked behind her shield and charged forward and up the stairs to close the gap. She was very good at grabbing and keeping an enemy's attention -- at keeping it off her companions, to give them space.

Now to see what Merrill did with it.

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'Why do demons always seem to find keeps like this?' Merrill wondered as she waited for Alleyana to kick in the door. She certainly liked a more direct approach that she was unused to in any leader who wasn't Aveline. But she wouldn't let herself get distracted. Not now.

She had to prove her worth to Alleyana after all.

She took note of the muddy floors (if they could really be called floors at that point) and as Alley taunted the demon, she pulled forth the mana she knew she needed for her first two spells.

The first caused rocks to encase her in armor. While she didn't doubt Alley's ability to keep an enemy's attention, she knew it was better safe than sorry when it came to demons.

But she scrapped her second spell the second she saw the fight moving up the stairs. She ran after them until she reached the bottom of the stairs, but she could see up well enough. Instead, she gathered her mana and focused it into the dirt behind her.

With a yell, she lifted a giant stone up out of the floor and hurled it up the stairs, over Alley's head, and straight toward the demon. While she knew it was going to be a hit, she didn't know one thing. "Hopefully, this one can be stunned," she murmured.

Alley really was used to fighting with mages behind her at this point; she didn't even flinch as the huge stone went sailing over her head to crunch against the demon. A magical barrier shimmered under the crumbling rock, its protection weakening significantly but not yet shattering. Alleyana's shield bash didn't quite shatter it, either, and the demon retaliated with a blow from the cursed sword that sent the Inquisitor stumbling back down a step.

Just one step, though. Three shields bearing the Inquisition emblem sprung up around her as Alley planted her feet and refused to budge further.

Merrill didn't react to Alley's pushback, trusting in her enough to not get knocked into her. Not so soon into a fight, at least. Despite the fact that there was only one enemy before them, she pulled forth the mana for her best spell to hopefully break the demon's barrier.

She swiped her staff forward, unleashing the power of her Chain Lightning spell, sending a concentrated bolt of electricity straight down on the demon.

That did it; the barrier gave way with a shrieking crunch like metal on metal. Alley forced her way up a step, her crackling mace lashing out to deflect another blow from the sword and forcing the demon to recoil.

She watched Alley strike the demon with her mace and held back on her attack for the moment. This was their first time fighting together and she didn't entirely have down the older elf's movements and fighting style.

Playing it safe was her best bet, rather than run the risk of accidentally hitting Alleyana.

For the moment, she gathered her mana and put her hand out like she did earlier, lifting another large stone out of the floor. This time she held onto it, waiting for a pause in Alley's attack before hurling it toward the demon while it suffered the affects of the recoil.

The demon possessed extreme strength, both physical and magical; the stone hit him; made him stagger back a few steps up the staircase...

And then he dodged around the warrior and lunged after the mage. Alley's grappling chain caught him halfway there, however. It hauled him back so forcefully that the demon flew through the air to land at the Inquisitor's feet. The elf gave him a solid kick for his trouble and then placed herself between him and Merrill again even as the possessed man regained his feet with an enraged roar.

Alleyana just... laughed. It wasn't a nice sound; too harsh, too full of the stuff that drew rage demons to her like flies to honey.

Merrill had a spell ready to fly off her staff, one she rarely used most days, but one of the most basic spells any mage is ever taught: mind blast. But she let that mana seep back into her upon seeing Alley pull him back to her.

She couldn't help her own laugh at bubbled up in her at seeing Alley kick him. Only hers wasn't a taunting one; more like she had just heard a good joke.

Now with that mana resettled in her, she pulls it forth into her staff once again. This time, she hits the ground with her staff, releasing her mana into the floor, heading up the stairs and to the edge of where the demon is at and turning the very ground against him. So long as she kept sending her mana into the ground and the demon stayed in range, the ground would come up at times, damaging his legs and lower torso.

Alleyana noticed the effect, so when her next shield bash drove the demon back a step she didn't follow and press for ground, waiting for him to lunge back into range to strike at her. Keep him here was an easy enough tactic to follow when the enemy was so mad.

Merrill held off on attacks for the moment, with both her Rock Armor and Wrath of the Elvhen active, she needed to conserve her mana for the moment. Without access to lyrium potions here, she had to do that the long way: waiting for it come back naturally.

As it was, she took two steps back away from Alley though the range on her Wrath of the Elvhen stayed the same. Having a little extra breathing room never hurt as she watched and waited as the demon regained his footing and ran toward Alley again.

There!

Cole dropped out of thin air, crashing into the enraged man on the way down and latching on. The spirit wasn't especially heavy, but that was a lot to be hit with all at once. The demon grunt and lurched forward, bent double from the sudden weight and nearly went face first into the ground. He jerked back in time, Cole still clinging to him like some strange, demented monkey.

"There's a demon in the sword..." he said like he'd just commented on the weather. "It's angry but the man is scared. It hurts."

That didn't keep him from having his dagger at the man's neck. The best he could while the demon struggled to throw him off!

Edited 2016-09-23 08:11 (UTC)

"No killing!" Alleyana was quick to order, either not surprised by Cole's sudden appearance or just able to accept it that quickly. She ducked away from a clumsy swing of the blade, and lashed out at it, trying to knock it from the man's hand. "We have to disarm him and break the sword!"

With the newest addition added to the party, and the demon's back, Merrill held her staff closer to her. She didn't want to use any of her lightning attacks on the off chance it hurt their new...ally? Friend? He seemed like Alleyana's friend. Nor did she think she should hurl another giant rock at him, for the same reason.

"A rogue would be lovely to have right now," she breathed out. "If you want him to live, that is."

Cole would've happily disarmed the man right then, but the waving blade nearly took off the top of his skull on the last attack so he leapt away in a blur of black powder and green glow. The demon kept swinging where Cole had just been, confused and unstable.

Barely visible by the hint of green when he moved, Cole retreated to behind Alley and peered around her at their target. It was Alley's enemy so it was his. He didn't know the other person. She seemed nice.

To Alley he muttered, "I can make him sleep, if you want. He might fall and be hurt, with the ground like that."

"Knock him out and I'll catch him," Alley replied just as quietly, blocking another attack with her shield. The Inquisitor couldn't make introductions in the middle of a fight, but surely her allowing the rogue so close to her back would cinch that he was an ally.

Merrill glanced between Alleyana and Cole, lowering her staff and pulling back her magic from not only the ground, but her own body as well. Alley letting the new arrival be behind her said all that needed to be said: he was, at least, an ally. And going to end this quickly. If he was going to hit the ground, the last thing they needed was for her Wrath of the Elvhen to make the killing blow when he did.

Ah, good! Cole didn't waste any time, darting out to the side of Alley, out of Merrill's line of sight, and threw a small red vail at the demon. It hit him on the shoulder and burst, the glass of the vail terribly fine. Red powder bloomed in front of the crazed man, inhaled before he had time to consider holding his breath.

It acting fast, his sword arm falling, fingers still gripping the hilt, but he wasn't in any state to fight. He swayed and stumbled, attempting to fight off the sleeping powder, but to no avail. The demon fell forward towards Alley.

Alley swept her shield to the side, letting the now-unconscious man fall into her left shoulder instead of down the stairs. The sword dropped loose, falling down the steps.

"Would one of your big rocks break that sword?" the Inquisitor asked Merrill over her shoulder.

Merrill took another step back from the stairs as the sword fell down them. She glanced at the sword for only a few seconds, weighing Alley's question. "Possibly. I've never used them to break a sword, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to try."

This time, she had her full reservoir of mana available to her. So she focused more of her mana into the ground and pulled up a heavier stone than the other two times and threw it right into the sword. If that didn't work, then she was pretty sure it might take something more potent and demon cleansing than her normal magic.

Cole was completely visible now, the green glow his stealth carried now faded. He watched the rock with fascination, it reminded him of the magic Solas did. There was many a time a huge rock had soared over his head. Carefully aimed, of course. His hat had only fallen off once.

The sword cracked under the force with a blast of magic from the demon inside. It was not shattered, but badly damaged. Damaged enough, hopefully.

"It's angry, very angry. We took its fun away." He looked at the man slumped against Alley. He was so tired. Tired was better than possessed.

"It's angry it's weak. Too weak to hurt us. It wants to hurt us. It has many ideas, what it wants to do."

Cracked was a good start, but Alley was pretty sure they could do more with it. "Here, take him off me," she passed the unconscious man to Cole.

Then, putting her mace back where it belonged on her hip, she approached the sword and reached down to grab its hilt, lifting it at an angle against the ground. She could feel the influence, weak and feeble, beating against her mind... and sneered down at the sword and tightened her grip.

Not a fucking chance.

"Hit it again. I'll trust your aim."

Well, that and her own ability to take a hit from a high dragon without more than a stumble.

"All right, but only if you're really sure," Merrill said, a hint of disbelief in her voice. It had been a while since anyone really trusted her that much, not since before--

No, she shook her head and pulled forth her mana once again. This time when she ripped up a stone from the floor, it was a bit smaller than her other ones as she didn't want to do any lasting damage to Alleyana. She took her time in aiming, more so than any time before as she really didn't want to be the one to injure her.

When she lined it up as best as she could, she threw the stone toward the sword in Alley's hand with her aim actually on point. But even with that, the size of it was another matter.

And the blade shattered with one last flare of red light and a sizzle as the demon faded away. It was a nice change to not have the thing pop out as a massive rage demon.

Cole could relax a bit now the hatred of the demon wasn't bearing down on him. The human was alive and well. Asleep and probably traumatized... but that was good enough for their usual track record of apprehending unimportant threats.

Alley grunted at impact, the stone grazing her armored hand. But she took worse hits on a daily basis during the fight against Corypheus, and didn't even flinch. She dropped the top half of the sword on top of the bottom half for now. They'd need to turn this in, but that didn't mean she had to hold it in her singular hand right now.

"Good shot," she told Merrill, and then turned to Cole. She approached the spirit and actually threw her good arm around his shoulders, mindful of the sleeping human slumped against his other side.

"I'm really glad to see you," the Inquisitor squeezed the impromptu hug, a real smile tugging at her scarred lips.

Edited 2016-09-24 08:22 (UTC)

Merrill hung back, watching the display. It was...odd, in a way. That had to be the happiest she had seen Alleyana since she met her. And not a bad odd either.

She tilted her head when her eyes shifted over to the strange...boy? Mage? No... Something seemed off about him, even for her. She was almost positive he hadn't been there before, when they first started fighting. Otherwise she would have been a bit more careful with the spells she was using.

"If you don't mind me asking," she began, "who are you? I'm pretty sure I didn't see you hiding behind the demon. Unless you were crouched down very low, then I wouldn't have noticed."

As far as Cole knew, it had been a few hours at most since he'd last seen the Inquisitor. He wasn't going to turn down a hug from her, not when she was feeling all of that. It was pretty awkward to try to loop an arm around her in return, but he managed the best he could. The sleeping man was only jostled a little bit.

"I'm glad I got here in time to help," he said before his stream of consciousness chatter overwhelmed what he wanted to say. "The hammer comes down and everything is pain. How many hours has it been? Has it been hours? It has to be done."

It couldn't be stopped completely it seemed, but the Inquisitor... Would not want to talk about that now and he had been asked a question. He had to tilt his head to look over at her without hitting Alley with the brim of his hat. The sleeping man wasn't so lucky but he stayed asleep.

"I wasn't visible until I needed to be. He didn't need to see me and you needed time to recover. It was a good time to be there." It was all perfectly simple to him. "I am Cole. You are?"

Alley even set the side of her head on Cole's shoulder to make it easier to not bean her with the hat. She was so relieved to have one of her people here. That it was Cole was even better.

She wasn't alone.

The Inquisitor didn't linger for too long, however, before pulling away and offering with a gesture to take the human back from Cole. She let the pair handle their own introductions.

"Well, yes," Merrill agreed. "It was a good time for you to be there. I've only known really good rogues to be able to do that."

She attached her staff to her back holder as it seemed like all the danger had passed for the moment.

"But thank you for that. It was perfect timing, really. Cole, was it? I'm Merrill."

"Merrill... It is good to meet you." No longer supporting their target, Cole was as fidgety as always. He looked at Merrill from under the brim of his hat, curious.

"I'm not just a rogue. That's what you were wondering? I am a spirit but not completely." Again he spoke like this was completely normal. "I'm not a threat."

He glanced to Alley. "I should get the sword?"

Alley lifted the sleeping human against her side like one would a child. She really was brutally strong.

She walked down the steps and settled the man on the ground against the wall to sleep it off. They shouldn't need to turn him in, she thought, he was the victim of the sword, not the actual bounty. That had been on the demon.

"Cole is a really good rogue," she noted, and then glanced up at him. "Where is your box? The one you woke up with? You need that. Go get it."

And to Merrill she added, "He's one of my people, my Inquisition. He's not possessing anyone or anything," it was the usual disclaimers, "and he's not a demon. He is Compassion, who we helped make more human to protect from blood magic binding."

Edited 2016-09-25 04:43 (UTC)

"Compassion," she said, testing it out as if saying it would make it any less weird. "Spirit or demon, he had to possess something in order to cross over. Unless it also happened when the Fade opened, like you told me a little while ago."

She crossed her arms as she tried to work it out. "But there are worse spirits to be aside from Compassion. And yes, that's a good thing. Blood magic in the hands of wrong people is a very bad thing. Especially for spirits and demons. And the people around them, too I suppose."

She hoped that didn't sound as awkward as she thought it did. Mainly because this probably wasn't the best time to bring up her own involvement in demons and blood magic.

"It doesn't always work like that," Cole said, sounding glum. He didn't posses anyone! Honest! But now wasn't the time to defend his odd existence, the Inquisitor had given him an order. He'd completely forgotten the box.

"That other spirit was very rude, she didn't let me talk at all..." He said to Alley before he ran off, not waiting for a reply from either of them.

"Even Fen'Harel wasn't sure how he did it," Alleyana stood up after finishing checking the human for any lingering wounds. The damage they'd done had been absorbed by the demon, it seemed. Good; she didn't want to use elfroot potions if she didn't have to.

"But he did, before the Veil was torn open. He crossed over to help someone... and couldn't. So after the man died, Cole mimicked his form, and took his name, but he did not take his body. The original is long dead and buried, or burned, or whatever the templars did to him when they struck him from their records."

"Curious," Merrill said. "If even Fen'Harel couldn't figure it out... But maybe, the facet of Compassion--"

No, she stopped that line of thinking for the moment. This was hardly the time or place to muse about it or have a debate. That was for after they took care of everything else and made it back home. Possibly. Even more so that he mentioned another spirit, and she had a feeling that was more about her than anything else.

Her laugh was nervous as she rubbed the back of her neck.

"--Anyway, we only need to bring the sword back, right? Even though it feels strange to just leave him here to sleep off the possession. Though there are worse ways to wake up, I suppose."

[Cole is away fetching the box.]

Alleyana raised a scar-crossed eyebrow at Merrill at the early part, but turned her attention back to their task when Merrill did.

"The bounty was on the demon, and thus the sword," Alleyana nodded, and unhooked her shield from the bar that made up her left forearm, replacing it on her back. She then went to collect both halves of the snapped blade, her gauntlet protecting her hand from the sharp edges.

"If they want to question him, I'm sure he'll be easy enough to find. I'm glad Cole showed up when he did, or we would have had to beat the poor bastard until his body gave out from the strain and he passed out." Either way, the plan had not involved killing the host.

Merrill nodded. "Right, right. You're right. And I agree! Your friend had great timing. It really would've been too bad had he not shown up. I'm not too sure we would have completed it without killing him. Which would have been unfortunate."

She paused for a second before looking away from the man to focus on the sword.

"Unless he knowingly found and awaken the demon. Then it should've been a consequence he thought of."

"It still would have been unfortunate," Alleyana gazed at the broken blade in her hand, frowning slightly, "idiocy isn't something I would condemn someone to death for if I can help it. But I doubt that's how it happened -- the thing tried to grab at me when I took it up for you to hit a second time. Whole, it probably took him over the moment he found it."

"No, but you shouldn't rush in to magical artifacts without considering the consequences," she said, then sighed. "Just think of if someone else had taken this on, what would have happened.

"And it probably did take him over the moment he found it. But it likely would've done so no matter how strong the demon inside was." She shook her head. "Most don't know the true danger they're putting themselves in, or the amount of strength they'll need to resist. And continue resisting."

Belatedly, she hoped it was understood that that was a roundabout compliment toward Alley, about the strength she had to resist the demon.

"Not everyone can tell something's magical just by looking at it," Alley lifted the sword bits meaningfully, "it looks like a regular blade to me. If one that's been smashed. If I was some poor peasant here in Fayren and found this, I'd probably pick it up too."

She headed for the way out, confident Cole would find them wherever they were when the spirit caught up.

"I used to have to sit in judgement over people regularly. It teaches one a thing or two about perspective."

"Yes, but," Merrill continued even as she followed after Alley, "no one should just randomly pick up random things. Especially if they're not theirs. It never leads anywhere good." She nodded in agreement with her own words after saying that.

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[ action | closed ] One, two, three and four -- the devil’s knocking at your door.

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so sorry for the lateness!!