wilderlogs | THE SQUAD'S SPA RETREAT ON WEATHERTOP [log post] [free-for-all] [modplot]

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THE SQUAD'S SPA RETREAT ON WEATHERTOP [log post] [free-for-all] [modplot]

THE SQUAD'S SPA RETREAT ON WEATHERTOP
OOC POST
The hills the squad travel through make an undulating ridge, often rising almost to a thousand feet, and here and there there are low clefts or passes leading into the land beyond. In the low-lying areas there are the ruins of walls and other buildings, and on some of the hills lie the ruins of different forts and watchtowers.

The highest hill in the area is Weathertop and this is where the squad will make camp on the fifth night of travel. This hill will provide them refuge but no refuge can truly keep them safe. As the crows said, they are the ones that were Chosen by the Green and the darker forces of this world have already found out about their existence.

However, the night starts normally. They make camp and set up watch and the hours pass without much reason for worry. A waxing moon rises into the sky, casting a gentle glow on the world. There is a light chill but nothing insurmountable due to their campfires. All is calm and peaceful.

That's why what happens next probably seems strange at first. Even those who aren't on watch may find themselves suddenly jerking out of sleep due to strange feelings of dread seemingly coming from nowhere. Those with holy magics, blessed weapons, or banked holy spells will find themselves feeling some kind of evil approaching. Those with cursed weapons or unholy powers will feel a sick sort of welcoming feeling, like something dark is approaching, yes - but that they should be glad.

Then the feeling of dread reaches them all, regardless of powers or weapons, clutching at every heart. Even those normally immune to fear may find themselves feeling the cold reaching its way inside them with prying fingers.

That's when the calm, misty night is shredded by the first screech, something inhuman, half-animalistic, half metal scraping over concrete. Another screech answers it from a different side of the hill, like the sources of the screeches are pack hunting and slowly closing in. More cold rolls in and the feeling of despair deepens as the sky starts to blot out with floating shadow shapes. The dementors aren't the source of the screeches but they're being spurred on by them, as if the unearthly shrills are calling out orders of some kind. The cold that sets in makes those that can feel cold feel as if they'll never be warm again.

But that isn't the worst of it. There are loud pops as living human figures pop in around the hilltop and its various trails downward. The ceramic and metal masks of dark wizards glint in the moonlight and spells start sparking from their wands as they start firing at the group - and at the dementors and approaching Nazgul. Cackles and sadistic laughter fill the air. Their leader is a woman with a cackle that sounds more mad and more sadistic than the others.

As the first of the cloaked Nazgul approaches from beyond the ring of stones, practically exuding darkness, one of the Death Eaters steps forward. She is shaking and though she pretends it's all rage and the thrill of potentially killing, at least some of it is fear. Even the Death Eaters can feel the chill from the Nazgul and dementors. Lestrange tries to cover that up with her usual sadistic glee.

"Naughty naughty, trying to steal my mistress' prisoners out from under her nose," she crows, flinging curses. "They're not your toys to play with and we'll send you back to your pathetic formless master with your tails between your legs. You may not be able to die for good but we'll make you wish you have!"

She cackles with shrill laughter and the fight begins in earnest. The Nazgul and dementors descend on the group and the Death Eaters do as well - and both sides attack each other, too, not caring who's in the middle. In the space of minutes, the Squad is in the middle of a deadly battleground.

Fortunately, the hill isn't the worst place to make a stand with its ruins providing cover and good vantage points and there are woods to escape to in the lands below if they make a run for it. Maybe, if they're very, very lucky, they might survive the night.

But their odds aren't great. The Death Eaters are a sadistic force to be reckoned with, and the dementors are no less horrifying for having changed sides to work with Sauron. If anything, they're even worse now, and their orders are that only a few need to be captured for Sauron and the Nazgul - the rest can be killed or have their souls sucked.

And many have fallen at the hands of the Nazgul and all flee before their faces - save the one who desires to have the Nine deliver the Squad into his hands, where they can be broken in the deep dungeons of Barad-dûr, where no light has ever touched.

NOTES
✦ Post in actionspam format. Plots and mod-run events in the game are meant to be in actionspam format to keep a brisk pace.

✦ Free-for-all Post. This event will be in "free-for-all" format, meaning that threadhopping is encouraged and that threading should be treated in the same conversational way as network posts.

✦ NPCing. Players can feel free to godmode the Nazgul and dementors in their own threads, as these npcs don't talk, and have very little personality beyond being pure evil. Please just make them realistically difficult to drive back as they're very powerful, unkillable enemies. However, the mods will npc the Death Eaters since they're intelligent speaking people. A thread will be available in the OOC post where players can link to their threads to request a Death Eater npc to participate.

✦ Fairy Swaps. Now that the fairy swap mechanism will be in place, players can make their quest characters and Brugh characters magically swap places whenever they want, including during the event itself.

✦ When it Takes Place: ICly this is 5 days into the Squad's journey through the hills.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I. Open

[Dixon’s finally sleeping when the dread starts to creep in. It’s like his body has at last decided, after five punishing, brutal days, to give out and surrender to darkness. He hasn’t even been carrying his fair share of supplies (on account of, halfway through day one and eight miles in, puking into a bush and nearly passing out), but the hike alone has beaten him down. He’s spent whatever time he hasn’t been staggering around, desperately and gamely trying to keep up with the group, lying face-up on the ground, shivering from exhaustion, aching, patches of sweat-salt down his temples, stabbing pain in his back and shins and soreness everywhere else, still craving a single fucking cigarette and unable to keep his eyes closed.

But tonight he was finally asleep. When the others were starting the fire and he keeled onto the ground in the makeshift camp he just passed out, and the others kindly didn’t wake him. He was at peace and in sweet oblivion and worrying about nothing.

That happy respite is obliterated entirely as the sense of dread drags him back to consciousness. He’s almost on his feet before he even realizes he’s awake, scrambling for his shield. When he feels it, he can tell there’s a fight coming. The shield’s magic is just beneath the surface, sensing danger. The power is like fish circling beneath a sheen of ice on a lake.

Even without that warning, the fight soon announces itself, between the shrieking of Nazgul and the cackling racket of the Death Eaters. Before there’s a chance for him to get his bearings, the camp seems ripped into chaos, a melee between wizards and wraiths and soul suckers that seems to take place both between and above the squad woken from their camp.

He moves quickly, but it isn’t to save his own skin. He’s kind of ambivalent about his own safety. He rushes to the nearest member of the squad, of his unit, really, to defend them.]

Leave the shit! Get to the woods!

[He continues to stay in the fray well past when it would be advisable to leave, steadily more inebriated on the magic of his shield, looking for the people in the squad locked into the chaos.]

II. Alacruun

[Dixon can now lay claim to having punched the Grim Reaper in the face.

Granted, that’s not exactly what happened, nor are Nazgul actually the Grim Reaper, but they look close enough and given that the one Dixon just squared off with didn’t respond worth shit to the magic shield, so he just clocked it right in its creepy nose. It bought him enough time to scramble back to the temporary reprieve in the shadow of some ruins, where he doesn’t greet but does meet eyes with the weird fucking dragon who was hanging out on the temple steps. He doubles over, catching his breath, legs shaking. Adrenalin can only combat the complete exhaustion of the last five days so much. He’s grateful for the moment to gather his constitution.

Up until some creep with a magic wand comes looking to fucking party, turning the corner right towards them.]

I’ll take care of this, [Dixon spits at Alacruun as he whirls around, with the same tone of voice as if he were about to stomp on a spider in the kitchen or something.]

III. Ronan and later Kal

[Midway through the fight, Dixon’s still looking for members of the group in the fray, trying his best not to keel over or get killed as he shoves his way past Death Eaters and dodges Dementors and Nazguls, fully and painfully aware that at least a few of the teenagers are here in harm’s way. Possibly dead already. Possibly worse, from what he’s seen. That’s about when he runs across Ronan, throwing magic around as if it’s no big thing at Dementors.

He stops. It’s not as if he likes Ronan - at all - but he’s part of the group too. If there’s anything Dixon can lay claim to, it’s the feeling of belonging that comes from being part of a group. There’s a sense of purpose that comes with that, of cohesion and importance and of being needed. Ronan’s part of his unit as much as anyone else, whatever his personal feelings, however much his nose still runs with blood every few hours where it stubbornly refuses to heal.]

You got this? [he yells over the din, watching Ronan dispatch spells.]

IV. Sothe

[He’s bleeding badly from his back, but he doesn’t notice except in between the bursts of invulnerability from the shield. The magic gives him and the weapon a sort of pearly incandescence, but more importantly than that, it removes both pain and vulnerability. Death Eater spells bounce off him, and the Black Breath of the Nazguls doesn’t take nearly as much hold. He’s figured out by now that Nazgul and Dementors both are relatively immune to his shield, but once he has the magic activated he can somewhat mow through the more human evil wizards.

Fuck these guys. Dixon feels a rush of relief and pleasure to be able to get in there and fuck them up.

The flip side is he’s started to get less and less in control of his faculties, and for once he doesn’t want to be blind-drunk. His combat against the Death Eaters gets less precise and elegant, instead turning into a kind of desperate brawl where he flings himself at enemies and throws punches as much as he slices with the razor-sharp shield. He starts making his way towards the woods, figuring most people are in the clear by now. He needs to get safe before his magic wears off and he’s just an exhausted drunk on the verge of collapsing stumbling around the hilltop.

That’s around when he sees that one teenager, one of the ones he hasn’t talked to much and whose name he doesn’t remember, approaching a Nazgul with a blade.]

Just leave it, kid, run!

[ Alacruun looks a little disgruntled. Probably because in order to conserve space he's been hanging around in his humanoid form. Oh, and there's this whole "under attack" thing. Two-thirds of which are creatures he can't seem to hurt because his necromancy isn't strong enough to bend them to his will.

Fantastic.

And he's found himself alongside Dixon. He frowns at the human and then glances at the... wizard? He has a wand, must be a wizard, about to head toward them.

Better Dixon than him, he supposes. ]

Please, carry on. Don't let me stop you.

[The figure cackles, the voice betraying that it's a woman under the robes and mask. It isn't Bellatrix, but she's not the only female Death Eater that's a sadistic psycho. Pretty much all of them are.]

Locomotor Wibbly!

[The curse, if it strikes true, will cause Dixon's legs to turn to jelly, as if they're long sticks of some kind of jelly candy, making it impossible for him to stand up.]

[She mimics him in a voice filled with mocking faux bravado.]

I'll take care of this! But who will take care of you, mudblood?

[Dixon lifts his shield to try and deflect the curse, but he's just a fraction too slow. Instead of throwing him backwards, for a second he things it might have just straight-up not affected him, until very suddenly he's pitched forward as his legs decide to just take a sick day on him. He hits the ground hard as this weird masked bitch taunts him like they're on a playground.

Honestly, that pisses him off more than the curse. His fall has brought him close enough to nearly reach her, and from on his stomach he swings his arm out, shield strapped to it, at her ankles. The shield's sharp enough to cut through bone, and with the effort he puts into it it slices three-quarters of the way through one of the Death Eater's ankles.]

Dragon! Mind doing something here?

Jason Dixon | Open & Closed Prompts

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